Hear that rattling? Look at your cup, quick! Is the liquid vibrating ominously? No? Oh, well that's probably because this isn't Jurassic Park. This is Dino Shift, a brightly colored puzzle platformer by artist Tyler and developed by FuzzyMintGames.
Use the [arrow] keys to move around, and head to the platform at the end of each stage once you've completed the requirements. You, as a cute little dinosaur, have to run through thirty levels and collect three different colored blocks by swapping colors yourself. Press [Z] to become pink, [X] to become green, and [C] to become blue. At the top of your screen will be a specified number of blocks you must collect, and it's your job to do so while avoiding spikes at all cost. Flaming balls and little menacing mimicking baddies will also try to ruin your day. While at times Dino Shift feels a little slow or as if the requirements for blocks are a bit overstuffed, it dazzles you with bright colors and the happy, cartoonish animation. It might lull you into the idea that the game is going to be as safe as picking flowers in the field. Wrong! Don't be deceived by the adorable outer layer, for in the depths of the levels challenge awaits you eagerly! Now that you've been warned, go be the best color changing dinosaur you can be!
Nice game. The difficulty level was just right; not enough to make me rage quit, but enough for me to keep trying different approaches. I do think the controls feel a little sluggish, though.
Unfortunately, Level 25 is where I have quit. I'm not sure this is even possible. Even watching the walkthrough, I can't get the little guy to jump that fast.
The most annoying thing, though, even more than level 25, is that HUGE BILLBOARD that appears and says HEY! YOU'VE DIED A FEW TIMES! CLICK HERE AND WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT! It's condescending. If I wanted to look at a walkthrough, I would. If it showed up once, I wouldn't mind, but showing up in *every* *single* *level* where you die more than a couple of times is a little ridiculous.
The farther I go into this game, the more I feel like the later, more "difficult" levels just weren't thought out very well. It feels as if they had an idea of what would make a level hard, and then just threw that idea in as a level without all that much testing to see whether it was genuinely any fun, or indeed actually a puzzle and not just a test-your-luck-a-thon. Doing that is just fine for brainstorming, I think, but a little more refinement so the player doesn't feel simply cheated by deaths on later levels would be appreciated. For a specific instance: Randomizing blocks, at least the ones that are pre-placed, was a terrible idea.
I am addicted to this game. If you're having trouble with it, just tell yourself, "If a 55 year old spazz can finish it, anyone can." I like the randomization of the blocks; it keeps me from just memorizing a sequence of moves. Level 25 just about killed me; sometimes the little dino still won't jump when I think he should, but that might be because of the amount of cat hair in my keyboard. What I still find annoying is the cursor, if I forget to slide it all the way to one side, but that's my own fault.
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