Dino City - Development

Development

DinoCity was developed and published by Irem Corporation in 1992, and was led by project directors K. Okada and Y. Takashima. The game was based on the American film Adventures in Dinosaur City which has been released worldwide earlier that year, with the Japanese title Dinowars Kyōryū Ōkoku e no Daibōken being the same name as the Japanese version of the movie. While many of the game's characters including the heroes Rex, Tops, Timmy, Jamie and villains Mr. Big and The Rockeys were taken directly from the film, they were largely re-designed into a more anime-based style by staff artists using the pseudonyms "Munou no Hito" and "SDR 200". Much of the game's art direction utilizes a colorful, cartoon-like approach to environments and enemies as opposed to the darker presentation of the original film. The music for DinoCity was produced by Irem in-house composer Hiroshi Ebihara, who had previously collaborated on the score to Super R-Type. Although no official soundtrack was released, select tracks were made available for listening from in-game sound test menu accessible from the title screen.

The North American version was originally marketed by Irem America under the title "Dinosaurs" shortly after the game's Japanese release in July, with the finalization of the game's title coming just before its English release. Although the title was originally marked for an August release, it would later be pushed back to the following September. Beginning in early 1993, Irem America held a magazine promotion where players could receive an official DinoCity t-shirt featuring Rex by sending in two UPC labels from specified Irem games.