Thunder Lizard: eat or be eaten
Welcome to a procedurally generated prehistoric island where dinosaurs fight for dominance as an active volcano threatens the whole island -- all in ASCII!
Following on the successful experiment of using an old-school ASCII roguelike engine in a very non-traditional way in Edge of Known Space, Thunder Lizard continues to explore new ways to stretch the same engine (rot.js) in new unexpected ways.
How to play
You start out tiny and weak and must eat smaller dinosaurs to grow, while avoiding being eaten by larger ones. Become the most powerful dinosaur on the island before the volcano destroys it all to win!
Use arrow keys to move and 'p' to pause and see the whole island.
Credits
Game development and design by Jeff Schomay
Creative technologist: Alan Laidlaw
Sunrise Sound Effect by StudioKolomna from Pixabay
Drums Sound Effect by Kamil Kopowski from Pixabay
Footsteps Sound Effect by Aman Kumar from Pixabay
Dinosaur Sound Effects by Atelier Magicae from itch.io
Jungle sound Effects by JDSherbert from itch.io
Bloody ASCII title font by xero
rot.js engine by ondras
bitECS by NateTheGreat
quadtree-ts by timohausmann
howler.js by goldfire
yy-fps by davidfig
Development log
- Thunder Lizard is fully EvolvedSep 29, 2025
- It's alive!Apr 27, 2025
- Slow but steady progressApr 20, 2025
Comments
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This is interesting and is has been nice to see it evolve (pun intended).
A little feedback:
As a level 1, I can spawn and be surrounded by multiple higher level dinosaurs so perhaps a little easing in to initially start.
As a level 1 I don't appear to have any advantages to a higher level. I am not faster or more agile, I'm just edible. I would be nice to have some trait to assist in surviving -being a little quicker, being able to turn more quickly or even the ability to hide/not be detected if I am not moving.
It does look absolutely and sound fantastic!
Nice to see you again iceninexp! Thanks for the plays and feedback. Glad you are enjoying it. You're right about the spawn location. I had wanted to improve that but couldn't find a good way to do so since everything is so random. I'll keep thinking about it. In terms of abilities at level 1, it's supposed to be rough when you're at the bottom of the food chain! That said, there are a few tricks you can use: you can actually hide in the jungle (dark) terrain, which makes it less likely predators will spot you. Or you can hang out near lava and predators are afraid to get too close. I had actually tried the "invisible when not moving" idea, but it just didn't play well. I also had planned to add random traits, like moving faster in water for example, but it seemed to make the game overly complex so I left it as it is. Hopefully those tactics help you and others overcome level 1.