Some time back I stumbled across the social media account of Jordan J Bradley (you can follow these links for his Instagram and ArtStation), who posted a series of concept art he had created for a game he was designing called Paleo Pines. While he ended up leaving the project he had started after it got purchased by a larger company, production continued, and it finally saw release at the end of September, 2023.
Paleo Pines is a dinosaur video game, largely in the vein of other farming sims (while I haven’t played Stardew Valley, that seems to be the most common comparison). It has a very cute, cartoony art direction, and a calm, relaxed gameplay style that’s perfect for unwinding at the end of the day.
The game starts with a short vignette depicting the player helping to hatch and raise their first dinosaur, Lucky the Parasaurolophus. As they outgrow their childhood home, they choose to start a new life in Paleo Pines, a region with several varied environments to explore. While not quite as detailed of a world as that in Zniw Adventure, there is some backstory and worldbuilding for players to discover here, too. The locals begin making friends with the player, particularly via various tasks they need help with, and they in turn help the player solve a bit of a mystery.
The Paleo Pines locals all express excitement at seeing Lucky, as they can’t remember the last time any Parasaurolophus had passed through, despite an abundance of other dinosaur species in the area. Lucky himself begins to feel lonely, and so the player resolves to find the missing herd in order to bring their faithful dinosaur friend some additional companionship.
Some of the tasks can become a bit of a grind, particularly as your human friends and dinosaur companions begin to pile up, but they are all generally low pressure quests, with only the occasional more difficult barrier getting in the way of forward progress.
Paleo Pines is available on Steam and all major consoles, and while I downloaded the demo version from Steam prior to the official release, I ultimately bought a physical copy for the Nintendo Switch, which I was actually able to find at a local Target store! I should note that I experienced a crashing issue later in the game, which seems to be at least partially related to the space taken by multiple save files. Deleting previous autosaves (which are not automatically overridden) seemed to help before a significant patch was released that drastically reduced the problem. It still happens every once in a while, but not with the unplayable frequency with which it had begun occurring prior to it. The developers inform me they are aware of the issue, though, and in addition to the previous patch, they are working on additional fixes to prevent the few occasions where it does still sometimes crash.
Speaking of patches, on a more positive note, the developers also announced that the winner of a recent fan art contest would get a new color pattern of their own design added to the game, so keep an eye out for the addition of Nightlight Latte’s new “Atlas” skin sometime in the future!
Despite a few minor frustrations, I can’t get enough of Paleo Pines, and I keep coming back to melt my stress in the care and feeding of my dinosaur companions. I have also been enjoying the additional content that comes with the game, in the form of access to a digital artbook. In addition to some of the general concept art, you can also get a glimpse of certain cut content, including sauropods, pterosaurs, and a Swamp region which don’t appear in the current version of the game.
Paleo Pines is most definitely Dino Dad Approved, and I recommend it to all dinosaur nerds who want a fun way to relax with their favorite animals. It is currently available on Steam, and for all major platforms as both downloadable and physical copies. And if Paleo Pines is not quite right for you, though you could see yourself enjoying something somewhat similar; creator Jordan J Bradley has also since founded Ambertail Games. Ambertail is currently working on a new dinosaur game called Amber Isle, which seems to have a bit of an Animal Crossing vibe, if that’s more up your alley. For something completely different, you can also take a look at some other video games I reviewed: THE BIG DIE, Lemme Splash!, Zniw Adventure, and the Roblox game Evolve!
Enjoy!
Dino Dad Reviews 
6 comments