Roadmap

Move growth out of debug-only testing and make it happen naturally through time, eating, drinking, reward and penalty modifiers, and per-dinosaur growth multipliers.

Add water sources that restore thirst when dinosaurs drink from them. This should support rivers, ponds, lakes, and watering holes.

Build the full core gameplay loop in single player first. Players should be able to spawn, move, eat, drink, grow, fight, die, leave a corpse, and return to character selection.

Build one reusable dinosaur framework that handles health, stamina, hunger, thirst, growth, weight, movement, diet, attacks, death, corpse data, and state handling for every playable dinosaur.

Use weight as the core balancing value for damage, movement, stamina drain, knockback, corpse meat amount, dragging, pinning, water behavior, and growth scaling.

Allow carnivores to eat from corpses. Corpses should lose available meat as they are eaten and eventually disappear through decay or full consumption.

Make one primary attack feel responsive, readable, and impactful. Add stamina cost, cooldowns, hit reactions, sound feedback, and camera shake before adding more attacks.

Connect the main menu buttons, character selection screen, spawn flow, and death return flow so testers can play without developer tools.

Add zone-based color customization, patterns, unlockable skins, rare variants, event skins, nesting inheritance support, and server-side validation.

Add edible plants, bushes, grazing zones, or other world food sources for herbivores. These should restore hunger and support future food quality systems.

When a player dies, trigger a death state, show a death screen, return the player to character selection, and leave a corpse behind in the world.

Dead bodies should track available meat, eaten amount, spoilage, and decay time. They should disappear when fully eaten or when decay finishes.

Fix cases where dinosaurs get stuck in attacking, eating, drinking, resting, death, swimming, or movement states. Stable state transitions are required before multiplayer.

Prototype bipedal dinosaur pinning using weight difference, distance checks, and escape logic. Keep this simple until the math and gameplay feel are proven.

Wire temporary footsteps, attacks, hurt sounds, idle calls, eating, drinking, death sounds, and menu audio. Clearly track all placeholder audio so it can be replaced later.

Add simple AI that can wander, eat, drink, flee, chase, attack, die, and leave corpses. Use this only to prove the survival loop and world feel.

Use low-cost simulation for far AI, simple decision-making for medium-range AI, and detailed Behavior Tree logic only for close-range or combat AI.

Focus on Ceratosaurus, Tenontosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Skorpiovenator, Edmontosaurus, Styracosaurus and Thalassodromeus if flight is ready.

Pre-Alpha is complete when at least five dinosaurs are playable, the survival loop works, corpses function, basic AI exists, and testers can give feedback on gameplay feel, animations, audio, controls, and performance.

Save and load each player's dinosaur species, growth, health, hunger, thirst, location, and death state so players can leave and return without breaking progress.

Add basic territory zones that can detect players, AI, food, and water. These zones should later affect growth, resources, AI spawning, nesting, and migration.

Target 8 to 10 playable dinosaurs including Ceratosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Skorpiovenator, Tenontosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Styracosaurus, Iguanadon, one semi-aquatic carnivore, and Thalassodromeus if flight is stable.

Alpha is complete when 20 or more players can test together with stable spawning, movement, combat, growth, death, corpses, persistence, admin tools, basic AI, and early territory zones.

Create a stable dedicated server build that allows multiple players to connect, spawn, move, survive, fight, die, and respawn together.

Important gameplay values such as health, damage, stamina, hunger, thirst, growth, death, corpses, and food should be controlled by the server, not trusted from the client.

Players should be able to select a dinosaur, spawn into the server, and have their chosen species, stats, and growth state replicate correctly.

Walking, sprinting, resting, swimming, attacking, eating, drinking, dying, and growing should appear correctly to other players with minimal desync.

Damage, hit detection, attack cooldowns, stamina use, hit reactions, and death should be validated by the server and replicated clearly to all nearby players.

Corpses should be spawned, tracked, eaten, decayed, and removed by the server. Multiple players eating from the same corpse should not duplicate meat value.

Growth should happen server-side and replicate to all players. Size, stats, and visual changes should update correctly as dinosaurs grow.

Add basic admin tools such as teleport, heal, grow, slay, respawn, locate player, view player list, and server announcements.

Add controlled AI to multiplayer servers while heavily testing server performance, perception cost, pathfinding, tick rate, and corpse generation.

Turn the game from a test build into a real public survival game where players can join, survive, grow, fight, explore, and understand the basics without developer help.

Polish the main menu, character selection, death screen, status UI, graphics settings, audio settings, controls, keybinds, and basic accessibility options.

Add basic tutorial prompts and readable UI so players understand eating, drinking, growth, scent, combat, death, and survival without Discord hand-holding.

Target 12 to 16 polished dinosaurs across carnivores, herbivores, fliers, and limited semi-aquatics. Priority candidates include Ceratosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Skorpiovenator, Carnotaurus, Baryonyx, Suchomimus, Tenontosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Styracosaurus, Iguanodon, Padillasaurus, Thalassodromeus, and one heavy defensive herbivore if ready.

Hunger, thirst, growth, food, water, stamina, death, corpses, and respawning should feel complete, readable, and balanced enough for public testing.

Improve hit detection, impact feedback, stamina costs, attack timing, injury effects, and balance. Add alternate attacks where animations and design support them.

Territory should affect gameplay through region identity, food quality, water value, AI density, growth modifiers, nesting potential, and migration relevance.

Add meaningful food preferences and diet quality so eating the right food improves growth and poor diet slows progression without making the game miserable.

Add world-supporting AI such as prey animals, ambient life, fish, limited predators, and territory-influenced spawns while keeping server performance stable.

Replace temporary audio with original vocals, footsteps, attacks, pain sounds, death sounds, ambience, UI sounds, and species-specific sound identity.

Add logging, crash tracking, moderation tools, server settings, admin commands, player support tools, and enough stability for public play sessions.

Beta is complete when the game has stable multiplayer, 12 to 16 playable dinosaurs, polished survival systems, territory gameplay, AI support, original audio, readable UI, admin tools, and enough repeatable content for public play.

Add true aquatic survival with oxygen, diving, swimming combat, underwater food, aquatic AI, aquatic corpses, shoreline ambushes, and marine predators.

Expand territory into claiming, scent marking, dominance pressure, group presence, nesting value, resource depletion, conflict zones, and long-term region identity.

Add moving resource zones, food quality shifts, migration rewards, herd movement incentives, predator attraction, seasonal routes, and AI migration behavior.

Add courtship, nesting, eggs, hatchlings, parent tracking, inherited traits, skin inheritance, nest defense, and juvenile family gameplay.

Add bleeding, fractures, limping, visible wounds, scar progression, healing behavior, rest recovery, and weight-based injury resistance.

Add rain, fog, storms, droughts, heat, seasonal food changes, water changes, visibility effects, scent changes, and migration pressure.

Add herd behavior, predator packs, scavengers, fish schools, flying AI, territory-aware AI, migration-aware AI, and long-distance stat simulation.

Add high-complexity dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, Argentinosaurus, Hatzegopteryx, Mosasaurus, Megalodon, Deinosuchus, and other specialty animals after the core game is stable.

Grow Isla Prima into a dynamic ecosystem where territory, migration, AI, weather, nesting, food, water, combat, and player behavior all shape the island over time.