As the proud owner parent of a dino-obsessed six-year-old, I’ve been subjected to the Jurassic Park Trilogy more times than I can count. I get the theme song randomly trapped in my head and bits of dialog come out of my mouth uncontrollably in the most awkward social situations.
But it’s only going to get worse, as I can now bring a Jurassic Park of my very own everywhere I go.
Jurassic Park Builder is a Farmville-esque affair for iOS where you nurture and grow various dinosaurs and build your own Jurassic Park from the ground up.
Find, research and hatch new dinosaurs, feed them, watch them grow, and rake in coins from your attractions. Spend those coins on more attractions, buildings, decorations, and more dinosaurs. Rinse, repeat.
It’s pretty formulaic and feels like a ton of other games out there, but the Jurassic Park brand gives it a new lease on life and sinks its hooks pretty deep into nostalgia for fans of the series.
The dinosaur animations look great, and the other sights and sounds hold true to the source material. As you build your park, familiar faces from the Jurassic Park films are there to help by providing different objectives and rewards. Dr. Grant, John Hammond and others dish out missions for you, and their little quests and bits of dialogue are befitting their characters. Granted, there’s this little plot hole around why they’d all be crazy enough to go along with building another disaster-waiting-to-happen after all they’ve been through… but suspending disbelief, it all fits into place.
For a standard “building” game, the economy and pacing are actually pretty well balanced to move quickly enough at first to keep you engaged, and the difficulty/cost curve doesn’t seem to jump too far out of whack at any point too early in the game.
All told, it makes for an incredibly fun Jurassic Park experience on the iPhone, iPad, or other supported devices.
And now, as an added side effect, it has both me and the little guy wanting to watch Jurassic Park yet again (and again, and again). If you’re a fan, or just want to build a dinosaur theme park of your own, be sure to check it out.
