Dinocop is a mystery Adventure Game by Pieces Games made with Unity and released on November 6, 2025.
One day, human scientists decided to bring dinosaurs back to life to put in zoos as attractions. What they didn't realize, because science hadn't yet discovered that fact, was that dinosaurs possessed a level of consciousness comparable to humans. The newly-revived dinosaurs soon learned the language of humans and began to communicate with them, and once the news of their sapience got out, the ensuing ethical dilemmas resulted in them being released from zoos and allowed to live alongside humans, albeit as second-class citizens.
You are Dinocop, the only dinosaur cop in town, brought to life specifically for this job because no other dinosaur wanted to be a cop and dinosaurs needed to be kept in check. One morning, you and your partner are informed that an anonymous call was made earlier from the Cretaceous Hotel, where the Dinosaur Rights Convention is currently being held, saying that somebody at the hotel was in possession of human meat. Heading to the scene to investigate, you'll meet a quirky and humorous cast of characters as you work to solve the case and find the perpetrator.
The game is available on Steam here
. The developers' official website can be found here.
Dinocop contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The game was made in 2025, and the exact year when it takes place isn't stated, but it's definitely some time in the future. There are photos in the baseball trophy room dating from as late as 2049, and these photos seem to be at least a few decades old, putting the game's events at some point in the late 21st century. The main advancements in technology seen are the presence of Skunky, a sentient machine, and the fact that science has progressed enough to bring dinosaurs back to life.
- Adjustable Censorship: The game's settings menu has an option to censor the swearing.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The dinosaur characters come in many different colors, including unusual ones such as blue and purple.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: If you take out the coffee mug while already holding another object such as a donut, Dinocop will hold the mug in his left hand, and the "World's Best Cop" text on it will be mirrored and on the wrong side, presumably due to an oversight.
- Art-Style Dissonance: Despite the game having a cute and cartoonish art style with a cast of Funny Animal dinosaurs, it contains swearing (the very first line in the game uses the word "fuck" twice) and the style of humor seems much more intended for adults than children, often veering into Black Comedy.
- Black Bead Eyes: As part of the game's cartoonish art style, dinosaurs and humans are mostly drawn with completely black eyes with no visible sclerae.
- Cassette Futurism: Despite appearing to take place sometime in the late 21st century, much of the technology seen in the game seems dated even for the time when it was made. The hotel has retro landline phones, and the few cell phones that people are seen using are flip phones. The computer used to play the video game in the convention hall is also a bulky, rather old-looking model.
- Closed Circle: The entire game takes place in the Cretaceous Hotel, and due to the police setting up a security perimeter around it, nobody can enter or leave, meaning that the mysterious person who made the anonymous call to the police is still there.
- Collection Sidequest: Crushed soda cans that the player finds around the hotel can be brought to Skunky in exchange for various rewards. She'll also give the player money if they bring her other kinds of trash and dirt that they find.
- Developer's Foresight: If you try to join the breakfast table on the terrace while in the "Entrancing Mysterio Dinolisto" disguise or dressed as Steve, the game will stop you by telling you that you shouldn't join the table dressed like that, since there are people present at the table (Bert and Jan respectively) who would normally be fooled by those disguises while the others would not, which would lead to inconsistencies in the plot.
- Downer Ending:
- In the end, due to Cronjager not coming clean, Dinocop is unable to conclusively prove that Jan masterminded the whole conspiracy to frame Carmen, and Jan is able to use his influence over the police to have Dinocop and Carmen branded as terrorists and arrested. While they manage to escape with help from Bert and the API-BLOP members, they'll have to spend the rest of their lives living in exile, while Jan gets away with all of his crimes and will likely go on to win the election. Paco's life has been torn apart from having his brother murdered and losing his best friend, and neither he nor Cronjager receive any proper closure. Steve also never has his name cleared in the doping incident, and since he continues to be under Jan's thumb, it's unknown if he will ever be able to break free from Jan's toxic influence and find help for his emotional problems like Dinocop promised he would.
- The ending you get if you choose to arrest Carmen after finding the bag of meat in her room is even worse. While Dinocop and Mark are taking Carmen in and talking to the other officers on the radio, Dinocop realizes that the police won't bother doing a proper lab test on the meat and that he might have gotten an innocent person sentenced to life imprisonment or death. The game ends right there, with Dinocop musing that he hates his life.
- Foreshadowing: During breakfast, after Dinocop mentions being attacked by the ghost earlier, Bert (a Pachycephalosaurus) jokes about how he could get into other guests' rooms if he wanted by breaking down the door with his hard head. This foreshadows that later in the game, the player will need his help with doing just that.
- Furry Confusion: While we only see sapient ones in the game, it's implied that both sapient and non-sapient chickens exist in the game's universe, referred to as "citizen chickens" and "food chickens" respectively.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Many of the dinosaurs wear shirts, but no pants. The more generic NPCs tend not to wear anything at all, however.
- In-Universe Game Clock: Time passes freely as the player walks around and does things, shown by a clock in the upper left of the screen.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: The player can have Dinocop steal a lot of the things he finds, from grabbing coins that have been forgotten inside vending machines, to pilfering Bob's hat while he's sleeping on the couch in the lobby, to straight-up taking money and items from guests' rooms. It's actually deconstructed and comes back to bite him in the climax, when the Big Bad shows security footage of Dinocop breaking into the hotel rooms and taking things as a way to discredit him and turn the people against him.
- The Nose Knows: Dinocop has the ability to identify and track many different scents as a gameplay mechanic. Any scents that are nearby will appear as icons on the upper right of the screen, and the player can select any of those as the primary scent they want to track.
- NPC Scheduling: Every NPC in the game has a particular place where they'll be and something they'll be doing at any given time, and they follow the same routine each day, almost as if in a "Groundhog Day" Loop.
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- Zig-zagged with Bert. Dinocop needs his help with breaking down the door to room 202, but since Bert won't help a cop, Dinocop disguises himself by putting on a Dinolist costume consisting of a hat and a coat, addressing Bert as "comrade" and introducing himself as "Dinomao". Bert doesn't buy it. Later, though, when Dinocop tries again by dressing up in the clothes Bert said his ideal romantic partner would have (a burgundy sweater, cute round glasses and a green cap) while claiming to be a Dinolist student from another town named "Entrancing Mysterio Dinolisto", Bert is completely fooled by the ridiculous disguise even as he goes on a whole date with Dinocop, although Carmen still immediately sees through it later.
- When Dinocop needs to disguise himself as Steve to have a private conversation with Jan and get information out of him, he does so by putting on Steve's clothes, since they are both raptors of similar body types. The disguise does nothing to hide the fact that Dinocop's skin is green while Steve has tan skin, yet Jan never seems to suspect anything.
- Protagonist Title: Dinocop is the name of the protagonist and the title of the game.
- Sapient Eat Sapient: Dinosaurs have the same level of sapience as humans in the game's world, yet it's legal for both humans and dinosaurs to eat Brontosaurus meat, even though possession and consumption of human meat is punishable by death penalty. It's mentioned that the Brontosaurus meat in the game comes specifically from Brontosauruses that were born with birth defects that would supposedly prevent them from living fulfilling lives (something that is apparently very common due to the whole revival process not having worked very well on them), but many Brontosauruses still protest the law, believing it to be a Double Standard and that dinosaurs who support it are throwing them under the bus to appease humans.
- Save Point: Green phones are used to save the game.
- Themed Cursor: The game's menus use Dinocop's claw as the cursor, even having two different versions.
- Video Game Caring Potential:
- One sidequest allows the player to find and bring back Dinokid's lost plush doll.
- When Dinocop catches the vandal who wrote offensive graffiti about him on the wall, the player can opt to either fine him $500 or forgive him and just ask him to apologize. He's unable to pay even if you ask him to, but considering how Dinocop realizes the vandal was just a kid trying to fit in with the gang and ends up feeling bad for him, it feels nice to have the option to go easy on him.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Downplayed since it's more being annoying than being outright cruel, but it's possible to bother Spip the bellhop by repeatedly ringing the bell on the reception desk in the middle of the night while he's trying to sleep. Do it too many times and he'll hide the bell, rendering it unusable for the rest of the playthrough. The game even gives you an achievement for doing this.
- Virtual Paper Doll: The player can use the changing booth in Dinocop's room to customize his appearance with various accessories and pieces of clothing that are bought at the Bazaar or found around the hotel.
