Raptor Runner — Press Kit

A polished runner through a living desert — the Chrome dinosaur game grown into a small, full-featured indie release.

Factsheet

Description

One-liner

A polished runner through a living desert — the Chrome dinosaur game grown into a small, full-featured indie release.

Short

Raptor Runner is a handcrafted endless runner set in a desert that changes around you. A full day/night cycle, weather that builds and fades, a coin-funded cosmetics shop, 27 achievements, and rare easter-egg events. Plays in the browser, ships on desktop and mobile.

Long

Run a velociraptor across a handcrafted desert that genuinely changes around you. A twelve-band sky cycles from dawn through midday into a starlit night with a moon tracking a realistic arc — at night, roughly 300 twinkling stars and a Milky Way band rotate in. Everything on the ground is tinted by the current sky color, so dusk genuinely reads as dusk.

Weather builds and fades naturally. Rain starts as scattered drops, intensifies into a downpour, and lightning bolts strike the desert at peak intensity, blackening nearby cacti. After the storm passes, a rainbow might appear.

Pterodactyls patrol the sky at two altitudes — one you duck under, one you jump over. Coins drop into the desert in patterns; collecting ten in a row triggers a rising-pitch chime and a diamond reward. Coins fund a shop with sixteen hats, glasses, ties, and other small accessories. Every cosmetic is earned, not bought with real money. Twenty-seven achievements track everything from a first jump to surviving the storm, and five rare events (UFO, Santa, tumbleweed, comet, meteor) reward players who keep running long enough.

What started as a four-day p5.js side project in April 2022 — "what if the Chrome dino game had weather?" — sat dormant for almost four years before being revived in April 2026 and rebuilt into a small, full-featured indie release. The game runs in a browser as an installable PWA, on desktop through Electron, and on mobile through Capacitor, all from one TypeScript codebase. The entire revival was built in collaboration with AI code agents; the developer writes about that workflow at ricos.site.

Features

• Full day/night cycle — twelve-band sky color schedule, sun and moon on matching parabolic arcs, rotating star field with a Milky Way band at night
• Sky-color tint on the foreground (raptor, cacti, sand) — dusk reads as dusk
• Dynamic weather — rain builds and fades naturally, lightning strikes at peak intensity, rainbow after the storm
• Two pterodactyl flight variants — one to duck, one to jump
• Coin-and-diamond economy — 10-in-a-row coin chains trigger a rising-pitch chime and a diamond reward
• In-game shop with 16 unlockable cosmetics, all earned with coins — no microtransactions
• 27 achievements tracking milestones, near-misses, weather survival, and rare-event spotting
• 5 rare easter-egg events (UFO, Santa, tumbleweed, comet, meteor)
• Persistent personal bests with shareable score cards
• Independent audio sliders for music, jump SFX, and rain ambience
• Full controller support (Xbox / PlayStation / Nintendo auto-detected)
• Installable as an offline PWA
• Web, desktop, and mobile from one TypeScript codebase; Steam achievement bridge ready
• Cookieless, self-hosted analytics — no consent banner, no tracker (privacy policy)

History

• April 2022 — Initial p5.js prototype built across four evenings. Buggy jump physics, one cactus sprite, no menu. Shelved for almost four years.
• April 2026 — Revival. Rewritten on vanilla canvas, then built out over two weeks: day/night cycle, weather, cosmetics, achievements, rare events, score cards, React menu overlays, a full visual redesign, and PWA support. v1.0.0 tagged 2026-04-19, v1.1.2 tagged 2026-04-24.
• Now — Multi-platform release prep: Electron desktop builds, Capacitor iOS / Android builds, itch.io and Steam pages in preparation.

Screenshots

Seven launch screenshots, 1920×1081 PNG. Click any image to open the full-resolution file.

Logo & icon

The display title is set in Unbounded. App icons below; click to open the full-resolution file.

Monetization

• The web build is free — no ads, no tracking-based monetization, no upsell.
• A paid build is planned for itch.io and Steam (estimate €2.99–€4.99); mobile-store pricing TBD.
• No in-app purchases anywhere. Cosmetics are earned with in-game coins, never bought with real money.

About the developer

Rico Trebeljahr is a freelance developer and writer based in Germany. Raptor Runner is the first launch in a series of half-finished side projects being revived and shipped using AI-assisted workflows — he writes about the process at ricos.site. More work at portfolio.trebeljahr.com.

Contact