Theropods Review

Theropods is a point-and-click game that has been in development for a long time, but it has finally been released. I got the chance to play it, and when it comes to point-and-click games, I have a rich history with the genre, starting with the classic Monkey Island series.

So, after more than seven years in development, does Theropods live up to its original promise of a dinosaur-themed point-and-click adventure? Let's dive right in and find out.

The Story:

The story starts with a young huntress having a dream about her own childhood and what happened to her mother. Waking up, the huntress explores her village, meeting up with friends both young and old before meeting up with her father, who gives her her mother's spear. While on a hunt with friends, the huntress witnesses a meteor fall from the sky and crash into the village. The meteor seems to be a crystal of some sort that emanates power. After the long day, the huntress goes back to sleep, only to abruptly wake up to the sounds of screams and fighting. When she goes out, she sees that her village is being attacked by barbarians; after fighting her way through, she witnesses her father getting killed by the leader of the barbarians and is forced to run away.

You might have noticed a few things, dear reader: first, I have been fairly vague with the story, the reason being that this is a fairly short game. Point-and-click games rely heavily on their story to keep the player's interest, so I don't want to reveal too much of what happens. Secondly, we don't get to learn our main characters' names because the whole story is wordless; there is voice acting in the sense that the characters speak in a made-up language and rely on their expressions to convey the narrative.

At first this surprised me, but as I kept playing, I noticed that Theropods makes it work really well. For a story with no actual dialogue, I could follow the main plot and conflict with ease.

Without giving away spoilers, I do think the main plot was engaging enough to keep me interested in seeing what happened next, although it feels a bit sparse due to the game's short length (which I'll address shortly).

Gameplay:

As I stated in the introduction, Theropods is a point-and-click game similar to most entries in the genre. You click on the screen to interact with objects or collect them, combine items in your inventory, and then interact with the environment to solve puzzles and progress the story. To make things a bit easier, Theropods includes a button that highlights every interactable spot on the screen. Without it, you could easily get lost trying to figure out what you can actually click.

In general, the game is fairly simple and straightforward to play. The only real issue you will encounter is that you sometimes need to click on the same object multiple times to progress. You also have to recheck older areas after every bit of progress you make in a scene, as some elements only change after reaching specific triggers. That might not sound too bad on paper, but you would be forgiven for getting confused about what the game expects from you. In my own playthrough, I encountered a few scenes where I clicked the correct solution, but the game failed to register it and indicated I was wrong. I ended up going in circles, trying every inventory item on every spot, only to return to the original spot and find that it suddenly worked.

While that sounds frustrating, Theropods balances it by making each scene its own self-contained area. Unlike other point-and-click titles, there are no sprawling maps to backtrack through or extraneous characters to speak with. In that sense, it is a very linear experience, even more so than its peers. Because each screen only offers a limited number of interactable points, you will eventually find the solution simply by process of elimination.

Pros and Cons:

Let's start with the pros: Theropods is a beautifully animated pixel-art game. The characters and environments are expressive and well thought out.

The music is surprisingly a banger. To be honest, reader, I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it is.

The highlight system makes the experience far less frustrating when you're trying to figure out what to do.

Dinosaurs (I like dinosaurs a lot, okay?).

Now, let's go over the cons: The main drawback that people will debate is that this experience, although memorable and interesting, is only two to three hours long at best. Most point-and-click games in my experience usually aim for four to six hours. To be fair to the readers, though, most games in the genre focus heavily on dialogue trees and interactions with interesting NPCs. Whether or not this is a downside depends on you as a player. Personally, I wished for more exploration and more content overall, as I was genuinely intrigued by the world.

Sometimes a solution fails to trigger even when you click the right thing at the right time. You won't feel smarter for solving a puzzle when the only real issue was that you didn't click on an object enough times.

Closing thoughts:

Theropods is a game that surprised me in many ways. It is a charming, short adventure that doesn't ask much of you when it comes to experience with the genre. Is it perhaps too short for the asking price? That is a question only you can answer, dear reader, but in my case, I think it is worth experiencing.

VERDICT: Recommended
Reviewed on PC
Review Copy was Provided