Dino Numbers

Dino Numbers is a shareware educational title featuring the characters Derik the Dinosaur and Rex the Tyrannosaurus. It is a single player game that teaches basic arithmetic for the age group 7-12.

The story behind this game is that Rex the Tyrannosaurus is not good at maths because he plays around a lot. Rex is jealous of Derik the Dinosaur who, because he pays attention in class, is good at doing sums. Rex has followed Derik to his favourite farm and is trying to spoil his holiday by hiding all the milk and all the cows. The challenge is to recover all Derik's cow friends and record a high score.

The game consists of a maze. The player must guide Derik around the maze until a cow or an obstacle like a haystack or a milk carton is encountered, at this point a maths puzzle is triggered. When a cow is located Rex appears and shows Derik, the player, a notepad with a maths problem on it, something like "12 x 11". Next to the notebook is a representation of a calculator and the player must enter answer to the maths problem by clicking on its keys. All cows must be freed to clear a level.

The player faces a different kind of challenge when other obstacles are encountered. In the "Pick the correct equation" puzzle the player is presented with a picture of a barn which has six windows. Above each window is an equation of the kind '24 + 19 = 42' and the player must choose the window beneath the only correct equation. There is also a 'Solve The Word' puzzle where the problem is stated in text rather than numbers. This is only encountered on the hardest difficulty setting. The challenges score bonus points and are not necessary to complete the level. When the level is completed, i.e. all the cows have been freed, a harder level with more challenges is presented.

The game uses the keyboard to move Derik and the mouse to solve the problems.