Story of Sauria - A Dinosaur Planet Revival Concept Blog
@storyofsauria
Story of Sauria is a personal project blog, focused on drafting concepts, designs, and various other exploratory sketches for a hypothetical fanmade remake of the cancelled N64 game Dinosaur Planet.
“Today we have released Dinosaur Planet by Rare for Nintendo 64. The development was halted and moved to the GameCube, where it was then released as Star Fox Adventures. Enjoy! (More info in this thread). Link to the dump:
https://t.co/gQGGcU4vJK”
YES. THAT’S RIGHT.
PLAYABLE DINOSAUR PLANET BUILD
20 YEARS. 20 YEARS OF THIS GAME IN LIMBO. AND OVER 15 I’VE SPENT RESEARCHING THIS GAME
WE’RE FINALLY HERE
I”M SO HAPPY ;w;
YES I WILL CATALOGUE SHIT ON THIS GAME SOON, THIS IS SO MUCH TO TAKE IN
I do intend on returning to speculation/study stuff on here at some point, but this year’s been emotionally stressful for me, so I haven’t really had the spoons to get back to this project.
For the time being, I’m working on a twitter project that’s pretty much an extension of the storyofsauria tumblr, as to aggregate DP-related stuff. You can follow the storyofsauria twitter here if you want!
So, yeah. Story of Sauria’s been at a standstill for a while, but I have been working on a few DP-related things in the background. This, mainly.
Long story short, “i did a complete overhaul of my sorted MPEG.bin transcripts after noticing that the voice clips may be sorted by location to some extent. said details about it in the ANOTHERNOTE.txt file i included with the older package (and this one), but i feel it was way due for an overhaul anyway. can't guarantee that this revision is more accurate, but hopefully it's a little tidier.“
Using these as a reference point for a redone DP “remade” outline, which is why I’m posting them here instead of FYeahDP. But yeah, you can grab it here if you want!
A sort of map I did for location sorting, done around the time I was working on the video essay.
Locations are sorted by which character has them; sabre’s are in the brown circle, while krystal’s are in the blue. blue text indicates where a spirit/test can be found, red indicates spellstone areas, green for hubs, and grey for misc areas. Spirits and spellstones are numbered by where they’re obtained in the condensed story.
Connections are mostly a mix of design choice for a DP remake, and speculation based off the condensed story.
Apologies for the radio silence. Been caught up with other things on my end after the essay vid, so I haven’t had the time to get back to work on this blog or any other DP-related studies.
Gonna be slowly getting back into it, alongside some other supplementary stuff related to DP. In the meantime, if you got any questions, I’m always available via ask.
and my pet project three months in the making is done
Dinosaur Planet: A Case for a Remake is my two-part video essay project about one of Rare’s most famous cancelled games, that was transformed into what we now know as Starfox Adventures. with so much information about DP’s original incarnation uncovered, from strings and audio in SFA’s disc to leaked story documents, the game that could’ve been seems to be much bigger than what we got.
with over a decade of experience and research under my belt, I tell my retrospective on Dinosaur Planet and the discoveries surrounding it, and my thoughts on a remake of the game being viable in this day and age.
part 1 is mostly a history primer on the game and the info uncovered over the years. part 2 details the difficulties and challenges surrounding developing a DP remake, and whether DP matters today.
enjoy my cruddy voicework, and be sure to share and spread the word. <3
thank you so much for sticking with me for all these years. <3 <3 <3
Jotted down a small list of questions related to the Story Of Sauria project that some people may have. Still working on a couple studies and an essay script for a possible video related to the project, but I figured I’d write this up to help clarify some things.
Will be adding to this as time goes on. If you got any more questions, feel free to stick them in my askbox.
Q: How come you want to make a Dinosaur Planet remake?
A: If you asked me this question when I was younger, I'd go "because I'd really love to play this game in its original form".
My answer now is still the same, with an additional "and now we have the tools more readily available to make it a reality".
Q: Why Dinosaur Planet and not Conker 64 or Dream?
A: Simply put, far more information for Dinosaur Planet exists as opposed to those games. There's various footage, screencaps, and even bits of original DP text and audio in the SFA game discs. On top of that, the condensed story up on RareThief's DP page essentially details the entire game outline save for the ending.
While a lot of assets would have to be remade from scratch, we have a skeleton of the game's original form in the condensed story, so at the very least we have something to work off of.
Q: Is this remake actually in development?
A: Currently no, and likely won't be for some time. Story Of Sauria is a project focused on various exploratory sketches and studies for Dinosaur Planet, and while those could and may be used in a remake of the game, the remake itself isn't actually a thing. At least not YET.
Q: What things are you going to focus on first IF this begins development?
A: Keep in mind I'll probably be more of a director/consultant for the project (I have no idea how to program). When we get a crew ready for the actual remake, ideally we'd probably plan on getting the basic "framework" of the game down first, specifically core gameplay elements, things such as sidekick AI, inventory menus and base puzzle design among other things. Generally, major gameplay development is likely going to be top priority, while things like non-placeholder graphics and audio would follow after.
Granted, the actual flow of development may differ from this. Keep in mind we're basically attempting to reconstruct the game and assets from scratch since there's no possible way to dredge up DP's code from the SFA discs. It's gonna take more than a while, and part of it is figuring out how to go about with certain things. Gamedev’s pretty hard!
Q: Gameplay-wise, will it be the same as SFA?
A: The original DP contains significantly more content than SFA did, not just in terms of playable characters, but also has more levels and different gameplay elements than SFA.
Outside of new designs for other levels and characters (since no DP screenshots of said levels/characters exist as a reference point), there may be a few tweaks to the flow of the game, such as improved combat and less reliance on tollbooths to progress. Levels that existed in both SFA and DP might also get some remixing so the puzzles play out differently than their SFA counterparts.
In short, basically no.
Q: What engine do you plan on using for the Dinosaur Planet remake?
A: Likely either Unity or Unreal Engine 4 due to the amount of support and documentation that exists for those engines, plus the two are generally free for personal projects. Ultimately it really depends on what the crew are familiar with when we get to that point.
Q: If you're going to use a modern engine, why stick with the blocky N64 graphical style?
A: We want to be authentic to the original game's style as a bit of a throwback to that graphical style, but with modern touches like increased draw distance, better texture filtering, and better framerates than on the original N64. Aaaand because we need more games in the N64 style. Pixel stuff isn't the only "retro" graphical style, yanno.
Plus it'd be pretty funny to make a game in a modern engine while using the most "primitive" looking models compared to the stuff usually made in said engines.
Q: If the models and textures will have to be done from scratch, does that mean the same for music and audio?
A: Definitely for voice acting since the hour-long DP audiorip doesn't encompass the entire game.
As for music, music sequence files for Dinosaur Planet exist on the SFA discs, and the instrument samples have been compiled into a soundfont, so remasters and rearranges of most of DP's soundtrack are definitely possible. New music may be added as the available DP tracks from the disc may be only a fraction of DP's soundtrack, as the original DP wasn't completed prior to the SFA transition.
Redone dialogue will require voiceactors to cover them. For music, we will need composers if we want new/rearranged tunes. Priority at the moment is getting a base of the game done; non-placeholder audio will likely be on the backburner until most of the gameplay and graphics are done.
Q: Will you get in trouble with Nintendo or Rare for making a Dinosaur Planet remake?
A: This is where things get a bit muddy. There's always the risk of getting into legal trouble for making a fangame or remake game of an existing IP. However, the case of a Dinosaur Planet remake is kinda weird since it's based off a cancelled IP, but said cancelled game was retooled into a game based off an EXISTING IP. There's also the fact that Krystal and Tricky and other DP elements were mentioned in other Star Fox games after SFA.
Well, as far as things on the Nintendo side of the ordeal go, I guess. No idea on Rare's stance on fangames/fan-remakes.
It's a confusing situation, but generally the project as a whole will be nonprofit, and plus DP isn't exactly a carbon copy of SFA. This project is purely out of fan dedication and desire to see a playable version of Dinosaur Planet that's close to the original game as possible.
Q: Do you have any intentions to add any Star Fox cameos/easter eggs in the game as tribute to SFA?
A: It's definitely in the cards! Starfox Adventures is an important part of DP's legacy, and it'd be a bit wrong to not pay tribute to it in some fashion or another. While I wouldn't expect any references to Star Fox in the main story, we may have little easter eggs related to it hidden across the remake, perhaps even a little Arwing minigame. It's definitely something we'll look into!
Sidekick and magic studies. Likely may flesh these out more in later time: the only spells/abilities seen in DP footage were the projectile spell and Tricky using Find, Flame, and Distract. the Mindread spell is also explicitly mentioned in the hour-long DP audio.
Something a bit different this time. Model study time!
WIP so far, but trying to recreate Sabre’s model framework (side and front view for the time being) in case someone wants to recreate the model. I know nothing about modeling. :”D
Some elaboration on the primary goals for a Dinosaur Planet fan remake. Original summaries of the goals can be found here. Felt I needed to do this since i could fit a lot more of one subject on a single page than just part of a page.
Any questions concerning these or anything related to the project should be directed to me askbox. Also, just to stress this point: this is purely a conceptual project at the moment. I don’t have any plans on beginning actual game development for this, mostly since I know nothing about programming for 3d gamestuff or Unity.
For anyone who’s played both Star Fox Adventures and any of the N64 Zelda games (Ocarina of Time in particular), I have a bit of a curious question for you all!
Graphics aside, SFA is generally considered inferior to OoT by quite a few people. While we don’t know for sure if DP may have bested OoT on its release, what things about Star Fox Adventures design and gameplay were better than or on par with OoT’s, and what things about SFA were lacking in comparison to the Zelda classic?
For example, SFA had a heavy reliance on tollbooths in the form of “pay me scarabs to pass” NPCs and needing to collect fuel cells to visit areas you needed to get Spellstones from. Additionally, the shop was fundamentally useless aside from getting key items and maps; resources that could be found at the store (such as health, mushrooms, bombspores, etc) can easily be found for free in Thorntail Hollow and other areas.
Reblog and comment as you wish! I’d love for more input on this!
While SFA’s HUD was onscreen the entire game save for cutscenes and dialogues, DP’s HUD (in footage) only appeared when you needed it, like when you were in combat or were injured. My guess is that this allowed for the player to be more immersed in their environment while they were exploring around, thus the HUD isn’t as intrusive as SFA’s.
SFA’s HUD also went through a lot of design changes during development, ultimately being simplified to the Zelda-style display it has in retail SFA. for the project, I mostly went with keeping the DP layout style with indicators for more essential objects (magic and sidekick food) under their respective bars. Also went with the larger portraits a la early SFA since I like ‘em. :u
Changing how the counts work for items, though. Orange is empty, light green is for maxed objects, and white is for any number between those.
Might make a mockup of the general HUD layouting at some point for a better visual of what I’m trying to go for.
Some general “goals” for what a potential fanmade DP remake could entail. The overall general idea is to stay true to the source material in general presentation (graphical style and gameplay), while filling in the blanks of the game’s unfinished story and unseen locations+quests. Ideally, this would be done in a more modern engine such as Unity and the like, due to the original DP’s performance issues on the N64 hardware.
I know nothing about programming or how to go about actually making stuff in 3d engines, I just have a general idea of game design philosophies and how to go about with things.
I’ll try to flesh out this idea a bit more, but have a bit of a taster for now. c:
