Paleo Pines

I had a lot of fun with this game on first release, though thought it would have more to it as a farming/ ranching sim. I finished it very quickly it felt, though it did bring me a lot of joy in the process.

This is a very simplistic game, with very frustrating controls. Everything from planting to removing debris is made overly complicated by super slow commands. I probably can't describe it well, but for instance the act of planting for instance should be simple click to hoe, click to plant, click to water, click to harvest. Instead each click is actually a press and hold of several seconds. Agonizingly slow. And that's true of every single action you need to do. What I thought would be a cute, cozy little dino themed farming sim is beyond aggravating from how tedious doing absolutely anything in the game is. Would not recommend, and I'm annoyed I kept playing it as long as I did because now I can't return it and I highly doubt I'll ever try playing it again.

dino + farm = perfect

Paleo Pines is a cute dinosaur farming sim where you move to an island filled with dinosaurs in a quest to find a companion for your Parasaurolophus. This game is often unclear about what to do or how to complete tasks, making some parts a frustrating task of Googling around to progress. The pacing is awful: through some kind of glitch, I was able to finish the main quest before my quest marker meant for me to, but I was still able to complete quests in that quest line after finishing the final one. All of the non-main quests progress glacially slowly so that I was barely started on any of them by the time I completed the story. The dinosaur designs in this game are delightful, and it was always exciting finding rare colors for them in the wild. Taking care of the dinosaurs was sometimes frustrating, though, especially because they need constant attention and there are not many options for automation. I loved how the different dinosaur abilities helped with farm tasks, though the game fails to explain how some of them work. The NPCs are bland and horribly frustrating, and the tasks they give you are unrewarding (here's yet another bag of potato seeds). Cooking in this game is the worst I've ever seen, with missing prompts and about a 40% success rate, which is infuriating when the cooking achievement requires hundreds of successful recipes. This was a soul-sucking achievement hunt I wouldn't recommend to anybody, but even beyond the achievements, though I enjoyed this game, its severe lack of direction and unfinished feel taint the adorable experience I had with it.

I think it's a nice game, although not sure if I could reccomend it or not? There is a lot things to do, but feels like there's nothing to do in the game. Most NPCs are kinda bland and I feel like there's not enough tutorials or push from the game to actually progress after the first few days. The controls are a bit wonky sometimes too. The artstyle and the dinos are very cute though!

Paleo Pines really is just a lighthearted game.
The graphics are simple, the Gameplay is straight forward.

All the issues in the game can be fixed easily with a third-party program.
Perfect soil, gemstones, etc.

Autism type beat: The Video Game

its a very cute game. the sesitivity could be lower, and there could be more to do. over all, i adore the design, the music, and of course the dinos.

a cute and enjoyable game

I love the game so much but I have some wishes
I wish there was a minimap, crafting (like stardew), more farm decor & I wish we could decorate our house!! We can't even enter it:( but still, am addicted. great game!

Dinosaurs, cuddly dino farming sim. 10/10

So fun and cute! As someone who loves stardew and harvest moon and also dinosaurs, the concept of this game is perfect to me. I highly recommend it.

A COOL GAME I WOULD CHECK OUT THE PALEO PINE WIKI

a calm and cute game is great relaxeing and even if you are a collector or a disscover. they is something for you. is fully worth the money

A very cute cozy game. Low to no pressure.

Great for kids or big kids who want a break from high intensity games.

love it

The main quests are vague and confusing and I had to look up guides over and over again. There's a bit of jank, especially when reorganizing pens on the farm. Once I built one new pen and two other unconnected pens stopped registering and unhoused the dinosaurs in them. Always very stressful building or moving pens around. Dinosaurs on the farm will run away while you're trying to get their attention making you chase them down. In late game, the tiny dinosaurs would just not help on certain farm squares that they should have been able to help with. BUT - the rest of the game was fun. There's charm and the dinosaurs are cute. The gameplay is very repetitive. I often put on an audiobook while going through the motions of the game.

This recommendation comes with a couple pretty massive IFs.

Paleo Pines is a game where you move to a ranch with your parasaurolophus Lucky, clean up the farm and farm crops while befriending the townsfolk and exploring a world with a ton of different dinos. The main quest revolves around finding other parasaurolophuses, since Lucky has been alone for some time and they are rumoured to have lived around Paleo Pines.
On the way, you will befriend dinosaurs, which will come to live on the farm with you. After some time, each will help you in some way: each type has a farm skill and a wild skill. All small dinosaurs that can't be ridden can discover forageables in the world, and assigned to a water bowl/seed pot/harvesting basket to help you automate farming. Larger dinos can harvest in big sweeps, sprint (very useful for travel) or destroy fallen logs or big stones to unlock new areas or remove debris from the farm.

Let me get this straight right off the bat: if you're expecting a Stardew Valley or Sun Haven or something of the sort, don't play this game. It's not comparable to that. I have 80+ hours in this game and there are some of problems I feel it has. But let me start with the positives:

1) The dinosaurs. They are fun, expressive, unique and useful (largely). Each dinosaur type/breed has a very unique body type and appearance, and none of them feel very similar except maybe Coelophysis and Compsognathus (but there's a size and habitat difference). All types have their own animations which vary from extremely cute to wacky, but all feel well made and fitting for the body type. It also seems pretty anatomically and dietarily accurate (as far as possible for a cartoony game). The color variations are also expansive and not just the "normal" colors dinosaurs are usually depicted in (browns, greens, etc), although I'm not a huge fan of the very bright patterns.

1b) The befriending mechanic and bringing dinos back to your farm is also new, unique and well done. Each type has a favorite flavor, and you can grow crops or forage for items of that flavor. Upon encountering a dinosaur that you'd like to befriend, you can figure out which flavor is its favorite by trying out various options. Befriending a dino requires a meter to be filled to certain point, and then feeding it a Poppin in its preferred flavor. Overfeeding or oversoothing ends the befriending minigame, and you'll have to try again. But there is something magical about that first dinosaur you befriend and bring back to the farm.

When returning to the farm, you'll need to supply it with a pen. These are built with fences and can be as large or small as you want, there's really no limit. This allows creativity in farm setup. Each dinosaur type has a couple traits (diet, habitat, pen size and number of penmates) that decide what you'll need to provide it with the best pen possible. Herbivores and carnivores don't mix (because it's "uncomfortable", not because the carnivores will eat the herbivores), but omnivores can share with either. Additionally, each dinosaur needs a "dreamstone" of a specific size. I'll come back to these. Overall, the dinosaurs are varied enough to make them a big selling point of this game.

2) Visually, this game looks pretty nice. The world is bright and colorful and the dinosaurs and NPCs fit in this visual package. The three habitats are distinct and well done. Change of the seasons affects plantlife and dinosaur spawns, although minorly. Pen biomes are also unique and distinct. I didn't encounter any visual glitches, though some of the effects (rain puddles) seemed to not stay at their apparent size and grow or shrink with distance between the puddle and the player character.

Unfortunately, that's all the good I have to say. There are some pretty major cons instead:

1) Most importantly, the world feels empty and dead. There are 3 major areas (excluding the farm and the town) and there are maybe 20 NPCs in the entire world that are named. Of those, you can befriend 9 (some of which you can't reach until you've made decent progress towards the main quest). Their personalities are not really expanded further than maybe one general trait and a flaw. However, you're expected by the game to put in work befriending them, since it's required for the main quest at several points. Granted, I don't think friendship is reduced by time, so you're not required to talk to them daily, but I never felt actively motivated towards getting to know these people. I'm halfway through the 4th year and most of the NPCs are still in the early levels of friendship.

Throughout the 3-month, 63-day year, there are 3 festivals. Only one of these affects anything about the game and even then, I never spent more than a few minutes on each of these. I stopped going to the two that don't have any effect, since it doesn't feel like I'm rewarded in any meaningful way by interacting with these events.

2) The gameplay is serviceable, though not very interesting, and some of the mechanics or controls are clunky. The game also doesn't explain anything beyond the bare basics. It took me almost half a year to learn that to sprint, I had to press Shift. Maybe I'm stupid, but this wasn't communicated clearly. Your character has 50 stamina at the start of the day, which can be replenished by sitting down and doing nothing. I don't believe eating your own crops affect your stamina, which is really weird since that seems to be a staple of farming games that implement a stamina mechanic. This is also the first game I've played that requires stamina for harvesting. I'm not sure what it adds, but it definitely detracts from my enjoyment to be out of stamina all the time. Sitting down isn’t a fun mechanic to replenish it. And you will never have more than 50 stamina.

The player character only has 20 inventory slots. You can expand this once to 24. That's it. Different qualities of crops will take up multiple slots. Your tools will take up multiple slots.

3) The dinosaurs. Yes, they also have major downsides. Mucking out their pens every day is extremely tedious for very little reward. If you don't do this, however, eventually they will lose their "helper" status, meaning they won't help you on the farm anymore, and beyond that, they can even leave completely. Maybe my dinosaurs have intestinal problems, but there's pretty much dino crap in every pen every day.

The dreamstones required to keep them on the farm are also finite.

The functionality to have small dinos tend to your crops is locked behind a character that doesn't appear until the end of the first year, and it required multiple quests to fully unlock.

4) General problems. Some parts of the main quest are locked behind crops that require friendship with particular NPCs. The game doesn't tell you about this or how to obtain these items.

You're a farmer, but you can't grow herbivore food. You can only ever buy it at the store or pick maybe 10 a day up from the overworld. Herbivore dinos can't live off cauliflowers and other vegetables for some reason.

Seeds are extremely expensive in the early game.

There's a bug in the main quest that is consistently talked about on forums about this game, which freezes the game and requires you to restart from an autosave. For some reason, this hasn't been fixed.

Spinosaurus isn't in this game :(

There's more, but I'm running out of space and patience. All in all, it's not a terrible game, but I would encourage new players to buy this when it's on sale. For me, it's pretty much a shiny hunting simulator, as I'm primarily looking for ultra rare colors and doing not much else after having finished the (serviceable but somewhat boring) main quest. Once I find them all or lose interest, I will probably stop playing.

Then again, these 80+ hours have been fun, and that's why this isn't a not recommended. But it has its flaws, and I think new players should be aware of them.

As cute and fun as this game is, there's just not enough here after over a year's worth of "development". The studio behind it seems more interested in making and selling plushies and other merchandise than actually adding anything to the game itself. I find it frustrating how it can still feel like day one of release even after all this time.

Cutest dinosaur game ever! Its a similar experience and feel to other games like; Stardew Valley, Star Stable Online and Animal Crossing. Im absolutely in love!!!!!

It is a very cute and fun game!

It feels a bit underdeveloped in some areas. Animals are all cuties and my friends, but the build mode sucks, farming is kind of lackluster (can't grow my own food for my pens??? hyper-capitalist farm structure), and the amount of running back and forth you need to do to cook food or do a quest is a bit bonkers. I feel like the game should find a 50/50 of ranch and open-world gameplay, but it feels like it's not really hitting either mark.
My only other major gripes are with the UI, namely the map and the loading screens. Hitting a load screen every 4 minutes isn't fun, and it's also a bit disappointing it's just the same image. The map is also a bit confusing, and it's easy to get disoriented in some places like Dapplewood.
Overall cute game and I'd recommend if you don't mind a kinda barebones farming sim. Scientifically accurate-yet cute dinosaurs makes up for the game's faults but it is a bit tough to even hang out with the dinos.

Before buying this game I read a few reviews that didn't like it, and after playing enough to get to the second area I think I can conclude that it just wasn't their kind of game. I have been hooked on playing this since getting it, I love the dinosaurs and their *adorable* noises, and that you can pet them!! The flute communication is very whimsical and fun, I have been learning each dino's song to be able to play for them every day :) The farming had unexpected depth to it with the soil types, I haven't seen that in other games I've played but I like it! That and the favorite foods and dino preferences, there's a good amount of things to keep track of without being overwhelming. As a player of Animal Crossing and similar speed of games, I enjoy the slower pace that the game goes at since it helps you just chill out and do your own little tasks between quests. The looser sandboxy feel to it is nice, it reminds me of Slime Rancher especially with the creature collector similarities.
The one thing I saw others saying that I do admit is true is that the questboard missions are repetitive and simple, but honestly I don't mind that either since it's pretty funny to go between people standing 20 feet from another delivering things and also the simpler quests make it easy to just relax and run around the map with your dinos (which they enjoy and gain experience from!).

Overall I would definitely recommend this game to people who are fans of slower games and just want to relax and take care of cute dinosaurs! There's enough micro-management and complexity to keep things interesting, but not *too* much to make you run around frantically trying to keep things in order.

I really wanted to like this game but found it grueling. The graphics aren't great, which doesn't bother me if the gameplay is awesome. But the gameplay was very boring and grindy. It was hard to get enough money to buy fences to get new dinosaurs, and you need their pens already in order to get them. You also end up having to look up how big of a pen a dino is going to need because some of them are solo dinos, some need to be in pairs, and some need to be in larger groups with a certain amount of space per dino, but there's not an easy way to tell prior to catching a dino (and you are encouraged to have pens ready beforehand). Also, it's not easy to tell how much space a pen has prior to putting a dino into it, so planning my farm was almost impossible. You are incredibly limited on what you can do per day (depending on how many dinos you have - see my struggles above). The quests were repetitive and boring. I made myself stick it out until I unlocked the next area, hoping that would inject some freshness into the equation, but it didn't. There is no fast travel so it was really annoying going back and forth to pick up materials from my farm to deliver to people in the second area and explore. It was a cute idea but needs some refinement and quality of life upgrades for players.

Definitely a super fun game! I love the cute artstyle, the soundtracks, and the variety in all the dinos/other prehistoric animals. The quests are very repetitive (most of them are fetch quests) but I love the rest of the aspects of the game so far! The character customization is a little lacking, specifically with clothes, but I haven't made it to the canyon just yet so there could be more options there, and I'm looking forward to exploring the game further!

Very good

i love dinosaurs i always have. i wish this game existed when i was a kid because it wouldve been my favorite game ever. but also if this game existed when i was a kid, in 2007, and information about it wasnt easily accessible, i would have never made it halfway through the game because there are some roadblocks that the game just expects you to know how to solve when it hasnt given you any information. i feel like this game could benefit massively from like a quest marker where you can select a quest and itd tell you where to go. this is the biggest problem for me.

anyway, unrelated, i dont care about any of the human characters. obviously im just here for the dinosaurs. another complaint i have is small dinosaurs really only have 1 ability and i wish they were more varied. i wish there was a winter season since theres all other seasons but not winter? idk. it wouldve been very pretty and a christmas-adjacent event would be fun. weird winter erasure.

human food is basically useless, i dont run around the overworld as a human im on a dinosaur 99% of the time, so the buffs it gives are meaningless. even with the crop buffs, it takes too much effort to craft the food that the buff doesnt feel worth it. the character customization is extremely bare bones, theres like 4 hair options in total. clothes have to be crafted and are eeeeh, theyre ok. theres no gender so thats a plus.. i wouldve liked it if crops could be made into herbivore food too

i could go on even longer thinking more petty "there shouldve been this" and such but its an indie game and i think they have dlc planned so i wont whine too much. overall i really enjoyed it, i just had some moments that frustrated the fuck out of me that id never get past if google didnt exist

It's a cute dino farming sim. A bit lacking in some areas, like despite the amount of wild dinos running around the world does feel rather empty at times. Still I have had a lot of fun playing it, especially looking for some of the unique skins and I love how it features a lot of different species, not just the well known ones and not just dinos! It's a game that I highly recommend.

Pretty cute, but did get annoying after a while. Not bad, but I wish I didn't buy it...

Cute and satisfying, quiet enough that you don't get overwhelmed. Sometimes a bit lacking in tutorial info, but there's zero stakes, so not a big deal to just take a bit to figure stuff out. Obsessed with the sound effects. Crisp and full.

Give me all the dinos right now!

this is a cute, dino farming sim that i desperately wish i had as a dinosaur obsessed child, it has quite a few dinos to find, and unlike most dinosaur games, doesnt only have the handfull everyone knows.
if you have a dinosaur obsessed kid, or were a dinosaur obsessed kid and want something that will feed your inner child i highly recommend this game.

Cute Game. Needs to explain stuff more, like how to stuff, how to release dinos u have friended. I had to google alot of it. I heard u have to play the friend song then the release song, it took me so long to get it right. How to unlock more pipin favors, i wanted to friend a dino that liked spicy but didnt have a spicy pipin nothing to say how. I think i have to do more quests for her. or how to cook for the 1st time etc Many things that arent explained how do to.

Very cute ranch/farm game. I wish there was more jobs for the smaller dinos though like helping with pen cleaning and maybe food dispensing? Very enjoyable finding rare colours of dinos <3

This game is basically Harvest Moon with dinos. It's so adorable!

its so cozy!!!

It might be an interesting game for people who really like grinding farm games. But sadly i find these kinda games a tad boring and tideus. If you really enjoy dinos and farming this is a game for you.

I love Dinosaurs, really cute to have something that combines farming and Dinosaurs.

This game is the cutest game ever. Very fun and relaxing.

Hell yeah dinosaur farming game

I had been interested in this game since I originally saw a trailer awhile back. I avoided buying it despite it being on my wishlist for awhile for fear that I may not enjoy it and money was tight. I got it when it went on sale for 50% off and figured it was worth the risk.

It is wonderful. I have played somewhere over 30 hours at this point and thoroughly have enjoyed every bit. I love looking for cool new dinosaurs or unique colors of dinosaurs I already have, farming (which is always my favorite in game), running tasks and befriending the towns people. I am excited to reach "end game" but also to see how many unique colors I can find of the dinosaurs!

Interested in trying the DLC if I don't run out of dopamine from the hyper-fixation I've had on this game the past week.

I hate to give this game a negative review because I love dinosaurs and I love the premise of a dinosaur farming sim, but I'm sadly rather disappointed with this game.

Right off the bat, the character creation is very lackluster. There are barely any options that leave me with a character I can't feel good about. While on the subject, the human npc characters look quite bad. I do actually like the art style for the world and dinosaurs, even if it's somewhat too "cutesy", but the human npcs look somewhat hideous and uncanny.

The gameplay loop itself feels rather simplistic and devoid of any depth. There is a lack of any sense of progression or actual goals to work towards. The quests you get are very shallow and not engaging.
The game feels too childish unfortunately. Even games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing have a lot of depth and feel engaging for a broad audience while being kid friendly. This just ends up feeling patronizing to play if you're older than 10 years.
The dinosaurs should be the core, and highlight, of the game. But your interaction with them is shallow and limited. Their abilities and interaction with the farm is great at first glance but it doesn't take long to realize that there are only like 5-6 abilities total and a lot of the species stop feeling unique. I also hate the colour rarity system personally. For someone that enjoys "shiny" hunting for rare colours it's a nightmare not having any proper in-game indicators for finding rare dinosaur patterns. You have to go through the process of putting them to sleep one at a time to manually check the notebook, or refer to an external visual guide. It's a chore.

I had higher hopes for this game and I'm sad to say that I was disappointed with the final product. It has a lot of charm but feels way too flat in the end. The price tag does this game no justice.

Paleo Pines is about befriending dinosaurs with your dino pal Lucky, a Parasaurolophus, and discovering things about them while also maintaining a ranch that you turn into a dino sanctuary. Above all, the game centers around making sure the dinosaurs are cared for and loved. Befriending them, establishing a good relationship, and eventually mounting up and using their abilities to traverse the land and remove obstacles. Discover new areas, new dinosaurs, and learning about them in their natural habitat. It also does more than just allow befriending other dinosaurs, but pushes you into a world of story content centered around your friend Lucky and the disappearance of her kind.

The most noticeable thing about this game is its cute art style. The dinosaurs have a cartoonish playfulness of which wishes to draw you in and make you feel things about their being so adorable. The game does not offer any sort of combat, and so it is very cozy and chill feeling as you build your relationships up with every individual. One of the significant features to Paleo Pines is the puzzle system regarding the befriending process. In order for you welcome any dinosaur, you must learn their call via your flute. This is how you'll be able to communicate with them and gain their trust. However, these dinosaurs aren't your pets or your livestock. Unlike games like Stardew Valley where you own said animals, Paleo Pines dinosaurs have their own likes and dislikes, and they can eventually choose to leave your ranch if you aren't providing them with enough comfort and care. Thankfully, these giant gentle beasts are quite forgiving, even if you mess up once or twice, you have a chance to redeem yourself more than once.

All and all, Paleo Pines offers a very significant place in the farming type genre. It is perhaps the most relaxed game that I possess, and it has never given me anxiety. Many other games offer a slice of chill and vibe, but it doesn't quite give me the exact feeling of relaxed. This game has taken my heart, and I find myself smiling, ohh and awing at the adorable dinosaurs, both big and small! If you are looking for super chill and no anxiety, but also love dinosaurs? This is your kind of game!

cutest game ive ever played!! i love the archaeopteryxs so much. so glad this game included my favorite dinosaur

I love a task and even better, Dinos!

maybe its a skill issue on my part but for whatever reason, 7 minutes into my gameplay, my dino could not eat from the trough. yknow the thing thats crucial to the tutorial? waited two minutes and she did nothing.

also the art direction is. confusing? but specifically for the humans. why do they look like that. theyre so ugly and don't match the dinos at all

i hate to refund this but i did. was not happy with it.

Absolutely adorable and fun game, super chill and easy to grind out resources or just stroll through the world. I love dinos and its so nice to see a game where you make them your friends and not enemies!! Keep up the good work Paleo Pines team!!

Very cute farm sim game with added plus of cute cartoon dinosaurs!

visual appeal with little substance

i had high hopes for paleo pines, especially with its promising concept of blending a dinosaur world with farming and exploration. visually, the game does have a unique and charming art style that draws you in at first glance, with its pastel tones and stylized environments. however, while the visuals are pleasant, they can’t make up for the lack of substance that plagues the overall gameplay.

repetitive and shallow gameplay

unfortunately, paleo pines quickly falls into a cycle of repetition. the farming mechanics, while cute, quickly lose their charm due to their lack of depth. the process of planting crops, feeding dinosaurs, and managing resources feels like a grind with little sense of progression or reward. the game doesn’t introduce any new challenges or variations as you go along, leaving the core gameplay feeling uninspired and monotonous.

flat dinosaur interactions

the dinosaur interactions, which should have been the heart of the game, are oddly flat. the promise of befriending and caring for various species is appealing, but the mechanics are underdeveloped. the act of feeding, petting, and occasionally riding your dinosaurs doesn’t go beyond the basics, making it difficult to form any meaningful attachment to these creatures. this shallow relationship system makes what should have been the most engaging part of the game feel lackluster and unremarkable.

lifeless world with minimal exploration

exploration is another area where paleo pines falls short. despite the large open world, there’s little incentive to venture off the beaten path. the world feels lifeless and static, with few points of interest or hidden secrets to discover. even the environments, which are beautifully designed, start to feel repetitive after a while. without any real rewards or exciting discoveries, exploration feels like a chore rather than an adventure.

bland quests and weak narrative

the quests in paleo pines are uninspired, revolving around basic, mundane tasks that fail to engage the player. there’s no compelling narrative to keep you hooked, and the story feels like an afterthought rather than a core element of the experience. as you progress through the game, the lack of a strong plot or interesting characters only makes the gameplay feel more disconnected and empty.

a missed opportunity

despite its potential, paleo pines is a game that struggles to hold your attention for long. the core mechanics are too shallow, and the world too sparse, to make for an engaging long-term experience. the game feels like it’s stuck in a limbo between being a casual farming sim and a dinosaur adventure, yet never fully commits to either. the result is a lackluster experience that leaves you constantly wishing for more—more depth, more excitement, and more meaningful interactions.

final thoughts: a disappointing game

for anyone looking for a farming sim with depth or a dinosaur game with robust interactions, paleo pines may leave you disappointed. while it’s clear that there was a lot of love put into the game’s concept and world, the final product fails to live up to its promise. it’s a missed opportunity, and ultimately, it leaves you wondering what could have been if the developers had taken more time to flesh out the gameplay and make the world truly come alive.

I hate to make a response to an innocent game like this meant to be for all ages, but for some reason.. It's honestly lacking. I guess I do have a low attention span, but I find this game confusing and also frustrating. There isn't much.. interesting factors to it. It leaves me stumped all the time, and I don't understand why. I wouldn't recommend this if you don't pay attention or read a lot, because this game is quite boring. I played for 53 minutes and gave up.

An amazing cozy game! The dinosaurs are so cute and the style is so fun. It's healing me from my ark trauma xD. Has farming, NPCs you can be friends with, and collection systems.