Dino Run 2 Development Update, September 2022

Making Dino Run 2 has always been full of twists and turns, and the last few months have been no different.  Here are the details:

• Development slowed way down in April, May, June and July.  Lack of funding and also lack of direction, trying to figure out how to move forward efficiently.
• We recently accepted some external funding to help us accelerate development.
• We now have 2 new coders on the team, and are doing trials for artists as well.
• We have decided to take a new path, engine-wise.  Still Unity, but not the fancy new cutting-edge Unity that we hoped would be more featured and stable by now (which it is not).  We're going back to classic Unity for now, and then seeing how we can leverage some of the fancier stuff where needed.

So where are we now with development?  Well, we have a LOT of parts ready to come together, including but not limited to:

• A fully functional level creator that lets you preview the level too and run through it a bit
• A solidly controlling raptor over basic terrain
• All manner of rolling boulders and odd-shaped stones that can even be broken into smaller pieces dynamically
• Water physics (buoyancy & surface ripples)
• Parallax scrolling with pixel-perfect smoothing and zoom
• Automatic creation of physics shapes from pixel art (for easy terrain generation)
• Code-generated audio for expressive sound effects
• Fern physics, pixel-grass-growers, weather shaders, stegoballs and way more...

After much deliberation this past month, we've decided that (arguably) the most important aspect of the game isn't in there yet - Multiplayer.

So we're focusing on that for October - getting 2 raptors enjoying themselves in a grassy field, controlled by 2 players in different locations.  And once we have that, we will start to add in ALL the other stuff listed above and work towards something you can actually play.  When will you be able to play it?  Hopefully by the end of the year, and with a friend or two :)  Not the full game by any means, just something for you to have fun in, customize your dino a bit, and make some boulders roll down a hill on an unsuspecting lizard, etc.

So in summary, we have not given up, and we don't plan on it either.  We have an expanded team, a new direction, and a renewed enthusiasm for the project.  Thanks (as usual) for the continued patience and understanding - it will be worth the wait :)