How did Dinosaur Game become a marker of Internet stability? History of creation and phenomenon of the game
Hello, Habre! There are many computer games with dinosaurs. But there is one special thing: you don’t need to buy it, you can play on any device and, most importantly, without the Internet! In honor of the last birth, our Tyrex decided to introduce you to his friend, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. He, like Tirex, works in IT: he is responsible for the stability of the Internet connection. But if Tirex is standing
in charge of infrastructure
Rex finds and identifies problem areas. Under the cat, we dive into IT paleontology and tell the story of the sticky browser toy Dinosaur Game.
Use the navigation to select the section of interest:
→ What is the essence of the game
→ How to drive Rex and how long the race lasts
→ In what desert does a dinosaur run
→ How to make Rex invincible
Contents
What is the point of the game?
The dinosaur appears in the browser every time users lose their internet connection. To keep them from getting bored while rebooting the router and reconnecting to the Internet, Rex offers to play a game. Run through the desert, occasionally jumping over cacti and dodging pterodactyls and comets.
You can run in the desert from anywhere in the world, even if there is no Internet.
Google Chrome designer Sebastian Gabriel invented the pixel dinosaur in 2014. The project was named Project Bolan so that during development no one would guess what the team was working on. But music lovers could still consider the reference to dinosaurs: Bolan is the name of the lead singer of the British rock band T-Rex from the 1970s.
Dinosaur Game is not a simple toy, as it may seem at first glance. This is a cool tool that has become a real marker of Internet stability. Whenever the Web falls, a dinosaur runs to the user’s aid.
The game’s creators estimate that users run the game 270 million times a month. Most often – from Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and India. Coincidence or not, but according to the statistics of the same Google, these countries have the most unstable Internet.
By Google’s standards, 270 million is a modest figure. About three billion people use the search engine. At the same time, the number of players is decreasing every year — the Network is becoming much more stable. Maybe soon Rex will be able to rest, and now thank Tyrex for the great work on the infrastructure.
How to control Rex and how long is the race
Controlling Rex is easy: to jump over an obstacle, you need to press the space bar or ↑to bend down ↓. It’s even easier on smartphones and tablets: you need to click on the upper part of the screen to jump, and on the lower one – to crouch. At first, the programmers wanted to teach the tyrannosaurus to push objects and growl, but in the end they decided not to complicate the gameplay.
“Run, jump, bend” – the motto of any marathon runner in the prehistoric era.
The player receives points for the distance traveled and the number of obstacles. The more it gains, the faster the tyrannosaurus moves. In total, you can earn up to 99,999 points in the game – that’s 17 million years of running without a break. That’s how many tyrannosaurs roamed the Earth. Perhaps they even knocked down cacti with their powerful paws.
To date, the world record is 35,464 points. Even neural networks can’t reach the finish line: the frame rate is not enough to convey the speed of Rex. When the dinosaur hits an obstacle, it stops with staring eyes and it’s game over. The inscription Game over and the Google Chrome logo appear on the screen, which transforms into a restart button.
In complex levels, the time of day changes periodically: a light theme turns into a dark one and vice versa.
What desert does a dinosaur run through?
The image of the desert did not appear by chance. According to Sebastian Gabriel, the absence of the Internet returns the user to the prehistoric era. Running and dodging pterodactyls were probably the most popular pastimes in those days. But Tirex from Selectel didn’t stop by these times. If among the readers there are those who saw the pre-internet period live, write about it in the comments 🦖
The drawing was chosen for a reason: this is exactly the image that was in the first version of the “No Connection” page. And the pixel style was used on the screens of other errors in the browser.
But where to look for Rex, if one day problems with the Internet disappear in the world? There are two ways to get into the game even with perfect network operation from any device:
- Enter chrome://dino in the search bar of the Google Chrome browser.
- Go to the site with the game in any browser.
MacBook Pro owners can
place your own dinosaur on the touchbar
: for this, we at Selectel and Tirex have developed pet project code in Python. You can arrange races directly on the 0.5 centimeter wide touch panel!
How to make Rex invincible
There are modifications of the classic runner. One of the most popular is Dino Swords. In it, Rex gets a weapon that helps him calmly navigate the cacti. For example, sawing them with a chainsaw or hacking them with a sword.
You can get a total of 26 items. Some help to pass the game, and why others are needed is unclear.
In 2024, Google upgraded the running dinosaur game and released the GenDino version. Now you can customize the classic game with a dinosaur in the desert: choose your character and set the location. For example, replace a toothy reptile with a cute cat, sand dunes with a yard, and put flower pots instead of cacti. The essence of the runner remained unchanged: you have to endlessly run forward and overcome obstacles.
As in any game, in pixel marathon there are cheat codes that make Rex invulnerable. Here are a couple of the most famous:
Runner.instance_.gameOver = function(){}
removes all cacti.Runner.instance_.setSpeed (100)
changes the speed of the tyrannosaurus, you can put any value instead of 100.
To activate the cheat code, you need to open the developer toolbar, go to the tab
Console
and paste the code into the input line. Keep in mind that the fans of the game do not like cheaters and do not recognize the records that they set. Only fair race, only hardcore!
Have you played Dinosaur Game? Tell us in the comments how many points you scored and what was easier for you – jumping or crouching.