Just in time to make it for release before the actual film hits, the app should now be available from the Google Play store, link HERE (it's actually been out over a week, I just didn't get around to making a thread yet).

Developed by Ludia, it's very similar to early Pokemon Go - you wander around to catch dinosaurs in the wild, and spin stops to get items. There's currently no raids, quests, or dailies. However, there are going to be time-limited spawns within a week or so.

Unlike Pokemon Go, there's no stat differences within a species, and you can't have dupes. Also, to 'catch' a dinosaur, you have to shoot it, each shot giving you DNA towards unlocking/leveling the animal. All Velociraptors at level 1 have the same HP, Armour, Speed, and Attack.

There is PvP, although there's some issues with it - most attacks are on cooldowns, and your team (of four) is selected from your bench (of eight) randomly. Each win gets you in-game items - the capture devices, evolution/level up money (coins), speed-up money(dollars). Most of this comes in a lootbox, which you can crack open immediately by spending the dollars, or wait however long that 'incubator' requires.

This looks like very much a F2P, but P2W game. You can purchase the incubators, and each one has a minimum amount of DNA of a minimum rarity. There was (in the closed beta) the ability to just outright buy a T-Rex because of the loot tables, and then mercilessly crush everyone who didn't have one. There isn't going to be any way to catch up to these players through freeplay either, as there is a cap on the amount of in-game money you can earn a day (it is pretty high, so it shouldn't impact casual players).

You can earn more dollars. There's even a handy wall of offers on how to do so, in game! Spending £20 on other apps, or getting to level 10 in other apps, or signing up to mailing lists... It's a pretty hamfisted way of scalping more money from the game, and it doesn't bode well for longevity if Ludia is attempting to milk it this quickly and unsubtly. Also, there's a $10 pcm subscription fee if you want to be a VIP member. It gets you daily items, and better drones for catching.

One big bonus over PoGo is the 'drone'. You can extract DNA from dinosaurs that are up to 150 meters away (200 if you're VIP), although you get less time to shoot them the further they are. You can also spin the Jurassistops at about 30m, which is a slight improvement on PoGo.

Initial progression feels really slow. I wandered around today/last night, built up a bench of 8, and got some DNA from other stuff too. I cracked level 2 (you do it in the tutorial), but I'm now only about 50% of the way to level 3. The XP just seems to be a tiny trickle.

Overrall, it's a bit 'meh'. I like it well enough, and I'll stick around on it for a while, but I doubt it'll have the same appeal as PoGo did.

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One last thing - the support team are slow.

I downloaded the app last Thursday evening, as soon as it was available. I had issues, and raised them with a support ticket on Friday lunchtime. The issue seemed to be there was "missing data from [the] existing game that is required to load [the] map", which was resolved late Friday evening. It took a week, and I've spoken to several other people on Reddit who had the same issue, and have since uninstalled because they have no interest in waiting for the response.

 

So it's now been two weeks since I actually got to play this, and I thought I should expand on the above with any new experiences.

Currently, we're in week two (it started same day I started the thread) of bonus dino spawns, and better dinostops in parks. But this seems to be much more leniant in what's considered a park than PoGo, so you shouldn't have to travel as far. Yesterday's was the Velociraptor, which is still pretty OP.

Spawns seem to actually be locked to a location, rather than the mild randomness of PoGo. From my house, there's three spawn points that are always in range, and another 3 that would be if I spent the $8pcm to be a 'VIP' member (they can fuck off).

PvP has more issues than I thought.

Every dinosaur of the same species and level has the same stat values (stats are Speed, Attack, Armour). So a level 5 Velociraptor will always strike before anything else at L5, and will ALWAYS deal 716 damage, unless the foe is armoured. Critical rates are decided upon by species, although some attacks have bonuses. You can hover over each attack to see how much damage it will do, so you don't even have to waste your specials on something a basic can kill.

This means you can predict which dinosaur will win each fight with pretty good accuracy. And you don't have the same worry as you would in corePokemon about 'will this attack swing the other way in damage?' - you know it will hit and leave you with 47 health remaining, at which point you will win. Because matching is done based on which fight tier you're in, and has nothing to do with your or your dinosaurs' levels, this can lead to you being absolutely stomped to shit.

If you opponent has a Velo at +1 level, you will almost certainly lose. If you can pull out a tank on it, you might be able to stall it for a few turns, but you probably won't be able to actually kill it... So it will outspeed everything you have, and kill most of them.

Special attacks are all on cooldown, which adds a minor level of strategy, in that you have to think about potential future turns. But that's minimal at best, and not something to really worry about.


There's no way to search or sort your library of dinos either. If you want ones that have 'counterattack', you have to look up an online list, or memorise it. If you want the one with the highest attack, you have to look up an online list, or do it manually. This is a minor QoL thing that bugs me, because sorting your dinos purely on level is stupid, and adding other ways of sorting shouldn't be that difficult.


The cap on 'darts' is a piss-take. There's not enough dinosaurs around for me to use them all on, which is a good thing - running out of balls in PoGo was really annoying. But it feels like a waste when the Dinostop gives me another fifteen, and I can't carry any of them.


I'm surprised at some of the monetisation that HASN'T gone into this game, to be honest. Given so many microtransactions, I would have thought they'd add regeneration to your dinos, which you could pay to speed up. The fact they haven't means they know their limits.


Still a meh game. Better than PoGo was on release, but not as good as the name means this should be.