5 things you didn't know about the Chrome Dinosaur game

To celebrate the release of our first LEGO brick Chrome Dinosaur game showcase video, we decided to post some of our research about the game. Here are the 5 things you didn’t know about the Chrome Dinosaur game…

But first, a bit more about our Chrome Dinosaur Game videos. The first video is a LEGO brick representation of the game. In the first part of the video, we did a basic, fun transformation of the game to LEGO bricks. In part 2 we have made some fun, better-looking upgrades. Depending on the popularity of the first video, we plan on making more videos, hoping to tell a little story about the dinosaur. Why is he running? Where is he running too?

1 You don’t have to be offline to play the game

Many Chrome users are under the impression that the Chrome Dinosaur game is only available when there is no internet. You can actually play the game, even if you are connected to the internet, by simply using the link chrome://dino in your Chrome web browser.

This link will take you to an arcade mode in Chrome where you can play in full-window mode.

2 The Chrome Dinosaur game was released in 2014

Although the game is about a dinosaur which takes us millions of years back, the game will only celebrate its fifth birthday in September this year.

3 Inspiration cleverly came from various places

One might think about how the developers came up with the combination of a T-Rex and cacti. The game was inspired by a couple of things. According to Chrome designer Sebastien Gabriel, inspiration included Sonic the Hedgehog, the “prehistoric ages” when there were no internet and Wi-Fi, a previous iteration of the ‘you-are-offline’ page, previous Chrome’s error illustrations and a 1970s rock band named T-Rex.

“It’s a play on going back to the ‘prehistoric age’ when you had no Wi‑Fi,” said Gabriel. “The cacti and desert setting were part of the first iteration of the ‘you-are-offline’ page, while the visual style is a nod to our tradition of pixel-art style in Chrome’s error illustrations.”

Initially, the Chrome Dinosaur game was given the codename “Project Bolan,” which itself is a reference to Marc Bolan, the late lead singer of 1970’s rock band T-Rex.

4 The Chrome Dinosaur Game is played by millions of people

Although the game is hidden and most of the time only discovered when the internet is down, it is still played by millions of people across the world. According to Edward Jung, Chrome UX engineer, 270 million games are played each month. Most of the players come from markets with expensive or unreliable internet connections.

5 The game is unbeatable – sort of

The developers boast that the Chrome Dinosaur game can last for almost an eternity. Thinking about beating it? Unlikely. The coding allows it to only end after playing for 17 million years – roughly how long the T-Rex was alive on earth.

“We built it to max out at approximately 17 million years, the same amount of time that the T-rex was alive on Earth,” said Chrome UX engineer Edward Jung. “But we feel like your spacebar may not be the same afterwards.”