Theropods – Genres Clash as a Prehistoric World Meets Sci-Fi

“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!” – Larry Niven

Overview

Theropods is a wordless point-and-click adventure that started its life as a Flash game over 10 years ago in 2015. It combines a prehistoric world with a sci-fi twist and sees players contend with hungry dinosaurs, ruthless barbarians, and glowing rocks from outer space!

Narrative

Theropods has a strong narrative despite the complete lack of intelligible dialogue, subtitles, or words of any kind. It is told mostly through the gameplay itself and a host of short cutscenes. The game begins with a bit of exposition, a scene from the protagonist’s past. As the young hunter wakes from her dream, she goes about her day in a prehistoric land, when suddenly, she sees from afar that disaster has struck. A glowing stone from the sky has crashed into her village and attracted a terrible tribe who attack and enslave her people. She escapes into the jungle and inadvertently discovers the stone’s origin along with a mysterious spaceman. The pair must work together and make their way across dinosaur-ridden land to save her village and repair the spaceman’s pod.

The narrative is heartfelt and surprisingly emotional, without ever feeling too heavy. It is a very well-constructed and delivered story with themes of camaraderie, friendship, family, and perseverance that are very relatable despite the fun overarching prehistoric and sci-fi genre mix that is a little more obscure.

Gameplay

Theropods plays like a classic point-and-click game with mostly logical inventory-based puzzles. Early tasks include fetching some water for an exhausted woman and playing hide and seek with some children. Where the mechanics get interesting is when the secondary playable character, the spaceman, is introduced. Some sections of the game involve playing as one or the other of the characters, and others allow the player to switch between them instantly, with each character having a separate inventory. Some sections even allow the player to briefly take on the role of the spaceman’s droid! All this makes for some fun and dynamic gameplay that perfectly suits the quirky narrative and retro styling.

The game has no controller support and uses simple keyboard and mouse controls with a minimal UI. Automatic saves occur at the start of a new scene, but manual saves are also possible at any time. It is also possible to skip the cutscenes, which could be helpful if playing a second time for extra achievements.

Styling

Theropods depicts its prehistoric world with somewhat low-res pixel art and varied colour palettes depending on the environment, ranging from vibrant to warm and cosy, to muted and cool. A lot of the scenes are quite detailed, which meant the low-res pixel art had to work very hard and was sometimes a little uncomfortable on the eyes, especially during lively animations. However, this eased with exposure and overall, the visuals are well done and have a nice retro feel.

The soundtrack features a diverse mix of music, from upbeat tracks with a tribal or jungle sound heavily featuring instruments traditionally made from natural materials such as drums and flutes, to dramatic 80’s style electric guitars and intense drum-playing. This wonderfully reflects the mix of themes within the game and gives equal weight to both the cave woman and the person from outer space.

Theropods is wordless with no comprehensible dialogue; however, there is some voice acting in the form of grunts, sighs, and mumbled or gibberish speech that all work together to convey tone and emotion despite the lack of explicit or definite meaning.

Summary

Theropods is a wonderful addition to the point-and-click genre. Its unusual setting and contrasting main characters add a lot of fun to the sometimes emotional narrative. The game also offers classic genre mechanics with a twist, making for fun and satisfying gameplay, as well as a thoughtful retro aesthetic that works perfectly with the rest of the experience. It will take an enjoyable 2-4 hours to complete, and while the narrative culminates in a gratifying ending, I wanted to play for longer. I highly recommend this game to fans of point-and-click adventures, and I look forward to seeing what the developers do next.

Giveaway

Courtesy of the developers, we have one Theropods Steam key to give away to one lucky winner. For more details and your chance to win (or just to chat about indie games), simply join our friendly Discord server and check out the announcements!

Looking for more pixel art point-and-click indie games? You may also enjoy these reviews:
Shadows of the Afterland – Lucy Dreaming – The Librarian – Pants Quest

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