Dino Minigames — Educational Dinosaur Minigames Core for RPG Maker MZ

Remember 3D Dinosaur Adventure, Dinosaur Safari and the Magic School Bus CD-ROMs — the ones with a clickable museum, a dig site and a friendly voice telling you why Stegosaurus never met T. rex? Dino Minigames brings that feeling to RPG Maker MZ as a single drop-in plugin: twelve short, self-contained minigames that teach real palaeontology while your players play.

Part of the MZ Minigame Collection. This plugin is one of a growing library of themed minigames for RPG Maker MZ, from board games and puzzles to sports, casino and crafting. Mix and match to fill your world with things to do.

👉 See them all: https://itch.io/c/8090415/mz-minigame-collection

Everything is drawn in code — no images, sound files or extra plugins required. Install it, add one Plugin Command to an event, and you have a working minigame with keyboard, mouse and touch support.

The twelve exhibits

Geologic time

• Timeline Sort — drag dinosaurs onto the Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous.
• Who Lived Together? — pick the dinosaur that could really have met the one shown.
• Pangaea Puzzle — reassemble Gondwana using matching fossils as your clue.

Species & anatomy

• Skeleton Assembly — place the bones on a Tyrannosaurus and learn what each one does.
• Size Showdown — longer or heavier? Then see them drawn to scale beside a human.
• Name Decoder — crack the Greek and Latin roots (“tri” + “cera” + “tops”).

Fossils & palaeontology

• Fossil Dig — brush, pick, chisel and scanner; dig too hard and you crack the bone.
• Strata Dating — read the cliff face and order fossils oldest to youngest.
• Trackway Detective — deduce speed, gait and diet from footprints.

Ecology, evolution & extinction

• Feeding Time — the teeth tell you the diet.
• Bird or Dino? — which traits did birds inherit from dinosaurs?
• Extinction Event — survive the day after the asteroid and learn who made it and why.

Features

• Dino Museum hub scene (optional main-menu command) with best scores, star ratings, a collection progress bar and a “Random exhibit” button.
• 12 collectible Fact Cards, one per game, with a switch that fires when the set is complete.
• Every answer comes with an explanation, and correct answers surface a “Did you know?” fact — the game teaches whether you win or lose.
• Three difficulty levels that change question and item counts.
• Scores (0–100 %) go to a variable and a pass/fail switch of your choice, so you can gate doors, quests and rewards on results.
• Full keyboard, mouse and touch support with drag-and-drop; a controls footer reminds players how.
• 18 stylised dinosaurs with idle animation, per-game backdrops, streak encouragement, confetti on a pass, and a “Play again” button.
• Plugin Commands: Start Minigame, Open Museum, Unlock Game, Unlock All Cards, Reset Progress. Script calls: DinoMinigames.best("dig"), .hasCard("birds"), .cardCount(), .stars("size"), .totalStars().
• All species data (dates, sizes, diets, name roots, facts) lives in one table at the top of the file, so it’s easy to correct or extend. Art is placeholder-grade by design and can be swapped for your own sprites through DinoArt.sprite.

Installation

1. Copy DinoMinigames.js into your project’s js/plugins/ folder.
2. Enable it in the Plugin Manager and set the default score variable, pass switch and difficulty.
3. In any event, use Plugin Command → Dino Minigames → Start Minigame, or open the Museum from the main menu.

Requirements: RPG Maker MZ 1.6+. No dependencies. Works alone or alongside other plugins; it adds one menu command and one save-data key.

Terms: Free for commercial and non-commercial use. Credit appreciated but not required. [Change this if you want different terms.]

Support: Post in the community tab or comments with the game name and what happened; MZ’s F8/F12 console output helps a lot.