Dinosaur Run

Community Showcase Game Development
1

[Updated Post]

Hey, I’ve been working on this game for almost 2 years. I’m a one-person “team”

I’ve created this for my son as a present. This is the first game I’ve ever created and it’s made entirely in blueprints.

I would love some feedback, opinions or constructive criticism.

It’s really daunting showing this off to the public, but I hope you enjoy it.

It’s made its way on to Steam Greenlight!

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Game Blurb
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Take control of a plush monkey in a plastic world of animated toys in this runner game inspired by classic 90’s adventure games and the imagination of a child.

Run away from the friendly dinosaur as you collect bananas and avoid various obstacles! Traverse multiple levels, including an endless mode, to beat your high score and unlock silly hats and upgrades.
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Key Features
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  • Exciting runner-style gameplay with a twist.
  • Variety of obstacles and powerups.
  • Front facing camera and chase mechanics put a unique spin on the genre.
  • Unique art style that depicts a world of plastic toys.
  • 8 fun levels, such as the Dinosaur Valley, the Crystal Caves, Baking Soda Volcano & more!
  • Endless Mode for the ultimate challenge.
  • Variety of fun hats to unlock for Monkey and Dinosaur.
  • Enjoy various difficulty levels for the whole family.
  • Fully voiced, great for aiding young children who cannot read.

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*Dinosaur Run was created for, and inspired by, my four year old son.

This is for him. I am releasing this game for those who wish to enjoy something that brought my son and I closer together. I hope it will bring you a similar happiness it has brought me.

You can contact me at my website or on Twitter*

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Video Updates
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[- YouTube]Music Samples](youtube;Q2HUkSXkVUE)

Endless Preview

Trailer 02

Monkey Sculpt Timelapse

Game Over Screen

Currency System

Crystal Cave Playthrough

Dinosaur Valley Playthrough

Video Update : 14/11/14

Video Update : 12/11/14

Old Trailer

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[CENTER]Screenshots
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Title
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1280×720 1.09 MB

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Monkey
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1280×720 971 KB

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Victory Dance!
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1280×720 833 KB

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2

Hey Kenomica,

Great work with your project! Not to bad either for it being your first project. I was waiting to see what would happen if the Dinosaur caught up to the monkey. Be sure to keep us updated on how you progress along in the development of this project. Let us know how your son likes it as well!

Have a great day!

3

haha, that’s awesome!
poor monkey! :frowning:
run monkey, run!!

4

Thanks for the kind words!

The Dinosaur and monkey currently just stop running and the scoreboard shows (with a message of what caused the failstate - either losing all bananas and hitting an obstacle, Sonic Style, or Dinosaur catching up to the player) - I’d love an animation in which he licks the monkey or boosts him on to his back, but animation certainly isn’t my strong suit!

In an older build the Dinosaur’s tongue was fully physics based and flopped around like a dog’s. There are plans to bring this back but currently there is a known bug stopping this.

Don’t worry about Monkey, haha - they’re very good friends and in fact, share a cave together where they store all those bananas.

5

You really nailed the look of the ‘lego - ish’ rocks, love me. Animation style is great as well, awesome stuff :smiley: Hard to wrap my head around the camera angle, I’m so used to this style of gaming going with the ‘over the shoulder’ view where you have more time to see the obstacles and react to them. Do you like how it plays with the front facing camera?

6

Thank you, I’m really glad to hear that. the game is basically intended to mimic toys from my son’s collection and have them come to life, very similar to the idea of Toy Story but more of it taking place within a child’s imagination.

This allowed for a blend of real life and toys. The volcano level is intended to be a science experiment being shown off at an American style science fair, hence the cardboard bordering the edges. It’s like how children tend to place their toys in various locations and mix and match various play-sets etc.

I’m really happy to hear you like the animations. I’m definitely not an animator and I used mainly Mixamo animations for the monkey with my own rig (to save money.) The dinosaur is my own rig and animations, since it’s a less standardized shape. it was my first real foray in to game animations.

Camera position was an early decision. In the prototype stage I initially had the more traditional camera and changed to a front facing camera fairly early in. it allowed the player to get a better look at the dinosaur (the real star of the game, since it’s based on my son’s favourite toy)

I’m also going for a very 90s style game, much akin to Crash Bandicoot, which had various levels where you are chased with a front facing camera. I also use the camera FOV to help with difficulty. It’s a fairly wide FOV to begin with, and there is a pickup which boosts the player’s speed - this pickup also increases the FOV to deal with the difficulty increase that comes with going faster.

I am happy with the way it plays. Initially the controls weren’t inverted, which definitely made it jarring.

The controls basically work on camera position rather than character - so pressing left will send the character to the player’s / camera’s left.

7

I’m really looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition! The whole game is really charming and the story behind it is, too. :slight_smile:

8

Thank you! For the kind words and all the help you’ve given me over what feels like forever.

Here’s the latest update of what’s been changed.

Sadly the video quality isn’t the greatest, since my upload speed is terrible and I need to cut corners to avoid YouTube upload times taking more than a day

9

New update! Worked for a while on figuring out procedural animations and learnt a lot about animation blueprints and realtime skeleton manipulation.

So here’s a video showing what I’ve achieved.

I’ve also tried to improve the video quality but Youtube tends to have a mind of its own (The trailer looks far better yet was rendered with the same exact settings.)

I’d love some feedback, on both the video itself and the new intro logo.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ICAebA6tBAs

10

Great game idea and looks fun! -One thought: If possible perhaps program it so the monkey decreases speed as his hunger for bananas increases and then make the bananas less frequent to add suspense.

11

haha, this looks funny and pretty cool. well done! did you maybe watched to mutch South Park, cause the Dinosaur didn’t catch. just kidding :wink:
really cool keep on!

12

Thanks you! Also, that’s a really nice idea, I’ll certainly give it some thought!

Thanks for the kind words. I don’t fully understand your South park reference (but I am a fan)

13

Who let orange-ish Barney out.

That looks really nice thanks for sharing. Reminded me a bit of my childhood ^^

14

and the opposite directionm. withdrawal. :wink:

15

Heheh, really glad you like it. I’m definitely going for a 90s vibe (Crash Bandicoot, Spyro etc)

[QUOTE=Spaehling;179661]https://youtube.com/watch?v=OHbtcvk_KBs
and the opposite directionm. withdrawal. :wink:
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Haha! can’t say I made that connection…but I definitely laughed :slight_smile:

16

I’ve sorted out the issue with YouTube, so expect a better quality video soon.

In the mean time, here’s a higher resolution look at the characters

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Dinosaur
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Monkey
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17

I have two daughters and they have that exact dinosaur! It’s part of the Happyland collection.

Great work on making it 3D. Love the tongue flapping around.

Cheers

Jay.

18

Ah thank you! It is inspired by that toy, I’ve been unable to find where we got it from and now I know! The valley level is inspired by the same playset.

My son plays with the toy now and asks what’s happened to the tongue, since he’s so used to the game, haha.

19

Haha. With two young children, toy names tend to be life! I was contemplating making a game based on the Toot Toot Drivers by V-Tech.

I think it’s great that you have your son as a ‘beta tester’. Children are very honest and he will tell you if he doesn’t like something or he thinks something is ‘stupid’.

Cheers

Jay.

20

Definitely agree with you there. My main issue with my son playing the game before it’s finished is that he often asks to play it every day, and I often have to say it’s not ready today since I have to rebuild lightmass etc when I make big changes haha.

He’s starting to understand that I’m making the game and that it isn’t finished yet though :slight_smile: