“The wifi’s down again!” Mala cried, glaring at her laptop screen. If that annoying grey dino on her screen were to look at her, she was sure it would have a smug expression on its face. As she groaned and lay her head on the desk, she randomly clicked the spacebar. All of a sudden, she saw something move on the screen through her peripherals and looked up. The dinosaur! It was running! And it was on the verge of crashing into the oncoming cactus! Instinctively, Mala pressed the spacebar again…and the dino jumped!

The game

This is a game we may have discovered by accident (like Mala) or on purpose, whenever the network is down. The illustration the user sees is of a grey, pixelated Tyrannosaurus rex (named the “Lonely T-Rex”), standing on a seemingly grey and white desert, only filled with cacti. The way in which this game can start depends on the device being used. If the user sees this on a laptop or a desktop, either the space bar or the up arrow key needs to be pressed. If you find the game on your mobile phone, simply tap the dino. Both of these actions would make it jump, which would indicate the start of the game. The goal is to make the dino avoid the obstacles by either making it jump (space bar or up arrow), or making it duck (down arrow), and cross high scores. When the player reaches a certain point, the game’s background shifts from day to night (or night to day if you are playing in dark mode).

Creation

So, how was this game created on a no-network screen? And by whom? The answer to the latter question mainly comes in the form of three names: Sebastien Gabriel, Alan Bettes, and Edward Jung, who were from the Chrome UX team. The game made its debut in the year 2014. 

In an interview,  Sebastien Gabriel stated that it was chosen from many ideas for an easter egg on the offline page. They were inspired by the idea of going back to the prehistoric age, when there was no wifi. At the time of its development, the game was known by its codename “Project Bolan”, a name provided in reference to Marc Bolan, who was the lead singer of the band T. Rex, and had been submitted in the disguise of a page redesign. 

Alan Bettes stated that for the design, they ensured that they stuck to rigid motion, which would be a recall to vintage video games. They held many other ideas to give the Tyrannosaurus rex more features, like a kick or a roar, but eventually stuck with the classic runner game. 

The process of making the game was quite complex. Edward Jung had revealed that it had been the first time he had to code a game, and there were so many things he had to learn, like collision avoidance, jump dynamics, etc. Once the required work was done, the game was released in September 2014, but the first iteration didn’t play well on older Android devices. So, he had to rewrite the entire thing! Following this, the game was re-released on December of that same year. 

Popularity and updates

The shocking truth of the matter is that the creators of the game didn’t even think that it would gain a lot of popularity. And at first, people weren’t really too keen on the game, but as time passed, users started getting drawn to the offline game for its simplicity and the fun it presented. The game was constantly being updated, with the additions of pterodactyls in 2015, and the day and night shift in 2016 (every 700 points earned will cause the colours to invert). However, its popularity started causing problems because workers and students were more focused on playing the game instead of working or studying. So the UX team had to create an option for the admin of enterprises to disable it. When this happens, there won’t be an option to start the game, but the user will only see the dinosaur being hit by meteors.