Have You Played... Dino Run?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.

Flash games were trivial distractions, like 3D Pong and Spank the Monkey. Dino Run (playable here) was a trivial distraction, too, but its lovely art and novel concept seemed to hint at some greater future for these games-not-made-by-big-companies. Shame that never came to pass, eh?

Dino Run has you as a small dinosaur trying to outrun a wave of deadly asteroids. You scuttle across dirt, hop along dinosaur's backs, hitch lifts from passing flying dinosaurs, and that's about all I remember. It was lovely to look at though and it scratched that teenaged itch to compete with friends over high scores.

I can't get any of the old Flash embeds to work, but there's a version, Dino Run DX (pictured above), available on Steam for a price. It has levels and modes and multiplayer hats and guest appearances from other indie game characters, and its developers have also since made a great many other games that are also available on Steam. That original, simple Dino Run remains my favourite.