Dino Eggs

Dino Eggs is a 1983 computer platform game by Micro Fun. It was released for the Apple II and Commodore 64. The original, Apple II-series version was by David Schroeder, who also developed the concept for the game. The game was ported to the Commodore 64 by Leonard Bertoni.(1)

User Summary - Gameplay

In Dino eggs the player is a time traveller, who has to gather dino eggs and hatchlings in the Mesozoic era. The game cosists of 9 different levels. A level cosists of 4 floor, connected by ladders and holes. Each level is a wrap-around, so when the player leaves on the right side of the screen, he immediately appears on the left side. There's no scrolling: the game screen shows the entire level.

The player is warped in the level in a forcefield, which stays on-screen. The forcefield is impenetrable for the smaller dangers, but dino mom can still squash the player seeking safety there.

Upon starting, the first thing a player must do is start a fire, by bringing two pieces of wood together. As long as there isn't a fire burning, 'dino mom' might detct the thief and a big dino leg appears at the top of the screen and stomps down, trying to flatten the unfortunate player under it. As soon as a fire burns, 'mom' will stay away. A fire burns with a small number above it (1-9) indicating it's lifetime. As soon as it's 1, a player can add wood to it by entering the fire with a piece (normal 2-8 fires are lethal).

After starting the fire, the player starts looking for and gathering eggs. eggs must be returned to the force field. Some eggs hatch, and the hatchling can be caught by jumping over it (creating a containing field). Contact with a hatchling will kill the hatchling ('contamination') - not the player.

Levels are increasingly difficult. The player encounters spiders, snakes and centipedes. Contact with them doesn't kill immediately, but after a short time the player 'devolves' into a spider (frightening sight, even with those graphics), a life is lost and a fresh time traveller appears.

Advancing to the next level can obviously be done by collecting enough egg and catching enough hatchlings. Afther the 9th level is done, the game keeps looping to the 9th level, so scorewise, the game is unlimited.

(1) Source: Wikipedia, "Dino Eggs", available under the CC-BY-SA License.