''Color a Dinosaur'' is a 1993 electronic

coloring book A coloring book (British English: colouring-in book, colouring book, or colouring page) is a type of book containing line art to which people are intended to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media. ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

for young children. It was developed by

FarSight Studios FarSight Studios (formerly FarSight Technologies) is an American video game developer established in 1988 by Jay Obernolte. They are an official licensed developer for all current home and handheld consoles including the Sony PlayStation 4, Play ...

for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

Gameplay

The player colors various

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

s by using the provided dinosaur images and palettes. Players can either color using the free form mode or in the automatic mode where they only choose a color. Intended for ages 3 to 6, the game lacks sophisticated features such as

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

and

minigame A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements and is often smaller or more simplistic than th ...

s, and the basic colors are either brightly colored

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated l ...

s or limited variations on

pink Pink is a pale tint of red, the color of the Dianthus plumarius, pink flower. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, p ...

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

. An extra set of patterns can be reached by pressing the ''Select'' button.

Reception

The September 1997 issue of ''

Nintendo Power ''Nintendo Power'' was a video game news and strategy magazine from Nintendo of America, first published in July/August 1988 as Nintendo's official print magazine for North America. The magazine's publication was initially done monthly by Ninte ...

'' presented the votes of twelve staff members, to list their top 100 games of all time. This list also includes a 10 worst games of all time, placing ''Color a Dinosaur'' at 9th. The article described the game as ''

Mario Paint is a 1992 art creation video game developed by Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1) and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. ''Mario Paint'' consists of a raster graphics editor, an anim ...

'' "without anything fun in it" and that "even the producer of the game (Seth, wherever you are) would roll his eyes when reminded of this prehistoric patsy."

References

{{Reflist, 30em 1993 video games Children's educational video games Drawing video games FarSight Studios games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Entertainment System-only games North America-exclusive video games Single-player video games Video games about dinosaurs Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Tommy Tallarico