''Dino Island'' is a 2002 PC business simulation video game developed and published by Monte Cristo. In the game, the player builds and manages a

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

theme park, and can also crossbreed various dinosaurs to create new ones. ''Dino Island'' received "generally unfavorable" reviews according to

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

Gameplay

''Dino Island'' is a theme park simulator. It is rendered in full 3D - players can rotate, pan and zoom at will. Dinosaurs, staff and visitors are fully animated. The game uses a typical point and click and menu interface. Set in a more or less near future, scientists have managed to recreate dinosaurs. In order to fund research, government has set up dinosaur-themed

amusement parks An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

that the player will manage.

Dinosaurs

In ''Dino Island'', there are 20 natural dinosaur species, including ''

Tyrannosaurus rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

'', ''

Troodon ''Troodon'' ( ; ''Troödon'' in older sources) is a wastebasket taxon and a dubious genus of relatively small, bird-like dinosaurs known definitively from the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous period (about 77 mya). It includes at leas ...

'', ''

Giganotosaurus ''Giganotosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina, during the early Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 99.6 to 95 million years ago. The holotype specimen was discovered in th ...

'', '' Parasaurolophus'', ''

Iguanodon ''Iguanodon'' ( ; meaning ' iguana-tooth'), named in 1825, is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur. While many species have been classified in the genus ''Iguanodon'', dating from the late Jurassic Period to the early Cretaceous Period of Asia, ...

'', ''

Ankylosaurus ''Ankylosaurus'' is a genus of armored dinosaur. Its fossils have been found in geological formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous Period, about 68–66 million years ago, in western North America, making it among the last of the n ...

'', and '' Pachycephalosaurus''. The dinosaurs are classified in 6 families: large carnivorous, armored quadrupeds, light bipeds, etc. The player can crossbreed any two dinosaurs to create a new one. The resulting creature will be a genetic hybrid of its parents: it will inherit features from both of them, based on

genetic dominance In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and t ...

. Each dinosaur is made of many parts: legs, arms, head, etc. Each part of the resulting dinosaur will also be a mix between that of its parents. For instance, the mix of a ''

Diplodocus ''Diplodocus'' (, , or ) was a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a neo-Latin term derived from Greek δι� ...

'' and a ''

Triceratops ''Triceratops'' ( ; ) is a genus of herbivorous chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur that first appeared during the late Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago in what is now North America. It is one ...

'' will have a head in between that of its parents.

Mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral repl ...

s can also occur, either accidentally or, when the player masters the technology, voluntarily. Mutations include feathers, extra horns, weird scales, and the like.

Visitors

Visitors also come in several categories, which all have likes and dislikes. For instance, kids like cute dinosaurs but do not like big ones, hooligans like to see dinosaur fights from up close but do not like peaceful dinosaurs, pensioners like diverse dinosaurs but not too much action, etc. Every item in the game, dinosaurs, attraction or park installation, radiates several attributes like comfort, fear or cuteness, which will attract or repel different visitor types. Visitors will move in the park according to their needs. For instance, if the player's park has many other older visitors, it is not a good idea to put a path to the shops next to the most violent dinosaurs, as they will hesitate to go that way.

Park management

The game also has a light park management aspect. The player can build facilities that sell stuff like restaurants, food stands, shops, attractions, parks, enclosures to put the dinosaurs in and has to build a farm to manage staff that will feed the dinosaurs, among other things. As this was not the focus of the game, there are very few options in that department, compared to other games in that category.

Reception

''Dino Island'' received a "generally unfavorable" reception according to

, based on seven reviews.

References

External links

The Story of Dino Island
page about the development of the game by the producer *{{moby game, id=/dino-island 2002 video games Amusement park simulation games Business simulation games God games Monte Cristo (company) games Single-player video games Video games about dinosaurs Video games developed in France Video games set on fictional islands Windows games Windows-only games