Game

Dinosaur Discovery

1985 · BBC Microcomputer System · Apple II · Puzzle · Quiz/Trivia · Adventure

About this game

Dinosaur Discovery is an educational game developed for schools. Teachers use the game in conjunction with teaching materials to provide an intertwined course based on English, Maths, Science, Drama and Art. Based on the situations encountered in the game, students can perform tasks in the classroom based on the game's backstory. The players start the game in a shed, where they must decide which tools to take with them to use in the game environment, and which to leave behind (although they can return to the shed at any time and exchange them). As they explore the world, they will encounter situations based on basic English (such as word puzzles), compass reading, telling the time and learning to read a map's scale. Clues are given to them through the game's museum and an old hermit, who tells them of an old explorer who was trying to hatch dinosaurs on a far-off isolated island. The game also featured an explorer's journal for students to read. This journal provides insight into the professor's journey throughout the game's various environments. It also talks of his meeting with the hermit, and how he succumbs to illness. The final entry is in different handwriting from the rest of the journal, and is by the hermit, who writes that the professor died the previous night and that he has buried him in the desert.