Item - Search for Dinosaurs

I thought the writing here was pretty good, but at times the mechanics of the book could get frustrating. The book was very focused on finding the archaeopteryx, to the point of being tiresome, and the somewhat lame ending was a little anticlimactic after all that. Also, seemingly correct choices lead to annoying, frustrating mishaps, and can send you way back to very early in the looping structure of the book. However, there were some neat touches: some of the choices depending on info in the art (which was great), and you meet another Time Traveler! You can see my map of the book here.

(Thanks to Julien Peter Benney for pointing out some errors--now fixed--in the map.)

More reviews by DavidSky

While this isn't as well-written as the previous book in the series, it is more interesting in terms of gameplay. The choices aren't always as obvious, and there are a few interesting twists.

More reviews by Demian

My recent first experience with this book was frustrating. The subject matter and the knowledge given by the book are great. The goal seems too difficult for a younger reader. You need to both determine when a creature lived on Earth and where. Until you actually find it, you don't know if the when or the where are correct, and I quit out of frustration (as an adult reader).

More reviews by Dtar

Produced by the same publisher as the more widely known Choose Your Own Adventure series, the Time Machine books take a slightly different approach to the gamebook genre. In Search for Dinosaurs, you are a researcher and adventurer with access to a unique and powerful time machine, and have been asked to use it as a means of traveling back to the days of the dinosaurs to find concrete evidence pinpointing exactly when a dinosaur called the archaeopteryx lived. You can travel back and forth through time as frequently as you require, but life in the land of the dinosaurs is fraught with many dangers, and you're certainly risking your life by agreeing to go.

Your decisions in Search for Dinosaurs can be based almost entirely on the information in the Data Bank that has been provided for you in the book's beginning pages. This is fortunate, as most of the story branches that you can choose to follow are very scientifically complex and require something of a scholar's familiarity with the prehistoric world. However, this also means that carefully considered choices often will lead you in the right direction, so a logically plotted course of action is likely to take you to the archaeopteryx sooner rather than later.

What I liked best of all about this book is its artistic layout, featuring some dazzling full-page images simulating the effect of time travel, as well as intriguing re-creations of scenes from the various eras in which the dinosaurs are postulated to have lived. Doug Henderson and Alex Nino did a standout job with the artwork, adding interest to the story and allowing us to better visualize the prehistoric settings in which you are traveling. I would be interested in reading other entries in the Time Machine series.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

[Rating: 1/10]
[Recommended? NO]

While the promising potential of the premise in the Time Machine adventure "Search for Dinosaurs" is at least partially well-handled, there were particularly few redeeming components to save the quest from its prominent, pitiful weaknesses. It's unfortunate how the dangers are kept at arm's length even though the era's appealing visual-oriented choice-based design system fares well as far as reader immersiveness goes. The writing drifts from uninspired and clunky to very much aware of the narrative's potential, but - as with the majority of the books in the series - I think the adventure would've been more enjoyable had it avoided limiting itself to a single correct path; the inventory selection at the start is a bit arbitrary, I might add, and less seamlessly woven into the story compared to the databank, use of setting and handling of "characters". While the year it take place in may be 65000000 BC, you won't find too many pointers suggesting a whole lot of imagination was put into the writing of this quest apart from what had commonly been covered in existing documents/research books or documentaries at the time this was written; though the research isn't exactly dated, per se, retrospectively there are parts scattered about here and there which feel a bit incomplete.

These books, which in all truth are merely self-indulgent and hard-to-find excursions into a different point in time, appear hyper-focused on their short-lived novelty value - a real shame, since the design and the execution of the linear quest itself isn't all that great to begin with. With the exception of collectors of the series or the most ardent of pseudo-history buffs, I'm afraid I can't recommend this title or any of its time-traveling trepidations. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

More reviews by Shadeheart