The Glitch.Indie dino hype continues! Aaron Pollack, CEO and Producer of Primal Carnage, answers our burning questions about the game’s background, future expansion, and how to kill the massive Carnotaurus.
Why did you want to create a game about dinosaurs?
Well, there’s one universal constant in this world we live in. Dinosaurs are very, very cool. And anyone who says otherwise is a steaming pile of Gennaro.
Besides that fact however we (as gamers not as game developers) were constantly frustrated at the lack of respect the Dinosaur genre had received over the years. With a few notable exceptions almost all video games featuring Dinosaurs in recent times have treated them as gimmicks, as a throwaway addition to an otherwise incompatible theme just… well, seemingly because. We, like many other Dinosaur fans (JP1 generation most notably) were waiting patiently for someone to finally make our collective dreams come true and make that Dinosaur game we found we could all see in the dark shadows at the back of our minds.
So, there came a point when we were simply tired of waiting for it and decided “If nobody is going to do it, we’ll do it ourselves!”, and on that day Primal Carnage was born.
In Primal Carnage, we don’t see many of the highly popular dinosaurs from other pop culture media. How did you decide on these dinosaurs? And what type of research went into it?
Choosing which Dinosaurs make it into what was initially a very small lineup for our game was indeed a difficult task (even the T.rex was never assured a place as a playable class from the start).
We had clear objectives, to create unique classes that will perform varied roles as well as being easily recognizable and distinct. Many Dinosaurs, theropods especially, are very similar to one another and it’s a challenge to find species that are different enough to warrant being a separate class in a video game.
The other issue we face still to this day is that said “pop culture media” has its own view of Dinosaurs which sometimes bears no resemblance to reality, such as the existence of something called a “Brontosaurus” and a certain Disney Dinosaur movie convincing the world that Carnotaurus are bigger than a T.rex.
Obviously we have tapped into certain amounts of fictional pop culture expectations ourselves, such as a Dilophosaurus that can spit venom a la Jurassic Park. Obviously they never did this in real life but it presented us with a unique feature to give this particular playable class and therefore was deemed an expectable deviation into fictional embellishment for the sake of gameplay.
As for why we have a “Novaraptor” instead of a JP Velociraptor… that’s a rather interesting story I’ll get to in a moment.
How did dinosaurs and humans come to coexist in the Primal Carnage universe? And why have the humans returned to the seemingly abandoned locations?
Well, much like the JP origins which inspire Primal Carnage all the Dinosaurs you see are manmade, they are the result of scientific advancements and people meddling with what they really ought not have been meddling with.
The island location, which is the primary setting for Primal Carnage, is owned by a company known as “Phoenix”, but unlike Jurassic Park this was certainly not going to be a family friendly zoo. Our Dinosaurs were held in captivity and were cloned, monitored, tested, destroyed and cloned again incalculable number of times. Each clone was different from the last as Pheonix altered their genetic makeup and modified them for whatever purposes they saw fit. This is where our Novaraptor comes in.
The Novaraptor is not a real species of Dinosaur, it is 100% fictional and native to Primal Carnage. It is the result of Mans genetic meddling to the point where it is no longer a recognizable animal anymore and had to be reclassified.
However, much like Jurassic Park this all didn’t end well and a catastrophic containment failure led to the Dinosaurs getting loose, overrunning the Island and either killing or driving off the human population. The Island then and all its facilities are at the mercy of nature and its new Dinosaur inhabitants and now, a few years later, we want it back.
Are there any plans to expand Primal Carnage? Maybe add a campaign mode?
The expansion of Primal Carnage in all areas is our number 1 concern right now.
We are still a small Indie team and we feel that we have so far only scratched the surface of the potential Primal Carnage has to offer. We have new game modes on the verge of release, new Dinosaurs on their way, a singleplayer campaign or perhaps even coop elements or still on the horizon as possibilities.
Our primary concern and task right now though is to improve the core game and strengthen the foundations for which to build upon, and we will be building upon it. Our hope is that Primal Carnage becomes the benchmark all other Dinosaur games will be measured by.
Which human and dino classes do you prefer when you play? Why?
The Pteranodon and the Scientist.
There’s nothing better than flying around as a pterosaur picking off helpless puny humans and just letting gravity do the work for you, unless it’s shutting one of them down from half a mile away and saving a team mate.
(Eating people as a T.rex is also very high on the list)
How do you think Jurassic Park’s Dr. Grant would respond to this game?
I think he’d be pretty relieved that these Dinosaurs are safely locked away within a video game but would certainly find it in rather poor taste.
I doubt he’d give us an endorsement.
What’s the best way to kill the seemingly unstoppable Carnotaurus?
Take a very large Carnotaurus sized mirror and hang it on a suitably immovable object such as a large, steel reinforced concrete wall. Carnotaurus aren’t very bright and will often charge other Carnotaurus (even if it’s their own reflection).
If you could use one skill or weapon from the game in real life, which would you choose and what would you use it for?
The Trappers Netgun. I’d love to have one of those on hand in an argument to just put someone in a net and say “I win”.
What’s next for Lukewarm?
The ongoing improvements on the core Primal Carnage game as well as adding new content to have a solid base for the continuing expansion of the game.
The revision of the PC:Genesis project, our singleplayer next gen spinoff, we still want it to happen but to happen right.
We will continue to support our player base and community with events and competitions. Such as the monthly “Beat the Devs” event with prize giveaways which will soon be in its 11th month.
We’re still checking on the viability of creating real dinosaurs someday just to have a pet for the office. (This particular goal may take some time.)
And some sleep somewhere in the middle if there’s a spare moment.
Didn’t see you question answered? Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming play through, where you’ll have the opportunity to jump in game with Aaron and get your questions answered live on stream.
