#operation genesis

in an alternate universe and/or sometime way in the future, there’s this thing called Operation Genesis where, in its current test stages, a small team of kids with kinetic abilities is slowly but surely being constructed, monitored, and put to use. they’ll be a special force, an army in their own right, once they’re older or when the procedure to introduce and foster these abilities has been perfected. within the operation is four subsets: Eden, Galilee, Horeb, and Empyrean. The operation aims to perfect the introduction of kinesis for as many facets of the elements as they can - plants, animals, water, fire, electricity, temperature, air, light and darkness - into the human body in the hopes of working toward a league of fighters with every kinesis in one. 

But for now, the powers are distributed through a team of test subjects, kids who have been with the operation since birth. They have names, more for identification than identity - they had different names once, but sometimes the world is tougher than we can handle, and parents give away their children to those who promise a better future, even if their given names, their first identities, stay behind. 

Subset Empyrean has three subjects: Venta and the twins Jupiter and Iovis; Subset Horeb has three: Aed, Lugus, and Grannus; Subset Galilee has only one, Ahurani; and Eden has two: Persephone and Actaeon. There were some before those, obviously (most notably the prototype for Persephone, a girl who joined a few years prior and was labeled Demeter before her untimely departure from the operation) - no experiment goes perfectly the first time around, let alone one with such high stakes and delicate medium. 

The subjects rarely interact with those from the other subsets save for full-team simulations, and even then, conversation is hardly a priority. They’re being trained and tested for a greater purpose, to fight and protect; they don’t know who they’re fighting for or protecting, exactly, but they haven’t been trained to ask questions, so they just listen and follow. 

On the flip side, there’s a team of civilians whose only goal is to end Operation Genesis once and for all. The project was started by a corporation in a partnership with a classified sector of the government, all kept under lock and key - they’d create a special defense force against the nation’s greatest adversaries, designed to be unstoppable. Then a scientist involved broke away and exposed the procedures used in the Operation; one week later, before he could be contacted for interviews or testimonials, he was gone. Details about the kinetic kids are still unknown to the general public, but the people that make up the counterforce are still sure something shady is going on.

The counterforce is made up of five civilians - Bea, the computer whiz; Cyrus, the medic; Valerie and Will, fighters whose job is mostly to infiltrate the Op. Genesis HQ whenever they can to gather evidence and info against the project; and the team director (a fancy title for “leader who tells them how to not die”), Alistair. Everyone but Alistair is fairly new to the job - the last crew went “missing” rather unceremoniously, so those working above decided to try a fresher, more spry team in their stead. Alistair isn’t happy about it, but he’s going to do his best to keep these kids alive. 

If you are a Jurassic fan, then by now you will be familiar with the upcoming video game ‘Jurassic World Evolution’, set for a Summer 2018 release to coincide with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Frontier Developments (Planet Coaster, Rollercoaster Tycoon, etc.) and Realtime UK (Animations for Farming Simulator E3 2017 Trailer, World of Warplanes Teaser Trailer, etc.) partnered up and released a trailer for this fantastic new park-builder game. If you missed out on any of the trailer hype, then take a listen to our dedicated podcast episode, found below.

Now, hot on the heels of our trailer, we have three brand new pieces of concept art which hint a little at the game. Our first piece is very like the final shot of the trailer, showing an obviously agitated T-Rex in a situation within a stormy paddock environment. We have the red-lighting akin to the breakout sequence from the trailer here, suggesting that this could even potentially be a piece of concept art for the rendered trailer we received for the project. Our second piece of concept art gives us a look at the T-Rex within a more luscious jungle environment here, looking almost as if it is within a habitat of an enclosure, or within the jungle of Isla Nublar – since we know Nublar will be included in the game. Here we can see an assortment of different plants, so I imagine we will have the ability to tailor the kind of shrubbery we have in our different paddocks – just like in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. This piece of artwork is a wonderful hint at the potential of this game. Lastly, we have our most busy shot – a wide view of the Jurassic World area of Isla Nublar, here with a few notable locations accompanied by some new landscape tweaks. This could presumably be a piece of concept art for that final zoom-out shot in the trailer, although this shot does offer slightly more in the way of hints.  Here we see a structure very much like the breeding facility from JP: OG next to the T-Rex, suggesting that perhaps a similar system of placing down structures to allow you to breed dinosaurs may be in place within the game. We can also see not one, but what appears to be two fenced of lagoons in addition to the small lake from the Jurassic World film – suggesting that we may possibly be seeing the addition of multiple aquatic locations within our parks – opening a whole new realm of creativity for the contents of these parks. Here we also, as I mentioned, see a significant number of the structures from Jurassic World – which suggests to me that we may see a JW template map, or at the very least, that we may have the ability to place these buildings and iconic structures within our own park creations.

Excited for the game? What do you think of this fantastic new concept art? Get in contact with us and let us know! Make sure to look out for more news from Frontier’s upcoming convention in London in October too. I personally cannot wait to get my hands on Jurassic World Evolution.

That sounds fantastic, and I’m really excited to see what those guys cook up.

Operation Genesis was a game I’ve had a lot of fun with – it’s just the main problem is that it’s not sustainable for very long. I get the itch to play it again every 2-3 years, and after about an hour or two, I’ve found I’ve done basically everything there is to do. There’s not enough buildings to place, you run out of dig sites to mine for DNA sources, and the only really unpredictable things that happen are rainstorms, which are actually super easy to survive. It checks off a lot of “bare minimum” features for that sort of game.

But it’s still fun while it lasts! It has authentic music, authentic sounds, and isn’t actively terrible, just kind of thin on content.

I’d like a little more difficulty, really. The message of the movies is “life finds a way” and Operation Genesis doesn’t really have that. Dinosaurs never actively try to escape or cause trouble. Maybe if you mix too many dinosaur types together they’ll attack each other, and there’s a “dangerous” ride where you can let visitors ride a jeep through animal enclosures that can sometimes go wrong, but it’s not really very dangerous feeling. There’s not a lot to keeping the dinosaurs under control. It’s more about vaccinating them from diseases like “dinobelly.”

There should be more back and forth. It should be a constant struggle of the dinosaurs figuring out how to do something to escape, and you having to figure out how to stop them. Like babyproofing a house, but it’s an amusement park full of dinosaurs.

aw heck that’s sweet of you, thank you!!! 💕💕💕

I actually have never posted about Camila and Elodie in depth, so alas I have nothing more to offer on their behalf, but

Henry and varian are literally just “Henry and varian,” I think there’s only one post about them?

The teen detective stuff is all under “td au”

I always place the entrance on the middle top of the island,is what makes sense to me and

Yep,its backwards. Ok,i can work with it

Yeah, it looks pretty good. I’m really glad they actually seem to be building off of the gameplay concepts from Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. They could have just ignored that game and kind of gone in their own direction, but instead it looks like they’re using that game as a base and making this in to kind of a spiritual successor to Operation Genesis.

Operation Genesis is probably unironically the best Jurassic Park game. Since it’s like, 15 years old this year, if none of you have ever heard of it, it’s a sim management game like Planet Coaster (also by the Evolution developers) where you make your own Jurassic Park. You set admission prices, build concessions and attractions, do archeology and research DNA to clone dinosaurs, etc.

The problem is there’s only about three hours worth of fun in Operation Genesis. You run out of things to build, there are deliberate limits on how many dinosaurs you can research, and there’s very little challenge required to building a five-star amusement park (the game’s win condition). The game’s one and only real hazard is tropical storms, and while those can be very devastating, they aren’t very frequent. Supposedly dinosaurs can break out on their own, but I’ve never seen it happen, and by the time you’re rounding the corner on that third hour, you’ve probably researched most of the tech and have the strongest fences and tons of security anyway.

There’s a whole weird history to Operation Genesis; that game was planned to be something completely different, but the end result is that it just doesn’t feel like there’s enough to do.