Explorers! It took some time, but we finally made it! Here is the fresh start of a new adventure on one of our favorite game: Jurassic WorldTM Alive. This is our first one, so be gentle. Ludia being quite transparent, there aren’t much surprises, but we still recommend reading this until the very end!

Introduction

If we make a comparison with another well-known real world AR adventure game, the datamining – or more precisely the APK-mining – of a popular application can deliver a lot of secrets, a better understanding of the game and its mechanics, and its results are always highly anxiously expected! Developers leave some infos on what could come next, and some answers to legitimate questions can also be found when digging into thousands of lines of code.

First, if we think of AR games, taking a step back looking at the videogame industry in its entirety, we can clearly see that we are at a turning point, or perhaps a milestone pitched a few years back which has won millions people’s heart! Real world AR adventure games (let’s call them RWARAG, almost sounds like a Dino, right?) were a complete game changer in the industry, and now franchises start to dive into it. Additional games with big names are coming and a lot of people from all ages are playing them. These games actually become part of one’s life, of one’s routine; and everyone is clearly excited about the future of the AR mobile gaming development.

What’s the point of all of this, you may ask? Well, as gamers, we share that love for those games, and as developers, for what they are made of. Aaaaaand we love to spoil ourselves, let’s be honest!

See this article, not as a classic APK-mining one, because in this one we will not go through a lot of hidden features from the latest update (that will be discussed in another article).

Ludia’s APK “guts”

When we look into the APK, JWA is entirely different from Pokémon GO. Therefore, for us, it’s a new way to mine that we have to learn. We’re still winning our spurs. The data is separated, consigned into multiples folders, and a lot of information is obfuscated (information is not saved using clear and complete understandable names). But we can work with it, and find new features as they are added.

For instance, it’s not obvious to find in the APK that the max level for players is 20, and 30 for Dinos.

New stuff in the latest update (1.2.16)

There isn’t much added in the v1.2.16 compared with the previous updates. Everything that’s new is visible to you in the game. Nothing hidden, no secret dino. Sorry (too much Canadian, right?, but sadly, there isn’t always something new and interesting to see).

But, there are hints of ARCore (Google’s AR tools) being added into the game. For know, we don’t know if it’s yet functional, or just the presages for the future of the game.

Speculation and leak time!

We could not end this article without giving you a little something, without a bit of interesting findings. Please note that what follows is purely speculation and could never be a thing or be totally different whenever actually introduced in the game!

In the code, we found some references to:

quests : We could potentially see daily quests being introduced into the game, which would make sense considering that it’s an important feature of Jurassic World TM The Game to gather experience and resources. But how would it be adapted into JWA? This remains to be seen.

: We could potentially see daily quests being introduced into the game, which would make sense considering that it’s an important feature of Jurassic World The Game to gather experience and resources. But how would it be adapted into JWA? This remains to be seen. guilds : Very much like Pokémon GO, it’s possible that we could see the introduction of teams or guilds into the game. Adding guilds would certainly enhance the AR aspect of the game, i.e. introducing another feature that would get people playing outside in the real world!

: Very much like Pokémon GO, it’s possible that we could see the introduction of teams or guilds into the game. Adding guilds would certainly enhance the AR aspect of the game, i.e. introducing another feature that would get people playing outside in the real world! campaigns: Similarly to quests, there seems to be code related to campaigns. How would this be different than quests? Possibly by introducing a story mode just like in Jurassic WorldTM The Game.

Except for the fact that these elements were found in the code; what they will really turn out to be in the game remains speculations, so please do not spread false news! But it is really exciting to know that Ludia has a lot in store for us!

Parting words

We are really happy to start this APK-mining adventure with you, and be sure that we will keep you up to date with the last news from the game’s updates!

Do you have any questions for us? Let us know in the comments or join our Discord to ask our team! I’m sure there is more to dig out. 😉