Play Your Heart Out: “Google Dino Run”

“Google Dino Run” is a browser game developed by Google and built into the Google Chrome web browser. The game was created by members of the Chrome UX team. It was released in September of 2014 and is currently available to play on your web browser.

In “Google Dino Run,” the player guides a pixelated Tyrannosaurus Rex across a side-scrolling landscape, avoiding obstacles to achieve a higher score. The longer you run, the more obstacles appear in your path such as flying Pterodactyls that you have to duck under to survive.

The game consists of three buttons – the spacebar to start the game, the up arrow to jump, and the down arrow to crouch. When approaching a cactus it is wise to jump, so you don’t get pricked, and to crouch under a Pterodactyl, so you don’t get impaled by its beak. You have to strategically time your jumps and crouches, because the obstacles are spaced closer and closer together, so one wrong move and you have to start over.

The gameplay is addicting as no matter how many times I may die, I always find myself pressing the spacebar again to restart. The simplicity of the limited number of buttons you have available to you really restricts your abilities and forces you to become more proficient with the up and down arrows. Unfortunately, my personal keyboard has smaller up and down arrows to provide room for the supposedly more important left and right arrows, so I find myself hitting the wrong button on accident, sending me to my doom.

As I play this game, I can really immerse myself in the game and feel like I, too, am a Tyrannosaurus Rex running through a desert in the Cretaceous Period. There’s feelings of my big, strong legs launching me over the cacti that would otherwise be causing me much pain if not avoided. My height, though, turns out to be a problem, standing at 12 feet in height, leaving me very little room to dodge the Pterodactyls trying to seal my fate.

I can practically feel the desert sun beating down on me as I run carefree through the western United States. With the sand between my toes as I send some flying back while I run, I know, having played this game, my life will never be the same. Even as I write this I have to pause every so often to go back and play another round, following the endless cycle of trying to beat my high score.

I give the game a rating of 8.8/10.
If you, too, want to partake in this masterpiece of what a human can create, you can join me in videogame bliss through this link – “Google Dino Run.”