Desktop Dinosaurs 🦕
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Virtual Dinos to pet
Enjoy watching hands animated cute dinosaurs, inspired by 90's Tamagotchi, live directly on your desktop.
Watch your dinosaurs live
Watch your dinosaurs live their life : eat, sleep, die... Inside your windows desktop or inside a fullscreen environment.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.45 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Update 1.6.0 ChangelogFeb 13, 2024
- Update 1.5.4 ChangelogJul 04, 2023
- Update 1.5.1 ChangelogMay 09, 2023
- Update 1.5.0 ChangelogMay 05, 2023
- Update 1.3.0 ChangelogJan 10, 2022
- Update 1.2.2 ChangelogJul 09, 2021
- Update 1.2.1 ChangelogJun 26, 2021
- Update 1.2.0 ChangelogJun 07, 2021
Comments
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Sadly its still very buggy :( But cute game and nice idea, hope you fix the bugs soon!
you (Harmonie Games) vs me (Lainos Games) who wins?
Cute game, but when you're trying to evolve your plants or dinosaurs, it crashes the game.
It ran fine for the first day, but is unfortunately unplayable. Windows 11, 64-Bit, doesn't open in fullscreen or overlay mode. I'm honestly kind of gutted about this. Have tried running as administrator; no second monitor.
Hi, i love this game but it is so buggy...and can anyone do evolutions? Everytime i am trying add some game crush.. i love it anyway but have someone same experiance?Thanks!
Just bought this! It's really cute, but it seems to be glitching for me. It won't let me rename my dinosaur (I can click the button, but nothing happens), and I can't move any of the plants, either. Luckily I can still pet my dinosaur and make her eat etc., but that's it.
ETA: In overlay mode, my dinosaur also sits all the way at the bottom of my screen, instead of on top of the task bar like in the trailer video. It's causing problems, since trying to click on it (even if I click on the game in the taskbar first) makes me accidentally click on my apps instead. It also crashes whenever I try to apply evolutions to my dinosaurs, like expanding their lives or happiness meter. I'm using Windows 11, BTW!
hey so i have it open, and it works when i open game. how ever if its first person, my mouse goes onto my other screen(i have a second screen connected to my computer) normally when it is closed my mouse is locked to the first person screen.
this game looks beutiful and im gonna buy it when i have the chance.
I got really excited about the recent update, as I've been following this game for a while, but unfortunately I'm finding it basically unplayable :(
Started off and immediately got a Tyrannosaurus egg in addition to the Triceratops egg I spawned in with. However, in Overlay mode, it's impossible to interact with anything before clicking the app icon in the tray first (this is a bug that's been present on-and-off between each update, some versions it gets fixed but then it comes back in the next).
Then as soon as I hatched my rex, I went to the 'evolutions' tab and upgraded the hunger one. IMMEDIATE crash. Restarted the application, and both rex and trike were in their eggs with the starting hour of hatch time left (not too concerning, the save system doesn't save constantly and of course I haven't even been playing very long), but then I discovered that I could no longer interact with anything except for the menu. I couldn't click the eggs (even after clicking into the app via taskbar), the ball, or any of the decor/food when selecting them to move. Since all I could do was interact with the menu, I attempted to upgrade the rex's hunger evolution again (while still in egg this time) and it crashed again.
It's a shame because when this game works, I absolutely love it. I've played some of the previous versions in overlay mode for cumulative hours and it's so charming and fun. When it doesn't work, though, it's hard to feel motivated to open the application at all.
Hello Skyaleer,
Thanks for honest and complete feedbacks. I’m very sorry to ear your are struggeling to play the game because of those issues.
I will focus on fixing this bugs and hope I cab fix it quickly, Even if right now I can’t reproduce them.
I am having the exact same issues perhaps try installing your game on other machines to test the stability of it. After my first play session where i was able to evolve all of my plants and my dinosaur i am now unable to evolve anything without it crashing the game. furthermore all of the evolutions that were done to the plants have been erased (though the genetic material has been spent still) i bought this game on Steam and will be requesting a refund as it is unplayable in it's current state. your claim of not being able to reproduce the bugs users are having are a half-***ed attempt to cover yours.
Purchased and downloaded on Mac OS X. Unzipped the file and moved the .app to my Applications folder, then I went and started it and was met with an error saying "The application 'Desktop Dinsaurs.app' can't be opened." help!
Hello,
Please use itchio app to play on Mac OS it works for people having the same issue.
The game really caught my attention, specifically the part that you can do your daily tasks while watching and taking care of dinosaurs, but I feel that it is not the experience I expected since beyond the bugs that you may see I feel that using it on the desktop is not comfortable since whenever I want to interact with the game I have to select the game on the taskbar to be able to do something and if I accidentally click somewhere else I have to click the icon again of the game to try again so it gets tedious after a while, I really thought it would be something more Desktop Goose style. As for the bugs, I find things like the dinosaur staying still even though it continues playing the walking animation. It also happens that sometimes when I select the game in the task bar it doesn't let me go back to another window until I exit. to select the game mode and I go back in, something really frustrating if you think about the fact that I have to do something else besides playing this (which to be honest, is the only attractive thing about this game that otherwise wouldn't make me play it) , I really hope that the creator can solve and improve this, so at the moment I do not recommend it anymore, you have to look around, since it is not expensive
It's something I really wanted, but the gameplay is so, so wonky on my windows 10 machine. All the dinos seem to be stuck walking in place forever, petting them is worse than retro pixel hunting point and clicks (it's like 4 pixels in a random place of a sprite, that's not even always a dinousaur - e.g. could be under head) and it makes my old-ish work computer's fan spin like crazy (which is fair for a modern game, but on the other hand the game is drawing like 6 sprites at a time and could run on NES). Sometimes the dino "avatar" on the list is not present and it seems like eventually all my dinos fall into 0%,0%,0% coma (is this death? they are still twitching lol).
Most of the time I can't use the overlay mode without clicking the app icon on tray first.
I hope it gets fixed, because I don't think anybody else is doing this concept. 1.5.4 is impossible to play - at least in overlay mode, which was the main selling point for me.
I have got the game from a very long time.
I love everything that was added to the game.
I plan to make a video for the game in YouTube.
Also i want to know if the dinosaur age increases according to time or when he eats , sleeps and how much time does it take ?
Thanks you, i hope you add other features quickly.
I never got my steam key. Where is it? I bought the game on the date 2021-05-25 and haven't got any emails about steam keys as I know.
I have some dinosaurs stuck in an undead state. They haven't been able to die even after all their meters hit 0. All they can do is walk in place. Is there a way to fix them, or are they lost causes?
Check their info probably dead
Don't mean to be a bother but were steam keys ever sent out? If so I never received one I've made sure to sift through every email I could find so I just want to make sure I'm not remembering something wrong ty <3
how do you interact with anything in this game when it’s in desktop mode? how do you change settings or quit in any mode? I tried it for a couple of minutes in each mode and had to force quit. I can’t tell if it’s broken or the UI is too well hidden for me.
I'm going to get this I think but will I be able to get the Steam key
Enjoying this game so far, keep having the issue of the toy ball getting stuck in the screen corners with my dino unable to reach it causing its happiness to hit 0
hello Yamicool,
Sorry for that, I new version is on the way fixing bugs. The ball issue is one of them.
Hello Glemjamin,
I have requested the Steam keys, and I’m waiting for their response. You should receive them within a week, I believe. Sorry for the wait.
Hello, The Steam keys has been sent this week. Check your emails used on itchio.
I'd like to ask whether you have a plan to translate your game into the Simplified-Chinese language. If so, we are volunteering to offer Simplified Chinese translation. Furthermore, we have French-English translator, we can do the English proofreading for you.
my pachy is in a coma? it was sleeping, slowly losing energy, not gaining it, and its food and happiness fell to 0. Food was available, couldn't raise happiness by petting it. It was just slowly dying.
The overlay option does not work for me, everything appears black except for the dino and plants. i am using window
hey, i wanna buy but i was wondering if it works for windows 11
I just now saw this, but I can say it does work for Windows 11.
Bought this game 2 years ago, kinda forgot about it after changing my computer, but I'm so happy coming back to see how much have been added !
I saw some little bugs, like when sleeping my dinosaur (Stegausaurus) alternate rapidly (kinda twerking) between two frames :
Also now that I have two dinosaurs, when they both want to play with the ball they "fusion" and get stuck in a walking animation but don't move anymore
Hello Brindill,
Sorry for late response, I found the origin of the issue, it will be fixe in the next version comming soon.
just a quick comment on spelling errors/translations:
1. the word 'statistics' is spelt 'statistiques' when looking at the dino information
2. the dinosaur information bar is spelt 'informations', just remove the extra s)
3. in the dinosaur shopping tab, the text should be spelt 'will give birth to a [dino name] when it hatches', and the words 'Pachycephalosaurus Egg' overlap with the text description
cute game overall! can't wait for more to be added :)
Hello Chargieee,
Thank you very much for your feedback! It has already been taken into account. I’m not a native English speaker, and I often make mistakes like this..
A bug I have consistently had the whole time I've been playing this game, is that the food plants tend to not disappear when reaching 0 food, and I end up with more than 10 food items in my list, with a bunch at 0 durability. The only way to clear them is to save and quit. IDK if this bug has been reported at all, so here I am.
Hello, Thanks for reporting the bugs, you’re the first one reporting this. I will correct it for the next update.
I have been having this happen consistently as well. Reporting here now just to confirm that this is happening to more than one person. In addition, sometimes food items do not disappear when they are at 0%, so I might not notice that they're "gone" until a dino begins to really starve.
Hello,
I worked to fixe the bugs, In the next update the plants should now:
Thanks for raising the issue!
Hello, I was wondering what the status on the steam release has been? I was waiting for that to play, as I like having all my games in one place, but I last checked a few years ago and it still doesnt seem to have a release date yet.
Hello,
Thanks for your patience, to be totally transparent: having my second child last year took me more time than I was expected, the development was moving really slow. But now I have more time to work on the game, updates will be published more often and we are close to finish it! I wanted the Steam version to be pretty complete to avoid bad reviews.
But I can say with confidence Steam release will be June 23rd.
hello, i see you dropped support for the game on linux. is there any plans to release a proper linux release again? (perhaps something within GNOME?)
The problem, is I don’t have any computer to test Linux build. I will see in the futur if I can manage it.
Did you bought the game for its Linux version ?
Hello, has dinosaur growth been implemented yet? I wonder because I currently have an 18 year old Parasaurolophus and a 15 year old Tyrannosaurus, and both are still hatchling sized and classified as "child". Is this a bug on my end, or have I not reached the ages required to grow up?
(more context: I downloaded the game at v1.3, then updated to v1.4 today)
edit: they grew up! no problems here :)
I have the same problem but i watched the youtube video and i think that they have to be age 30 for the second stage
UPDATE! Parasaurolophus turned 25 and is now grown up!
Hello! Love the game but I'm having some trouble updating my saved data to the newest patch, which file contains the saved data so I can copy it forward? Thanks!
Hello StygianMongrel,
Save data are located here : C:\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\HarmonieGames\Desktop Dinosaurs
Normally your old save should work on the new version. What issue do you have ?
It looks like my computer categorized the update as a different download entirely (probably a fault on my side) so I have one older version with my save, and one newer version without my save. Thank you for the quick response!
Did more digging, looks like there was an error where a reference script (Game Object 'MasterCanvas') is missing and is preventing the save from loading properly
Hey, I can't get the dinosaur egg to hatch even if I reinstall the game (which I've done several times). I've had this problem since v.3.1 but now, even if I go back to earlier versions, it still won't work, instead whatever version I install it seems to just start where I left off. (btw I'm on windows).
I wrote a comment in the development log about the issue back when v.3.1 launched. I did get a reply being asked if the issue still happened but when I replied that yes it did I never got a reply back.
I hope you may be able to help, because it honestly sucks to have bought it and it not working (even though it did when it was still v.2.) I
Hello Sheepofliberty,
Sorry to ear you still have the issue. For now there is 2 way to fix your problem:
Hey again!
Thank you so much! It worked when I deleted the save file. So now I'm finally back with a small dino walking around :)
hi, love having this for my desktop but cant figure out how to clean poop. is it possible to pick it up or does it just stay there?
Cant figure that out either :( There appears a mop if I hover over the poop but nothing happens.
Hello HotsauceMiku & Schiraki,
I just released a new version 1.4.1 to correct this bug. You can now click on a poop and it should be cleaned.
I can't open the app on my mac :(
Hello me1soup
Can you try to install the game through the itchio app ? MacOs block seems to block the game install for security reason and using itchio app resolve the issue.
hi! im a Mac user and I've recently download this game! however once I did I couldn't event install it ;c hope this issue gets fixed as I adore this game idea
Hello Autumnstoat,
Can you try to install the game through the itchio app ? MacOs block seems to block the game install for security reason and using itchio app resolve the issue.
yep that worked thank you! i also wanted to ask, is there any way you guy will be implementing custom window sizes for this lil game? its hard to switch between then
i can't even get the swine to run! keeps coming up with an error when, i assume, trying to run the one time helper install operation. I've submitted a report btw. please help!
Hello steveyg,
Do you try to Launch the game on Windows or Mac ? Can you describe the error you get ?
Hey I'm loving this! Very attatched already to my lil rex, however sometimes the overlay is below my task bar (windows 11) have to keep refreshing until it eventually is above it. Another thing I would love to be able to do is choose which monitor it plays on, either via windowed mode or other setting since I would prefer it if it was on my second monitor. Great work though excited to see it's still being updated!
Hello shotgunbourbon,
Thanks for the kind words, I hope you T-Rex will live a long and happy life!
To change screen, windows has a shortcut for this, when you launch the game press: ⊞ Win + ⇧ Shift + → right arrow or ⊞ Win + ⇧ Shift + ← left arrow.
hi, when moving the application to my second monitor using the shortcut you provided, it appears just slightly above the taskbar so everything is floating. i can't seem to get the game running on my second monitor to auto-align it, are you able to solve this?
Hello Chargieee,
Do you not have a taskbar on your second screen?
In version 1.6.0, settings will be added, that will allow you to customize the placement of the game, such as positioning it 0 pixels from the bottom of the screen.
if shimeji won't work on my computer will this?
Hello, sorry I don’t know this game so I can’t answer your question.
I'm loving the game, problem is that the dinosaurs and plants are not over the toolbar but inside, I saw that in the trailer is not like this. How do I fix it?
Hello, it should not append. Can you please tell me what Windows version you are using ?
11