Nobody. Move. A Muscle.
On Paleo Island, dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures lived in harmony. Unfortunately, the harmony was disrupted when a Tyrannosaurus rex arrives and throws the island into chaos. Only a young Parasaurolophus, Rolf chooses to stand up and defend his home from this dino bully. However, he's going to need to find the dinosaur eggs, that are scattered all across the island following the Rex's rampage, and hatch them to become a fighting team.
Dinosaur Adventure 3-D is a Point-and-Click Game, created by JumpStart Games, originally went by the name, Knowledge Adventure. The game was released in 1999.
This game contains the following tropes:
- Animal Stampede:
- The T. rex causes a mass stampede among dinosaurs upon arriving on the island.
- "Galloping Gallimimus" involves the T. rex chasing a flock of Gallimimus, with Rolf having to run from them and lead the flock to safety.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Some of the inaccuracies can be justified by the information available at the time, but others are inexcusable.
- Terrance is supposed to be a Pteranodon, but he doesn't really resemble such. He has a long tail, a hooked beak, four small fingers, and a bird-like bipedal stance with his legs under his body.
- All the pterosaurs, in fact, appear to be bipedal, when in real life they should be quadrupeds. They also lack pycnofibres (at least the 3D-animated pterosaurs do; it's ambiguous whether Terrance has them or not due to the art style).
- Spinosaurus is still depicted with a carnosaur-like head, though at least it has three fingers. Its illustration used for the "Scrambled Eggs" depicts it with a longer, narrower head though.
- Stegosaurus and Diplodocus both have dragging tails.
- Rolf's describes T. rex as having weak and tiny arms to the point a human can beat it at arm-wrestling. Tyrannosaur arms were actually just tiny, but very strong.
- Dimetrodon is featured in the game and located in the Triassic section of Paleo Island, despite being a Permian animal.
- Zigzagged with the Velociraptor. While its 3D version is blatantly copied off from Jurassic Park, its 2D version seen in "Predator" has the correct slender build and long snout.
- Rolf claims Tyrannosaurus is 20 feet tall and 50 feet long in the intro. It was actually 14 feet tall and 40 feet long.
- Big Bad: The Tyrannosaurus rex drifted to Paleo Island one day and began terrorizing the local population.
- Dumb Dinos: None of the dinosaurs are treated as sapient aside from The Hero, a Parasaurolophus, his Pteranodon sidekick, and the baby dinosaurs they hatch (although only the former two speak, as does a Triceratops friend of Rolf's who appears in the "Connect-a-Cave" mini-game). The others are presented as more animalistic, including the T. rex villain. Oddly, while other carnivorous dinosaurs are present in the story and are treated as part of the setting's ecosystem, only the T. rex is portrayed as an outright villain.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The goal is to find, collect and hatch dinosaur eggs that are scattered all across the island.
- Island of Mystery: Paleo Island is a land populated with dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts, that somehow manages to survive pass the KT Extinction and existing in the present day. The island is also divided into three areas, each one representing a period of the Mesozoic Era: Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.
- Kid Amid the Chaos: A few baby and young dinosaurs are separated from their parents due to the Tyrannosaurus rex's rampage.
- Kid Hero: Rolf and by extent, the baby dinosaurs.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": The denizens of Paleo Island have this when the Tyrannosaurus rex appears.
- Medium Blending: The game uses a mix of 2D and 3D animation for the dinosaurs with characters like Rolf and Terrance being styled in 2D animation while others like the Tyrannosaurus rex is done in the latter.
- No Endor Holocaust: Downplayed. The volcano did make a few problems for the dinosaurs but it wasn't too much for them since as Rolf says, "They're pretty adaptable".
- Oh, Crap!: The Tyrannosaurus rex has this when he realizes he reawakened the volcano.
- Power Crystal:
- Rolf collects Hatching Crystals to hatch the dinosaur eggs.
- Rolf finds a crystal in the volcano, that allows him to get information about dinosaurs.
- Rolf uses a Hunting Crystal to locate the dinosaur eggs.
- Predators Are Mean: Other than the Tyrannosaurus rex who plays this straight, this is mainly Averted for the rest of the carnivores with a few of the baby dinosaurs being a Dilophosaurus, a Deinonychus, a Rhamphorhynchus and a Dimetrodon. This is also played straight, however, with the Deinonychus and Velociraptor Rolf may encounter in the "Predator" challenge.
- Raptor Attack: The dromaeosaurids in the game are still depicted as featherless, due to the information available at the time.
- Riddle for the Ages: Just where did the T. rex come from? The only clue is the ice floe that he was drifting on to Paleo Island.
- Shout-Out: The game makes several references to Jurassic Park
- Rolf warning players to stand still to avoid being detected by the Tyrannosaurus rex is a nod to the infamous Living Motion Detector trait of the movie's Rex.
- The "Galloping Gallimimus" challenge is based on the movie's Rex hunting a herd of the titular dinosaurs.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: A T. rex serves as the main villain of the game, terrorizing the island's dinosaurs and causing destruction wherever he goes.
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: In the "Predator" challenge, Rolf leaves several pebbles across the maze so that the young Brachiosaurus can have a route to escape after their rescued..
- Trash the Set: Rolf and the baby dinosaurs lure the Tyrannosaurus rex to the volcano (which was the main place to hatch the eggs) so that the latter could trigger it to erupt.
