Color a Dinosaur

Lore & Background

Color a Dinosaur is a coloring book video game released in 1993 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Developed by FarSight Studios, it was produced on a budget of $30,000 and, according to producer Stephen Clarke-Wilson, was made using "the cheapest cartridge that Nintendo made." The game was sold exclusively at Walmart stores.

The gameplay involves coloring various dinosaurs using provided images and palettes. Players can choose between a free form mode, where they color manually, or an automatic mode, where they only select a color. Intended for children ages 3 to 6, the game lacks animation and minigames, and its basic colors are either brightly colored patterns or limited variations of pink or red. An extra set of patterns can be accessed by pressing the Select button.

In September 1997, Nintendo Power published a list of the 10 worst games of all time, based on votes from 12 staff members, and placed Color a Dinosaur at 9th. The article described the game as "Mario Paint without anything fun in it" and noted that "even the producer of the game (Seth, wherever you are) would roll his eyes when reminded of this prehistoric patsy." (Note: The producer is Stephen Clarke-Wilson; 'Seth' appears to be a nickname or alias used in the article.)

Reader's Guide

Color a Dinosaur is notable primarily for its inclusion on Nintendo Power's 1997 list of the 10 worst games of all time, where it ranked 9th. The game's significance lies in its representation of a low-budget, niche product aimed at very young children, lacking the sophisticated features common in other NES titles. Its exclusive sale at Walmart and production on the cheapest available cartridge highlight the commercial constraints of its development. The game's legacy is largely defined by its negative reception, serving as a cautionary example of minimalistic game design in the early 1990s. Despite its obscurity, it remains a curiosity for collectors and historians of video game history, illustrating the diversity of software released for the NES and the varying quality standards of the era.

Did You Know?

• Color a Dinosaur was developed by FarSight Studios in 1993.
• The game was produced on the cheapest cartridge Nintendo made, according to producer Stephen Clarke-Wilson.
• It was sold exclusively at Walmart.
• Nintendo Power ranked it the 9th worst game of all time in 1997.
• The producer is Stephen Clarke-Wilson, though a Nintendo Power article referred to him as 'Seth'.

A Study in Minimalist Production

Color a Dinosaur emerged from FarSight Studios in 1993 as a coloring-book experience for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and its production story is almost comically lean. The entire project was built on a budget of just thirty thousand dollars, and producer Stephen Clarke-Wilson later noted that the team worked with the most inexpensive cartridge Nintendo had to offer. This constraint shaped every aspect of the final product, from its limited color options to its complete absence of animated sequences or supplementary mini-games. The game's retail footprint was equally narrow: it was distributed exclusively through Walmart stores, meaning that for the vast majority of NES owners the title simply did not exist on shelves. There was no broad marketing push, no multi-retailer launch, and no collector's edition. What FarSight delivered was a small, single-purpose product aimed squarely at a very young audience, packaged in the cheapest hardware Nintendo would sell, and placed in the hands of a single chain. In the broader landscape of mid-1990s console gaming, its existence reads less like a commercial strategy and more like a footnote in a studio's production log.

Design for the Youngest Players

The game was explicitly designed for children between the ages of three and six, and its mechanics reflect that narrow target. At its core, the experience is straightforward: the player is presented with an image of a dinosaur alongside a palette of available colors, and the task is to fill in the creature. Two modes are offered. In free-form mode, the child has full control over where each color is applied. In automatic mode, the player simply selects a color and the game handles the filling for them, reducing the interaction to a single button press. The color palette itself is modest, consisting of brightly patterned fills or a restricted range of pink and red shades. Pressing the Select button unlocks an additional set of patterns, offering a small layer of variety. There is no animation, no scoring system, no hidden minigame, and no progression beyond the next dinosaur waiting to be colored. Every design decision reinforces the game's singular purpose: to let a very young child pick a color and watch a prehistoric animal change hue on screen.

A Notorious Place in the Worst-Of Lists

The game's most enduring public recognition came not from its original 1993 release but from a September 1997 feature in Nintendo Power. In that issue, twelve staff members cast their votes to compile a list of the one hundred greatest games of all time, and alongside that celebration they also identified their ten least enjoyable titles. Color a Dinosaur landed at number nine on that worst list, just one spot shy of the very bottom. The accompanying commentary was scathing. The writers compared the experience to Mario Paint stripped of every element that made the original enjoyable, and they went so far as to address the game's producer by first name, quipping that even Seth, wherever he might be by then, would cringe at the memory of what they dubbed a prehistoric patsy. The specificity of the jab—naming a developer, weaving in a pun on the dinosaur theme—gave the entry a memorability that a simple bad-game label never would have achieved. For many readers of that issue, the title became less a playable product and more a shorthand for the absolute floor of NES quality.

A Curiosity in the NES Library

In the broader context of the Nintendo Entertainment System's catalog, Color a Dinosaur occupies a peculiar niche. It is a game that very few players ever encountered, given its exclusive availability at Walmart, and even fewer would have chosen to pick up a coloring-book application when so many action and adventure titles surrounded it on the shelf. Yet it has persisted in popular memory largely because of that 1997 Nintendo Power article, which transformed a small, low-budget FarSight Studios project into a recurring reference point whenever discussions of worst games arise. The contrast the writers drew with Mario Paint is particularly telling: both titles involve creative expression on the same console, yet one became a beloved staple while the other became a cautionary tale. The thirty-thousand-dollar budget, the cheapest cartridge, the single-retailer distribution—these details paint a picture of a product that was never meant to be remembered. And yet, precisely because it was so unambitious, it carved out a tiny but permanent space in the collective imagination of retro gaming enthusiasts.

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