Dino Wars

Dino Wars intro and game screens

Dino Wars is an original arcade style game that was very popular with younger kids, but could be enjoyed by older ones (or adults) as well. Requiring two players, the game involves 2 tyrannosaurs battling it out, trying to inflict damage on each other by biting. The graphics were a little crude, but the wraparound play field was essentially a 3-D landscape in that you could walk forward and back, as well as left to right. You can also injure yourself by running into cactuses.

Probably the best part of the game was the sound effects; the whimpering when a dinosaur fell/got hurt, the roar when you attack, and the yelping when you finally vanquish your foe, and (s)he goes yelping off into the distance caused kids to smile and adults to chuckle.

And now, some background story and technical detail on the dinosaur sound effects, taken from an email interview with Robert "Bob" Kilgus by Boisy Pitre done back in 2013:

"[...] That meant I could play back "ready" and by varying a pitch value, it could come out sounding like a child's voice or a husky man's voice or anything in between - regardless of who's voice was initially recorded.
That led to a very interesting week or so of strange sounds coming from the open windows of the Kilgus house one summer. I would hand the microphone to Peggy and start my recording utility. Peggy would "roar" into the microphone. I would then spend a lot of time isolating the roar and playing it back with a variety of parameters.
Sometimes, the results were quite funny. Peggy's roar might sound like a small dog's yapping bark or it might sound like a whale's deep bellow. In between there might be something that could be described as the growl of a bear... or even a dinosaur's roar. And of course, we were also searching for the sound of a dinosaur yelping in pain from a bite. Many of the unexpected results were followed by the two of us laughing our heads off. I always wondered what our neighbors thought was going on in our house that summer."

Sadly, Peggy has passed away, and with Bob's permission, this page is dedicated to her. Following is her obituary, written by Robert himself:

Peggy Yvonne (Rider) Kilgus passed away on March 17, 2023. She was born April 7, 1948 and died just a couple weeks before her 75th birthday. She married Robert G Kilgus on Feb 28, 1969. In all, they had spent 54 years together - just the two of them. They had no children and rarely developed any lasting friends. But they remained very close to each other all those years fulfilling each other's needs. They made their home together in Detroit, Battle Creek, Lansing (35 years) and finally Flint. They went from poor, to rich, to poor again. But their love never faltered. She died from congestive heart failure but that only interrupted their lives for the last couple months. Her body's remains are now free to wander the earth along with her generous and loving spirit. Her husband will sorely miss her for the rest of his life.

Title: Dino Wars

Author: R.G. Kilgus

Publisher: Radio Shack/Tandy

Released: August 1981 (programmed 1980)

Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 4K RAM cartridge, 2 joysticks.

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