Dinotopia is the best dinosaur game and it’s got puppets

It was a great time to be a dinosaur lover in the 1990s. Growing up in the 1990s was a great time to be a dinosaur-loving kid. The Land Before Time Jurassic Park We’re Back Disney’s Dinosaur Dinosaur Adventure 3D, Walking with Dinosaurs The film Super Mario Bros., if you’re into that… the list goes on.

However, I was most interested in a dinosaur-themed game to capture the world of my fantasy: Dinotopia.

That game was my discovery this year. It came out in 1996, and it’s a children’s puzzle adventure game. It’s also an FMV, with dinosaurs played by huge, complex animatronic puppets.

We’ll get to that later.

WHAT’S DINOTOPIA?

Dinotopia, for the uninitiated was created as a 1992 book series by James Gurney. The story takes place in Dinotopia (the lost continent), where dinosaurs have survived the extinctive event. The island was discovered by humans over the years and became a peaceful community with dinosaurs.

These books were my favorite book as a child. Gurney is a talented painter and can detail every part of Dinotopian existence. Gurney illustrates every image of a person riding a dinosaur by showing you a section of a city made from the remains of an old ship or of chairs that can hold large sauropods.

DINOSAUR GAMES

There are some Dinotopia games. Dinotopia: The Sunstone OdysseyAnd Dinotopia, The Timestone PiratesThe miniseries was produced by Hallmark and featured David Thewlis as well as a Wentworth Miller young star. It came out in 2000.

Both games featured combat as the central mechanic. That confused me. Dinotopia is not a utopia of peace. It’s one of the key themes of the books, and one of the biggest challenges for storytellers working in the setting.

Timestone PiratesIntroduces pirates trying to steal T.rex eggs. They need to be bopped on their heads. Sunstone OdysseyThe Outsiders are a separatist gang that wants dinosaurs subjugated. The Outsiders must also be bopped on top.

The game felt easy, and it was a great way to transition from a narrative challenge. Of course there are tons of hugely popular games that don’t revolve around combat — hello, Animal Crossing! However, that number drops if you look at dinosaurSpiele. It’s a shame. This is a shame.

And then, I found DinotopiaCD-ROM Adventure Game : 1996

It’s got two things the other Dinotopia games don’t have: puzzles, and animatronic dinosaurs.

Photo Composition: Clayton Ashley/Polygon

DINOTOPIA

DinotopiaThe game stars Nathan Drake, a man with an unlikely name! Nathan Drake has just been shipwrecked in Dinotopia, and is on the lookout for Constance. As he travels, he interacts with classic book characters as well as solves puzzles. They are all played by actors who look very much like the illustrated versions.

The game’s publisher, Turner Interactive, brought on developer co-op The Dreamer’s Guild to make the game. The Dreamer’s Guild was an employee-driven business, with the developers themselves weighing in on what projects to take next. They had just completed a book-to game adaptation. I Have No Mouth, and I Must ScreamThe horrifying Harlan Ellison short tale that you may recognize freakin’ darkAnd It is notChildren!

That adaptation was not well received. And if you’re an employee-run business you can decide to pivot from Hugo Award-winning sci-fi shorts to Children’s Puzzle Adventure Games.

As a side note, The Dreamer’s Guild’s website is still active, and it is a beautiful relic of the early Internet. This website is highly recommended.

The Dreamer’s Guild wouldn’t be handling the game’s cutscenes. Turner Interactive made the incredibly big-brained decision to film the cutscenes with real actors, and the dinosaurs were played by enormous animatronic puppets whose voice actors perform as if they’re doing callbacks for The Jim Henson Company.

I’m not kidding. You can see the video.

Photo: Andre Freitas/AFX Studios

It is a delightful game. StrangeYou can find out more. The puzzles are charming — players use the Dinotopian alphabet to decode things, or create songs with a Parasaurolophus — and the puppets are Amazing

Andre Freitas created ten animatronic dinosaur puppets with his special effects company, AFX Studios. Each one was hand-painted in latex and featured complex animatronics. Each one had to be piloted by multiple puppeteers — some working eyelids on radio controls, others using rods to maneuver the puppets’ massive heads. Freitas stated that Turner paid him $85,000. There are not enough puppets

Photo: Andre Freitas/AFX Studios

Freitas’ work is amazing, and it goes a hugeHow to play this game Take a look like Dinotopia, even though the later games have better “graphics.” He also did the makeup on the Actors, translating Gurney’s painting style onto a human canvas.

For more information and more images of the amazing puppets, please see the video. Dinotopia. It’s a strange, wonderful ’90s gem, and my kid-self would have loved it.

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