Nice Games Jam: "Dinosaurs of North Dakota" [Nice Replay]

#381Dinosaurs of North DakotaNice Games Jam2025.03.13The clubhouse gets Cretaceous this week; your nice hosts have been challenged to create a game about dinosaurs and their feeding habits.PromptMake a game about the feeding habits of dinosaurs or of paleontologists, bonus points if all the dinosaurs are from the same era.Game typeDesign documentPlayer count1RulesCretaceous periodFlowering plants evolved hereEarly mammals here tooVelociraptors too!Different sized dinosaursName: Dinosaurs of North DakotaPlay as big (T-rex), small (dog-sized) and medium (triceratops)Survive a day as each of these creaturesOrder of playMedium first (herbivore)Big next (T-rex)Small last (scavenger)Then Paleontologist discovers (eats chicken with a PLASTIC fork)Where you die determines how preserved the bones are during the paleontology phaseIf you want more preserved bones you have to choose to not live as long (due to how the preservation works)GameplayPlay as the different creatures, the player chooses when that phase of the game endsCan also end after a certain time playedThen you swap to a new creature and play as them, choosing when to endWhen you get back to a creature, time has passed and things are different in the world (partly due to player influence from other creatures)Player knocking down trees might be knocked down in future scenes, eating a lot of plants may make the area sparse in the futureKeep playing as the different creature until enough time has passedAfterwards, play as a paleontologist and rediscover what you’ve doneRecord what you’ve done with the knowledge the paleontologist has (and not the player), so it won’t actually be accurate to the player’s playthroughBased on what the player’s done, it can affect what things the paleontologist will be able to say about the state of things after