Theropods is a classic style point-and-click adventure game developed by Lost Token, set for release for PC on August 20th, 2026.
Ahead of the game's release, we here at Netto's Game Room had a chance to speak with the developers to learn a little bit more about both the title itself, its unique storytelling, and the title's ten year long development cycle.
Hello, my name is Ben and I'm one of the co-founders of the gaming website Netto's Game Room.Thank you for taking the time to meet with me about your new game Theropods! Before we begin, could you tell our readers a little about yourself?
My name is Kostas Skiftas, and along with Sarah Duffield-Harding and Matt Frith we are the creators of Theropods! Sarah and I studied animation together in the UK where we met and decided to transfer our storytelling skills to game dev. Point and click games seemed like the perfect genre for that. We started development and 10 years (!) later, here we are releasing it.
So Theropods is a point and click adventure game that uses pixel art, and is very reminiscent of the PC games of days gone by. What is it that made you decide this is the type of game you wanted to develop?
We grew up loving point and click games. We hadn’t dabbled with game design before but we were very familiar with this genre. Point and click games are very story driven, making it perfect for us so we decided to give it a shot.. Our twist to it was to remove all dialogue. In university, all of our short films involved pure visual storytelling without any dialogue since finding actors and recording lines was too time consuming, hence why Theropods is a wordless adventure.
Were there any other sources of inspiration that helped shape what Theropods ultimately became? Maybe something our readers would be surprised to find out?
Definitely Amanita Design games like Machinarium and Pilgrims have inspired us, as well as the Gobliiins series, all adventure games with no dialogue. There were also non-point and click games that told a story silently very well, like Limbo, Inside and Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons. From movie inspirations, obviously the Jurassic Park series and the movie Apocalypto was also a great inspiration.
During the game players will be encountering both dinosaurs and barbarians as they attempt to survive this brutal world. Will we be able to defend ourselves and fight back, or is this a game where we'll need to play it safe if we hope to survive?
There is no fighting in this game, at least in the sense of hacking and slashing. Defending yourself requires laying low, thinking the situation through and overpowering an enemy bigger and stronger than you. This was the basis of the entire puzzle philosophy of Theropods: how can you get out of life-threatening situations by using your brain when fighting is out of the question?
What can you tell us about the puzzle solving aspects of Theropods, and how challenging would you say the game becomes? Is there a hint system to help those who get stuck, or are we going back to the good old days of clicking on anything and everything in the hopes of discovering that one missing clue?
We loved the adventure games of the 90s, but we admit they suffered from a few flaws. Pixel hunting, surreal puzzle solutions, too much dialogue. As players, we tried to create a game that someone unfamiliar with this genre would be able to pick up and play. Things like having an inventory and combining items have to be taught to new players so that they can understand the mechanics. We added a highlight system that is optional to prevent pixel hunting. We also tried to keep our puzzles as contained as possible in fewer rooms, essentially creating mini escape rooms. This prevented frustration with players having to go back and forth to look for missing pieces.
When it came to the development process, did you design the narrative around these puzzles, or were the puzzles created to serve the needs of the story?
The story is the heart of it all. Therefore, it dictated the puzzles. Our puzzles are about solving obstacles to get to the next point in the story, with the ultimate goal being to return home and free our captive tribesmen. There were occasions where we designed puzzles in full, only to scrap them later, since they didn’t add anything to the main story and would have greatly affected the production time.
The game also features two characters. Can you tell us a little more about how both play into the overall narrative, and how players will be controlling them throughout the game?
We follow the young huntress of a prehistoric tribe. She carries a wound that has never fully closed. As a child, she watched her mother be eaten alive by a mighty T-Rex. She survived but is still haunted by nightmares. Despite that, she’s grown into a skilled and cherished member of her village.
One day, while out on a hunt, she witnesses a glowing stone crash from the sky. Its arrival doesn't go unnoticed — it draws the attention of a bloodthirsty band of barbarians, who descend on her village, attack the settlement, and enslave her people. She barely escapes into the jungle. There, she discovers the stone's true origin: it belongs to a stranded spaceman, whose damaged escape pod depends on it to function.
The two form an unlikely alliance, bound by a shared need to survive and a shared goal — free her enslaved tribe from the barbarians, and get him home. To do this, they must cross dangerous, dinosaur-infested lands — which for her means confronting the very fear that has haunted her since childhood.
I personally really love the pixel art, and the detailed animations that go along with it, but what made you decide to use this style?
We love pixel art too! However, the pixel art style was a bit of a last minute decision. Kostas (that's me) and Sarah were both participating in the same Adventure Game Jam back in 2015. The goal was to make an adventure game in 2 weeks.
We had formed different teams however, Kostas was going to do a game in his own art style, blocky colors, 2D and vector style art, whilst Sarah had been working as a pixel artist for a couple of years and was going to do her game in that style. At the last minute her team fell through, so we decided to work together on the same game.
Hence, Theropods turned into pixels. Kostas still worked on all of the animations, handing the black and white lineart to Sarah to turn into pixels. The same workflow was adapted for the full game.
Looking back at the game as a whole, were there any ideas you wished could've been incorporated, but simply didn't make the cut?
Yes definitely. We originally planned to do action sequences - simple run-and-jump arcade type of games that would break up the puzzles. We did a bunch of prototypes. However, we realised that it would be very risky to add them since breaking a game’s rhythm from casual clicking to reflex-based button-smashing would probably not be received well. Plus it would add another year to production and we already had enough years of that.
Moving forward, how do you think your experience working on Theropods will impact your future projects?
Well for once we won’t take ten years again to make a game, so work on smaller games for sure. Other than that, we would like to experiment with other genres, perhaps games that use systems that have more replayability.
Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know about your game?
It has been a labour of love for us and we hope this comes across to the players. It’s a charming story full of heart with intriguing puzzles, humor and thrilling moments. We are proud of having created it and we hope you will enjoy it too!
And finally, just for fun, what is your personal favorite point and click adventure game?
Grim Fandango! It oozes so much style.
We'd like to thank the team over at Lost Token for once again taking the time to speak with us, and for those interested in checking the game out for themselves, you can do so by visiting the Steam Page. It will be available beginning August 20th, 2026.
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