Who wouldn't jump at the chance to run their very own dinosaur theme park? Well... anyone who's seen a Jurassic Park or Jurassic World film. Still, for those with the determination and can-do attitude required to ignore all the warnings littered throughout popular culture, Jurassic World Evolution, the park simulation game made by Frontier Developments, awaits!
The game is set in the same universe as the movies, with BD Wong, Bryce Dallas Howard and the wonderful Jeff Goldblum taking up the voice acting roles of their characters, adding a great sense of place and world-building to the game. The game released on Switch recently (offering an experience that can compete admirably with the PC version), and as with any theme park manager game, the start can be a little overwhelming. So, here are some tips to get started making a profitable and (hopefully) safe park. Simulation games like The Sims 4 can be very daunting for new players, after all.
Time Waits For No Dinosaur
This might seem odd, but unlike The Sims or RollerCoaster Tycoon, there is no way to change the flow of time in-game except for stopping it when the actual pause menu is displayed. Time doesn't stop when you build, demolish, or go into any of your management tabs.
This creates drama and tension, as you can't just freeze your escaped Velociraptors while you figure out how to contain them. However, it can also lead to some initial accidents. If you demolish part of an enclosure housing dinosaurs, that's it, they can run out, so be sure to keep this in mind when you're editing your park.
Start Incubating As Soon As Possible
Visitors will start flocking to your park for one reason and one reason only: dinosaurs. Considering the terror the people of this franchise have gone through (scarier than almost any theme park-related horror games), you'd think the prehistoric critters would be a harder sell, but they aren't. The desire to see these majestic, impossible creatures is just too strong. Dinosaurs have also been huge hits in other games.
As soon as you have an enclosure and the funds, start releasing dinosaurs to attract visitors and start making a profit. Don't worry about their rating for now, just focus on incubating whatever you can afford to. Your specimens will soon become more and more impressive.
House A Variety Of Dinosaurs
Once you've housed a couple of live specimens, you may be surprised when your profits don't skyrocket. These are dinosaurs, why aren't people more excited to see them? Well, even the power of resurrection isn't enough to keep those fickle visitors entertained for long.
Variety is the spice of life, as they say, so make sure to keep sending your expedition teams out to get more viable genomes so you can give the people want they want: more dinosaurs. Each island has a variety target (located in the Island Management tab), and failing to hit it will result in a severe penalty to your overall dinosaur rating. Last year's expansion pack, Return To Jurassic Park, added classic critters like the teeny Compsognathus, reminding players that dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes can be big crowd pleasers. In August 2020, Minecraft's Jurassic World DLC added more than 60 of them!
Complete The Genomes
Once you've hit the variety quota for your park, your rating should go up substantially. You can go higher, though. Utilise your expedition and fossil teams so that they are constantly digging up and extracting fossils. This can be an expensive task, so it's best left until your park has started making a decent profit (around $100,000 per minute). A more complete genome leads to a higher authenticity rating and more slots for genetic upgrades.
Make sure you keep on top of repairing fences and ensuring feeders are always stocked up while you're busy managing your fossils, though. You wouldn't want a Spinosaurus running rampant and devouring screaming visitors... would you?
Designate A Hatchery
Hammond Creation Labs allow you to create your dinosaurs. As mentioned, more dinosaurs mean more visitors and more money. However, these labs cost a lot of money, space and power too. A good workaround for this is making a small enclosure to use purely for hatching purposes.
As soon as a dinosaur pops out, you can get your ACU helicopter to sedate it then assign a transport team to move it to the appropriate display enclosure. While initially costly to set up, this will save you valuable resources needed for guest amenities, while also allowing your other enclosures to be more space-efficient.
Research Genetic Upgrades
You can tweak your dinosaurs' DNA and make them live longer and have higher ratings. However, this comes at the cost of... well, a higher cost, not to mention a lowered chance of a successful incubation. This is why genome sequencing is so important, as a full genome will allow for more genetic upgrades.
Even if your dinosaurs cost twice as much, that's worth it if they live twice as long and attract twice as many visitors. As Dr. Wu said in Jurassic World, "...you didn't ask for reality, you asked for more teeth."
Focus On One Division At A Time
Jurassic World Evolution manages to recreate one of the most fun and engaging aspects of working life: office drama and interdepartmental conflict. Most of the time, accepting a contract from Security will lower your relationship with Entertainment and Science, and vice versa.
As such, it's a good idea to focus on one division at a time, to complete their mission and get their reputation rewards as quickly as possible. You'll be at risk of sabotage from the other divisions, but usually, this is just a mild inconvenience, not a game-ending problem.
Consider Staying On Your Island
Obviously, it's very tempting to hop to the next island as soon as you reach three stars and the option appears. However, it's often worth staying on the island you've just built up so you can finish certain things up.
When you move island, you have to restart your whole park, money and all, so it's a good idea to stay put and use your money to fund expeditions and research. Also, make sure you earn all reputation rewards and complete all division missions. Otherwise, you'll be missing useful upgrades, dinosaurs and buildings later on.
Improve The Enclosures
Your visitors will be looking at those enclosures for most of their time in the park, so do your very best with them. House different dinosaur species together to make for interesting displays and save on space. As a general rule, one large and one small species of carnivore can live together; you can also put a small carnivore species in with large and armoured herbivores.
Never put larger carnivores in with herbivores, though, for obvious reasons. Also, add decorations with the scenery tab and use the landscaping tool to adjust forest, water, elevation, and ground type. These things improve your scenery bonus and attract more visitors. Also, if you love dinosaurs, it's just a nice thing to do for them.
Upgrades Can Be Assigned Multiple Times
The game doesn't really tell you this, but you can assign the same upgrade multiple times to the same building. Making a heavily modified Triceratops? put increased viability 2.0 in every slot the Hammond Creation Lab has to get a 60% viability boost. Moving a lot of dinosaurs from one enclosure to another? Put several ACU scheduling upgrades in your ACU center and let them go to work.
This is especially helpful in power stations, as you can use two power output upgrades and one outage protection upgrade to squeeze as much juice out of them as you can with minimal risk of blackouts.