Overview
The dinosaurs are tired of being on earth! Who can blame them when they are going to be wiped out by a comet anyway? Help them reach the relative safety of space by building a tower as high as you can, but watch out for the poisonous fruit that aliens are dropping to thwart your escape to the stars!
Features
DD features two play modes, cute graphics and odd tower building gameplay. It also includes Game Center support.
The Good
Doodle Dinosaurs has an original idea. You control a paddle at the bottom of the screen by tilting the device. Your job is to catch the dinosaurs as they fall down. When you catch one, you catch the next on top of that and so on, building a tower of scaly beasts.
This is complicated by the fact that the dinosaurs are all different sizes and that the collision detection is pretty nasty; you have to line up the plunging lizards feet exactly with the one below it, or it will miss.
There are also many hazards to avoid. If you catch a fruit instead you lose a "chance" of which you have three and if you are unlucky enough to catch a flaming weight you instantly lose.
Regularly during the game an alien saucer, who are the ones dropping the deadly poison fruit you must avoid appear and drop objects right above your tower which are harder to avoid. this serves as a good wake up call if the game gets too easy.
Doodle Dinosaurs also looks good, featuring a distinct colorful paper cutout style and even the game's menus are bursting with colour and bounce around, giving the game a distinctly kiddy vibe.
This app would be good for kids, especially those who like dinosaurs but maybe a little too simple for adults.
The Bad
Doodle Dinosaurs is a very simple game; its simply just tilting to avoid obstacles and catch dinosaurs. There is also a fruit mode which simply involves catching the poison fruit and avoiding dinosaurs instead, but gameplay is otherwise the same, making it little more than a sprite swap.
The game lacks that hook that other simple games have that makes it addictive and the game gets boring quite quickly.
DD is also nothing special soudwise, featuring none of the roars or bellows you'd expect and is limited to a few thumping sounds and some generic music. For a game about dinosaurs the sound could have been more atmospheric.
After a few games you'll probably not really play DD much, except maybe to get Game Center achievements and high scores, as the game is not really that fun and ti fails to mix the gameplay up enough or introduce new elements to keep it interesting.
The Verdict
Doodle Dinosaurs is a decent game that will appeal to younger gamers and anyone who wants something simple, but there are better games available for this price and it lacks engaging gameplay.
The Bad
