I am delighted every time a new Ark: Survival Evolved update turns a dinosaur into a wacky gadget. From Archaeopteryx hang gliders to sauropods you can build mobile fortresses upon, the sandbox survival game has a fascinating and violent Flintstones logic. Procedurally-generated worlds are probably the biggest feature in last week’s update but I’m more interested in its new giant salamander. Can you guess what it’s useful for? Oh, y’know, you can ride it underwater and use it as a mobile oxygen tank by sucking air from bladders inside its head. Of course you can. …

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Ark: Survival Evolved caused a kerfuffle recently when the open-world dinosurvival game launched a 15 expansion despite still being in early access. Even an unsatisfying response from developers Studio Wildcard didn’t stop the Scorched Earth add-on from topping the Steam charts, mind. Anyway, now Wildcard are back to free Ark content updates, boshing in two new flying dinos and bringing more desperately-needed performance optimisations. What’s going on in that picture up there? Ah, that’s some folks using the new Archaeopteryx as hang gliders. Just another day in Ark. …

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I’m fascinated by the process of bringing real things into video game systems, deciding how to classify them, which characteristics to represent, how they’ll work, and how to make them distinct. The complex stats and balancing of virtual guns is perhaps the most obvious example, because video games, but I do enjoy seeing Ark: Survival Evolved do the same with prehistoric creatures. Consider the thick-skulled Pachycephalosaurus, which scientists have theorised was into head-butting. Aye, but isn’t that only a fancy attack animation for just another bipedal dinosaur? Right. Well. Let’s game this up: they also have a ‘charge’ attack to even smash through buildings. Ah! Now that’s a gamification I can get behind. …

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