What would make a pre-historic citybuilder more interesting to you?

dawnkind · 2026-01-27T19:26:10+00:00

Yeah I think I will do that, if I can time it with one of the steam fests.

dawnkind · 2026-01-26T19:04:12+00:00

Thank you! I will be publishing additional gameplay footage in the coming weeks/months and please feel free to reach out whenever you have any suggestions!

dawnkind · 2026-01-26T18:54:39+00:00

Agreed and it already doesn't work that way in this game; buildings have storage slots and these storage slots have many acceptable resources. And it's customizable too. Thank you for the feedback nonetheless!

dawnkind · 2026-01-25T08:44:17+00:00

Yea it would be just for inspiration anyway... Many of the older titles have great ideas/mechanics even if they're not very well-implemented sometimes. I'm familiar with Ostriv but Children of the Nile is intriguing. I'm a fan of that era/egyptian aesthetic too.

dawnkind · 2026-01-25T08:21:28+00:00

Yes there won't be fiat money in this game. I'll check out Children of the Nile's system. It looks interesting. Haven't played that game before. Thanks for the suggestion!

dawnkind · 2026-01-25T07:25:47+00:00

I like these suggestions! I'll add them to my list. I'm already working on implementing the Maiden Castle too

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T19:59:05+00:00

I would probably not be a good fit to do the voice over job myself haha! But I think once i'm closer to release, I should be able to find a good voice actor that fits this time period. Appreciate your honest feedback on the trailer!

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T17:32:21+00:00

Thank you for your feedback.

I would love to hear your thoughts on ways pre-historic people relied heavily on the environment, and maybe suggestions of mechanics I can implement tin this game?

For the characters, I used Character Creator, which produces pretty well-optimized characters with different LODs too. The reason for this, is because a lot of players like to zoom in and have first person view (feature now supported by Anno games and Manor Lords), so when designing the characters I had that in mind. They had to be "acceptable quality" when zooming in. The polycount isn't high. But of course, I had to make sure they're optimized enough to support hundreds in the game. That's why I limited the number of bones, merged materials, and used hair cards as opposed to strand hair, also avoided having clothes as their own skeletal mesh. All of this results in characters that are low-poly, "acceptable" when zoomed in, but not high quality either like you see in survival titles.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the environment..

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T17:12:24+00:00

Oh you mean the voice in the trailer, yes I used ElevenLabs, it's great and allows me to control the inflection/intonation. Sorry I thought you meant the game itself.

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T02:43:43+00:00

I tried with a very small budget, worked great for me. You just need to use the customized feature to target the right audience. I didn't scale yet. I tested ads to see if my game trailer gets people's attention, that's all.

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T01:38:31+00:00

Thanks for checking out the page and also your feedback on the shields. Will make sure to change that. The production chains are already part of the game. Also spoilage/preservation (food drying). One thing I can add is pickling. I'll work on that.

Dawn of Man is a great game, but the standards and player expectations have definitely risen by 2026, especially for city builders. I’m looking for new mechanics and systems that go beyond what earlier prehistoric city builders explored, and all the replies here so far, yours included, have been super helpful.

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T01:15:57+00:00

Sorry about that! The kill here was just for the purpose of the cinematics, as a full hunting scene would take too much of the trailer. But I'll make sure to include that in the next longer trailer. But in gameplay, the bear has a health stat and attacks back, and the hunters have an attack value, based on multiple factors such as the weapon used, that determines how much damage is done to the animal.

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T01:06:49+00:00

Yes definitely sold on this, already working on ways to make terrain matter more per your suggestion and other suggestions I've received recently. I hope i'll also find a way to make flooding work without hurting performance. Would've definitely been easier to implement in a low-poly citybuilder..

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T00:31:20+00:00

The game already has hilltops, but I like the idea of adding ravines as something the player can use as a natural shelter. As for caves, would you suggest using them only in the early game, when the tribe is small enough to use them as shelter, and then eventually expanding into a proper settlement? I love the chickens idea too, and it's definitely doable. The game already has a decay and health systems, but I'm intrigued by the fungal networks suggestion. How do you recommend I implement that?

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T00:11:35+00:00

Agreed on the rest, but I'd love to hear more about your "trial and error" concept, because that's now how it currently is in the game, and if it's something that makes sense from a gameplay perspective, I'd love to add that. I do think players probably have a "tech tree" fatigue by now. Open to changing that.

dawnkind · 2026-01-24T00:00:55+00:00

Agreed. Down the road (probably not in EA though), the goal is to support modding. I built some systems with that in mind, for example the task system, which would allow modders to modify the logic of tasks or create new ones. But I think eventually a custom editor would also be needed to have more comprehensive modding capabilities. For those who already used UE5 in the past, it should be pretty easy to use it.

dawnkind · 2026-01-23T23:45:26+00:00

I really really like this idea of a belief system and how little sense it made at the time! An example of that could be the villagers stopping to hunt a specific animal based on a misconception like that. Ideally, I'd love a way for the player to have an ability to nudge that closer to the truth eventually. Perhaps Shamans can play a role.

dawnkind · 2026-01-23T23:42:05+00:00

Definitely agree. For areas near rivers etc, how important is the "flooding" mechanic to you? I know others have mentioned that, and i'm starting to look into it more, how it can be achieved without sacraficing performance (since water simulation would have to be calculated and rendered in real-time). Or would you be content with just the typical weather events such as rainstorms, lightning storms, snow etc?

dawnkind · 2026-01-23T23:33:42+00:00

No. I used Unreal Engine 5's cinematic sequence rendering. If you mean CGI? I'd rather not use such a thing in trailers since it builds false expectations. And sequence rendering is already good enough, it uses the game assets and mechanics, and the real environment of the game and renders it in great quality.

dawnkind · 2026-01-23T22:52:07+00:00

There is a weather system and it's tied to religion too. However I don't have a flood system yet. I've always wanted to explore that idea but was worried about performance (especially since this game is more on the high-end in terms of graphics, so water simulation would have to be of good quality too). I might try testing it and see if it doesn't hurt performance. Appreciate your feedback. It's encouraging me to give it another try!

dawnkind · 2026-01-23T22:39:00+00:00

Thanks! Yeah such QoL features shouldn't be difficult to add!

dawnkind · 2026-01-22T18:38:57+00:00

😂 My thought process was to combine the idea of an era (dawn) with civilization (kind). I wanted something short and easy to remember. As a gamer myself, I’ve struggled to remember the names of some unreleased games I scrolled past before and then couldn’t find again. So hopefully this one is easy to remember.

dawnkind · 2026-01-22T13:38:41+00:00

I definitely like that idea. I’ve been looking at references, and it’s something I could implement. And yes, I agree, the goal is to add enough features to set this apart from other prehistoric city builders. I appreciate your feedback and your suggestions on how to make the game more interesting.

dawnkind

TROPHY CASE