The inaugural post in this series is how to gets them Dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures into your games. Are you making a game right now? Trying to find an angle to get some of them extinct beauts in? Then you've come to the right place.
Clone 'em in! Largely inspired by Jurassic Park many games including the JP games use artistic licence with current scientific cloning knowledge to justify them dinos. Just dig up some fossils, umm clone them, voila. Ici est un dino!
Scientific Accuracy: Way off. Way way off. Like, seriously. Way. Off. Cloning technology for animals that still exist struggles to get it right. Cloning animals when we have some of their DNA is still completely unsuccessful e.g Thylacine, Mammoths. Cloning animals when their DNA has never been found is, as I type, pure science fiction.
As seen in: All the Jurassic Park games and Killer Instinct.
Reconstruct them in! Only slightly different from the above method in that cloning isn't explicitly mentioned. It normally involves some mysterious process off screen. Excavate a fossil pop it into a machine at a lab and hey presto! You've got your dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Just don't ask us how we did it. Its science and stuff.
Scientific Accuracy: Since the process is not available for us to assess it is impossible to comment other than to say hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm really?
As seen in: Tekken, Small Arms, Pokemon, Dino Master.
They were hiding all the time! You just weren't looking properly. Lost Valleys, remote islands and inhabitable climates are the staple hiding place for most dinosaurs and other extinct species. But be warned! It makes a little bit more sense if your dinosaurs are in an ecosystem that could actually support them. The dinosaurs in Tomb Raider are all obligate carnivores and in Tomb Raider 2 generations of Tyrannosaurus rex seem to have survived and propagated for millions of years in a giant, featureless pit. It a make a no sense!
Scientific accuracy: This method of getting dinosaurs into your game is probably the least offensive to scientific reason and many modern day 'sightings' of dinosaurs and dinosaur myths seem to centre around remote unexplored regions.
As seen in: Peter Jackson's King Kong the Official Game of the Movie, Syberia, Tomb Raider.
Have a Museum!This is where most people see dinosaur and other prehistoric creature remains and many games have museums packed with skeletons of prehistoric creatures. More often than not though the beautiful skeletons are destructible playgrounds :( Also, this means that your dinosaurs have to be pretty static unless you go for a Night at the Museum thang.
Scientific Accuracy: As long as your fossils aren't coming alive at night due to an ancient Egyptian artifact or zombie curse and all the bones are in the right places you're alright by me.
As seen in: Animal Crossing, GTA IV, Stranglehold, Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick, Siphon Filter.
Time travel/Bending! Can't find a way to bring the dinosaurs to your characters? Then bring the characters to the dinosaurs. Crazy scientists can be working on a time travel device when it goes wrong, time travel technology just inexplicably exists or you can always invoke an anomaly. Choose your method just don't expect a physicist to endorse your product.
Scientific Accuracy: See cloning.
As seen in: Dino Crises, Fossil League, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Paraworld.
Just don't explain at all why they are there Hey! It's your game. Do what you want. Most games would be very boring indeed if we stayed within the realms of what is possible in real life. Alternatively, you can go for a mixed message like Dino King which just seems to be very confused as to how the dinosaurs get there. Something about some stones and a meteorite? It doesn't matter.
Scientific accuracy: Nothing is impossible! It's just that most things are improbable.
As seen in: Dino King, DoA 4.
They're just there okay! It's not important how they got there but they are here! That's all that counts. So have fun.
Scientific Accuracy: In a time before Wikipedia things could just be the way they are without an army of people constructing possible causation theories. It's fiction for god's sake!
As seen in: Off Road Velociraptor Safari, Doritos Dash of Destruction, 101 Dino Pets, Deathtrap Dungeon, Timesplitters.
Its all about the timing. Conscious about offending your palaeontologist friends? Unwilling to contravene science with time travel or over ambitious cloning projects? Then simple. Just set your whole game in the world of the dinosaurs and/or prehistoric creatures. That's allowed. But it does mean that you can't have any human protagonists but often I find them overrated anywho.
Scientific Accuracy: As long as your environments are good palaeo environments and there are no anachronistic blunders your game will be good until a new scientific discovery goes and ruins it all.
As seen in: Sea Monsters: A prehistoric adventure, Jurassic Realm, Ice Age, Dinosaur!
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