Jurassic Park Builder First Impressions

When I was in third grade I went and saw Jurassic Park in theatres.  I was just starting to understand how special effects were done, but nothing prepared me for the experience of seeing this movie.  Like many of you, I'm sure JP is one of your favorite movies, and what could be better than building your own park.

Jurassic Park Builder is out for IPhone, IPad, and Facebook.  The game is incredibly addicting.  The other JP games I'm familar with come from the Sega Genesis and Sega CD.  There was a recent game that's similar to the Walking Dead games, but I haven't touched that game as of yet.  JPB is free on my IPhone, so I decided to give it a whirl.

The game starts you out with a newly reopened Jurassic Park with no attractions.  You're given some missions to start you off.  The cast from the previous movies make text dialogue appearances.  I find it odd that Grant or Ian are working for Hammond to run the park, but it's nice to see them in action either way.

The herbivores and carnivores have different food which you can buy or you can activate a dock that periodically refills plants or meat. The various dinosaurs level up as they are fed and give you more money.  Money is either in the form of coins or dollars.  Each one serves a different purpose.  The coins are gained by the dinos, other attractions, and missions that you complete.  The dollar bills are garnered either through missions or if you pay REAL money... which I'm not doing, because I'm looking for real work at the moment.  The coins are used for common things you need on a normal basis.  The bills are used for extravagant dinos/attractions and to speed the processes up.  Evolving dinos, clearing out jungles, and building structures all take real time to complete, and with the right amount of bills, you can speed that process up.

The game becomes addicting really fast.  I find myself checking on my progress at least once a hour (sometimes a lot more).  The dinos become restless during storms and there's a touch and go mini game that really gets the blood pumping for how simple the controls are. 

Once I've really gotten into the game and expanded my park to large scale, I'll put a scored review up.  In any case, I recommend it to anyone who's a fan or dinosaurs or JP.  It's free, so what do you have to lose.