Dinosaur Game: Play Chrome Dino Online

What the dinosaur game is

When Google Chrome cannot reach the internet it shows an error page with a small gray dinosaur on it. Press the space bar and that dinosaur starts running. That is the whole game: a T-Rex sprints through a desert, you jump the cacti and duck the pterodactyls, and the longer you survive the faster it goes. There are no levels, no power-ups and no ending — just a score that climbs until you hit something.

It goes by many names. Google calls it the Chrome Dino; players call it the dino game, the T-Rex game, the T-Rex runner or simply the no internet game, because for most people it only ever appears when their connection drops. The version on this page is the real runner — the same sprites, physics and scoring — running in a normal web page, so you can play it on purpose, in any browser, without unplugging anything.

Controls

Start

Space bar, ↑, or tap the game

Jump

Space or ↑ — a short tap gives a lower, quicker jump

Duck

↓ — hold it to stay low under a pterodactyl

Fast-fall

Press ↓ while in the air to drop straight down

Restart

Space or ↑ after a crash

Phone / tablet

Tap anywhere to jump; there is no duck on touch

The one control most people never learn is the fast-fall: pressing ↓ mid-jump slams the dinosaur back to the ground. At high speed it is the difference between clearing a cactus and landing on the one behind it. The full walkthrough, including how to open Chrome's built-in copy, is on how to play the dinosaur game.

How the score and speed work

The score is distance. The runner starts at speed 6 and adds a tiny amount of speed every frame until it reaches its ceiling of 13 — a little over twice the starting pace — which is why the first minute feels easy and the third feels impossible. A soft beep marks every 100 points.

• Cacti come in small and large sizes, alone or in clusters of up to three. Clusters are what end most early runs: a short tap clears a single cactus but not a triple.
• Pterodactyls only appear once the game speed passes 8.5, which is around 450 points. They fly at three heights: low (jump), mid (jump or duck) and high (duck, or do nothing).
• Night mode triggers at every multiple of 700 points and lasts 12 seconds: the colors invert, the moon and stars come out, and the obstacles keep coming. Most runs die in the first flip because the eyes need a beat to adjust. You can practise it on the night mode page, which pins the dark palette on permanently.
• 99,999 is the most the five-digit counter can show. Pass it and the display rolls to 0 while the run continues. There is no ending — see the world record page for what actually happens up there.

Five tips that actually raise your score

1. Tap, don't hold. Holding space produces the highest, longest jump, which leaves you in the air — and helpless — while the next obstacle arrives. Short taps land you sooner.
2. Duck the high birds, jump the low ones, and never jump a mid one late. A mid-height pterodactyl can be jumped if you commit early; if you hesitate, duck instead.
3. Watch the right edge of the screen, not the dinosaur. Past speed 10 the obstacles arrive faster than a reaction that starts at the T-Rex.
4. Use fast-fall to fix a bad jump. Jumped too early? Press ↓ to drop and land short of the cactus, then tap again.
5. Expect the night flip at 700, 1,400, 2,100… Count on it and do not panic-jump when the screen inverts. The obstacles have not changed, only the colors.

Where it came from

Google's Chrome team shipped the runner in September 2014, in Chrome 38, under the internal codename Project Bolan — a nod to Marc Bolan, the frontman of the band T. Rex. Designers Sebastien Gabriel and Edward Jung and engineer Alan Bettes built it; the joke, in Gabriel's words, was that losing your connection is like being thrown back to the prehistoric era. By 2018 Google said the game was being played about 270 million times a month. The full story, including the birthday cake, the Olympic edition and the policy that lets schools switch it off, is on the history page.

Playing it anywhere

Chrome's own copy lives at chrome://dino and works fully offline. This page works in Safari, Firefox and Edge as well as Chrome, on phones, tablets, laptops and school Chromebooks, and once loaded it keeps working if your connection drops — the site installs the game for offline play in the background. If a managed device has the easter egg switched off, read why the dinosaur game is blocked at school.

Want to bend the rules? The cheats and console hacks page explains the commands players use to slow the game down, jump higher, or become immortal — and why those scores don't count. And when the T-Rex finally trips, the rest of the site is more runners and free unblocked games.