Posted on October 3, 2019
Dinosaur Discovery (1985) – BBC Micro – 4mation – Let’s Play
Dinosaur Discovery is an educational adventure game in which the player must navigate a map, collect clues and solve simple word puzzles on their journey to hatch a dinosaur egg.
This was played across the UK (at least I think it was – it certainly was in Surrey) in primary schools in the mid to late 1980s. I remember playing it when I would have been around 7 or 8 years old.
Sadly I was unable to complete it on this playthrough as you need to have the physical diary that comes with the game as it has the tide times in there which you have to look up and use for the sailing bit near the end (to get to the Stegosaurus Island). I may try a stream soon with save states to see if I can cheat my way to the end, just so we can see the game finished. If I do this (I can almost guarantee that I will!), I will post it on here.
Loved this as a kid – with this being the mid 80s in the UK, this would have been many children’s first interaction with a computer (I’m not sure if it was mine, as we had a ZX Spectrum 48k around this time). It has lots of puzzles to solve, and useful ways to get the children used to using a computer – something that kids these days certainly don’t need as they will be using computers all the time! Simpler times!
Make sure you let me know in the comments if you remember playing this game, or if you also played the more famous Granny’s Garden which was by the same developer.
This was emulated on a Windows 10 machine using the BeebEm emulator. I do now have the original disks and hope to complete the game soon now I have the tide charts!
I remember this from the same era! Also crashed the boat on the rocks and left primary school without getting another chance to have a crack at it. An itch i still haven’t managed to scratch !