Dinosaur Fossil Hunter: Prologue

About

Dinosaur Fossil Hunter: Prologue is a single player shooter game. It was developed by ▲ Pyramid Games and was released on August 6, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

ABOUT THIS GAME Dinosaur Fossil Hunter: Prologue is a beginning of the full game. Play as a paleontologist, exploring different lands and searching for dinosaur fossils. The Prologue tells a story about young Paleontology enthusiast and his passionate pursuit of success and self-determination. The story inspires you to face challenges head-on and achieve your fulfilling goals despite various ha…

Dinosaur Fossil Hunter: Prologue screenshot

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79%

Audience ScoreBased on 389 reviews

gameplay6 positive mentions

grinding34 negative mentions

Unique and engaging concept simulating the full paleontology process from excavation to museum exhibition.
Detailed dinosaur models and satisfying bone assembly and museum customization provide rewarding gameplay.
Relaxing and educational, appealing to dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages with a nice storyline and immersive touch.

Driving mechanics are clunky, difficult, and cause frustration, detracting from the overall experience.
Repetitive and tedious tasks such as fossil cleaning and excavation lead to boredom over time.
Technical issues including bugs, crashes, poor optimization, missing save functionality, and awkward controls hinder playability.

gameplay
49 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12%
80%
8%
The gameplay offers a detailed paleontology simulation with a chill and relaxing core loop, balancing realism and accessibility, but many users find it clunky, slow, and sometimes frustrating due to fiddly controls, unpolished mechanics, and overly detailed or unnecessary features like driving and mud physics. While the concept and core fossil excavation mechanics are praised, the demo's repetitive, rigid, and poorly explained tasks, along with some technical issues, detract from the overall experience. There is potential for a more engaging and refined gameplay once improvements are made.
- “Gameplay is quite complex and depicts paleontology in a simple to digest form.”
- “The process of scanning, digging up a fossil, transport, in depth cleaning of the fossils, truly is a chill and relaxing gameplay loop.”
- “Using the gameplay concepts of search, discovery, cleaning, preparation, and reconstruction, so many different aspects of history can be presented in a fun and engaging way.”
- “The gameplay and messaging/objectives system are clunky and slow.”
- “Despite the quality graphics, the gameplay feels rough and unpolished, so simple actions become a bit frustrating and less intuitive at times.”
- “My major critiques were with the controls and some parts of the gameplay.”
story
43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
37%
56%
7%
The story is generally described as a charming and heartwarming introduction focusing on a young paleontologist’s passion, with good integration into the gameplay. However, some find it slow-paced, occasionally rushed, and lightly developed, with certain elements feeling forced or detracting from player engagement. Overall, users appreciate the concept and hope for a richer, more expansive narrative in the full release.
- “Dinosaur fossil hunter is a story telling simulator where you play as a paleontologist, exploring different lands and searching for dinosaur fossils.”
- “The prologue tells a story about a young paleontology enthusiast and his passionate pursuit of success and self-determination.”
- “It has such beautiful graphics and the way the developers integrate a story into this is extremely interesting.”
- “Other things which annoy me is that the game is telling this story as if it belonged to a child who is now a developer, forcing me to play too many children's dinosaur puzzles before I was allowed to start the real adult game.”
- “I found that the story line was the biggest problem for me.”
- “The story feels rushed.”
grinding
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is widely described as tedious and repetitive, especially the fossil cleaning and preparation processes, which many find slow, fiddly, and lacking engaging gameplay depth. While some players appreciate the realistic, methodical pace, most feel that the tasks quickly become boring busywork rather than rewarding or enjoyable grinding.
- “All my progress was lost and, because of the long jeep ride and tedious cleaning process, I simply didn't have the will to start all over.”
- “Preparing each part of the dinosaur is long, tedious, repetitive, and very, very boring.”
- “While all of the elements of driving out to a dig site, finding fossils and bringing them back to clean them are technically there, none of the tasks are particularly interesting and instead of completing chores being relatively short and satisfying like you'd find in a game like House Flipper, all the chores in this game become tedious and fiddly very quickly.”
graphics
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
45%
11%
The graphics are generally praised for their quality and detailed dinosaur models, with many noting they look especially good at higher settings. However, performance issues like low frame rates and GPU demands detract from the experience, and some find the visuals plain or unpolished. Overall, while visually promising, the game needs optimization and refinement to fully realize its graphical potential.
- “Excellent graphics, looks especially good at maximum settings.”
- “The graphics are gorgeous.”
- “Graphics are actually pretty damn good and the dinosaur models seem very accurate.”
- “Its crappy graphics are probably on the lowest setting and its resolution is, I don't know, 20 times 4, so it's a bad game.”
- “The controls are janky and imprecise, the graphics are very plain and un-thought-out (like your tools being physical objects that get stuck on/in bones/rocks during cleaning), and this team will use its Kickstarter money to ensure the maximum amount of micromanagement, not fun.”
- “The game is quite empty, I've seen games like GTA 5 running on half my graphic card, it does not even work at the lowest quality, I'm very disappointed; I expected more from this game but got only FPS lag, frustrating, stressful and the absence of a narrator makes it boring to play.”
stability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game currently suffers from numerous bugs and glitches, including issues with controls, missing items, and repetitive gameplay mechanics. While the concept is promising, these stability problems significantly impact the player experience and need to be addressed for the game to be enjoyable.
- “Other than that it was a bit of a buggy mess.”
- “Though the control is still buggy. I always play in windowed mode; the cursor keeps going out of the game, and the car is very clunky. I had to abort the game because I got a headache as I kept clicking everything in my game background.”
- “Full of bugs and glitches; game in my opinion is broken.”
music
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
11%
56%
33%
The music in the game is a single repetitive track that quickly becomes grating, especially during slow-paced or repetitive tasks. Many users express a desire for more variety or additional music options to enhance the experience.
- “One slow task after another while the music thinks you are out on a grand adventure.”
- “Also the music is one song on repeat and it gets on your nerves.”
- “Like the music which is some traditional action adventure loop that just loops even during the most slow-paced and laborious chore portions of the game.”
- “Everything is bare bones (no pun intended) and the looping music will make you go crazy.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
17%
50%
The game's optimization is mixed, with some users experiencing solid performance around 60 FPS, while others criticize it for poor optimization and numerous bugs. Overall, there is noticeable room for improvement to reach smoother and more consistent performance.
- “A better performance expectation to strive for would be similar to a game like Visceral Cleanup Detail.”
- “I expected I might have some performance issues but so far I'm getting a solid 60 fps.”
- “And they would put out a decent game, not the half-done and poorly optimized garbage they are releasing.”
- “The game is interesting but has a lot of bugs and very bad optimization.”
- “Performance definitely needs some work but overall, the tools felt pretty good.”
emotional
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game resonates as heartfelt and engaging, with a quick but touching story that excites players for the full release. Some minor issues, like a blurry vignette causing discomfort and graphical rough edges, slightly detract from the experience but do not overshadow its genuine, lovingly-crafted feel.
- “While there are some rough edges that need some touching up, it's clear to me that this is a love project and not something that is being rushed for fast and basic production.”
- “I found the quick story to be incredibly heartwarming and I'm extremely excited to play it upon full release.”
humor
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is mixed, with some moments being genuinely funny and engaging, while others feel unnecessary or frustrating. Overall, it offers a blend of amusing and less effective comedic elements.
- “Some of it hilarious, some of it fascinating, and some of it frustrating, that you don't really need this extra stuff like this.”

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