Raptor on a Skateboard | Rex Remix Games

Raptor on a skateboard.

Welcome back dinosaur fans.

I promised a raptor on a skateboard last week, and I am a dinosaur of my word. No more teasing. Here is a raptor. On a skateboard.

Except… I’ve got a confession to make. He’s not actually a Velociraptor. I had the idea and made the quest first, so this has always been “Velociraptor on a Skateboard”. Problem was, I don’t have a Velociraptor model in my asset pack. But what I do have, is Deinonychus. This is quite ironic actually, because the dinosaur I’m calling a Velociraptor is based on a Deinonychus, which is exactly the problem they had in the original Jurassic Park all those years ago (30), and they also based their Velociraptor on Deinonychus. So I’m like almost lore accurate. Also - Deinonychus is still a raptor, so I’m now very subtley saying “Raptor on a skateboard” instead of “Velociraptor” everywhere and it’s technically correct. The best kind of correct.

Anyway meet Deino. He is a raptor. He wants a skateboard. Obviously.

Deinonychus riding a skateboard — Look at him go. Peak gamedev. My life's mission is complete.

The Quest You Can’t Finish

In the last post I talked about teaching the player the core loop on the tutorial island: look at the dialogue, find the stuff, bring it back.

Deino is tucked away down a path from the tutorial clearing, standing by a little campfire. When you talk to him, he shows you what is easily my favourite rebus (a puzzle that uses pictures to represent words) in the game:

😎 ➡️ 🛹 🤙

Sunglasses. Skateboard. Hang loose. That is the entire brief.

Naturally, he needs parts to build it: one wooden plank (🪵) and four wheels (🛞).

Originally I’d planned (and done) this so that you’d find the plank shortly after in the clearing, and then the wheels wouldn’t turn up until the main island. Like showing the player that long-running quests were a thing and you’d potentially need to travel all over the islands. But now that the first island is the demo island, it felt weird having not only a quest you can’t complete in the demo, but also maybe the coolest quest I would ever have. You know. With the raptor on a skateboard.

So anyway I also moved all the stuff to the demo island and put a wheel on each path you can take from the central clearing, so players should be able to find them all and see the best thing in the game so far, a raptor on a skateboard.

Raptor on a skateboard.

Until next time!