Dinocide Demo

Dinosaurs are the kind of creatures we can be both glad and sad that they went extinct millions of years ago. While it’s nice to imagine what it would be like to ride one of them, it’s a lot more plausible to think that we would have been just another item on their menu. Still, that doesn’t need to stop our imagination, which is why we have all these great games and movies on the subject.

Dinocide is a retro platformer in which you control a prehistoric man as he makes his way across the world in a quest to find his loved one. The game is about as classic as it can get in most regards, meaning that you basically run, jump and deal with various monsters. However, you also have to get acquainted with some interesting new features, all of which make the experience a tad more dynamic.

For starters, the man you control needs to keep feeding in order to avoid death. There are fruits waiting for you throughout the levels, but they are pretty far apart from each other. In short, it’s mandatory to move quickly, otherwise your character won’t make it to the end. The hunger bar also serves as a life bar, meaning that points are subtracted if you come in contact with enemies.

Before each stage, you have the option to equip the character with a few weapons, depending on which ones you manage to unlock along the way. It is also possible to mount one of the many different dinosaurs, including pterodactyls and a T-Rex. They each have unique abilities as well, such as fire spitting or even flying, depending on the dinosaur in question.

As you might expect, a retro platformer comes with retro graphics as well. Thus, the 8-bit color scheme should hit home with the more mature gamers out there. The artwork and the sprites are quite well done, on the other hand, so you should still be able to enjoy the landscapes. However, it would seem like some of the backgrounds are rather empty at the moment, but this is still a demo for now.

In the end, Dinocide is pretty simple and straightforward, yet you can get a lot of fun out of it if the genre appeals to you. The different mounts and items make it a blast to try different approaches for the same levels.