Yeah, I still find so strange that this is the Deinonychus design in this game. Obviously the devs wanted to differentiate them from the Velociraptors, which were originally modeled after Deinonychus, and the direction they picked was making them even more retrosaur with the deep and stubby head, and added some unique features in the form of a tail fin(?) and a comb. The added features are neat, and I like speculative designs, but Deinonychus is such an odd choice for a dinosaur to add these features to, since we know for sure it didn't have them - the comb (if meant to be similar to some modern birds' like cassowaries) would have been apparent in fossils, and Deinonychus was fully feathered, so if anything its display features would have been plumage, not fins/sails. Maybe wattles.
JP/W dinosaurs are all "gene-manipulated theme-park monsters", so this look could perfectly well be explained with hybridization, but it seems like the more obvious route would have been to make the game's Deinonychus look like an actual up-to-date scientifically accurate dromaeosaurid (in its accurate size, too), since the JP/W Velociraptors' design is by choice still stuck in the 1990s. It would have been an excellent opportunity to add some educational value to the game, with the characters giving context when you release the first specimen. And I think it could have, from a more cynically commercial point of view, worked to appease both the people who want to see some accurate raptors already and the awesomebros who would throw a tantrum if you do anything too drastic with the iconic Velociraptors (which might be why the JWE-original Velo skins are so bland, for fear of upsetting fans with too outrageous designs - I'd love to see something like these Deinonychus skins, that look like the designers had fun with them, on the scaly Velos, but I imagine there would have been fanboy tears involved if a licenced JP property put purple and pink on a Velociraptor).
Or, you can do this, too, but it feels so unfair for Deinonychus to get the even-retrosaurier-and-lizardier treatment when you consider its role in changing both the public and the scientific community's view of dinosaurs from tail-dragging lizards to active, warm-blooded, and birdlike. Even if the JP/W Velos weren't directly based on it, without Deinonychus there would be no Jurassic Park with its agile and intelligent dinosaur depiction.
This critter the game calls Deinonychus is very cute, though, and I think it would have been well-suited for being the design for a hybrid between JP/W Velociraptor and JP/W Dilophosaurus, which I think is also a hybrid that fans who want more of those would probably like to see. I'd be happy to still keep them in the game under that identity, if I manage to include accurate dromaeosaurids via mods and have one of them be Deinonychus. Just like I would like to keep the scaly Velociraptors and tiny, frilled Dilophosaurus, too, alongside their more scientifically accurate versions. The more variety the merrier.
And I do really like the patterns and colours. My favorite is vivid (pictured here in the foreground).
Pictured here with her girlfriend.
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