Welcome to Dinosaur Heroes, a free online resource for parents of dinosaur-loving kids where you can find the best dinosaur activites, toys and party ideas.
We get it. Childen, especially young ones, are hard work. We try our best to provide a fun and stimulating environment for our children to thrive, but sometimes we just need something to entertain our kids without feeling too guilty about it. In this article, we will review the best mobile dinosaur games suitable for kids and preschoolers.
Related Post: Best Free Educational Online Dinosaur Games For Kids
Best Dinosaur Games Apps for Mobile Phones and Tablets
There are plenty of dinosaur-related games you can find, most of which are shooting games that are fun with little or no educational value.
In this guide, we are looking out for games that are:
- Educational
All games listed below aim to teach young kids something, whether they are general knowledge, dinosaur facts or simply better problem-solving skills. - Suitable for kids
We try to online include games that are free from distractions and unsuitable ads. - Easy to download and play
All games below are apps that can easily be downloaded on an IOS or Android phone. Some of them work offline too. - Free
Obviously some apps will include in-app purchases and upsells, but all have versions that are available to play online for free.
Dinosaur Apps for Toddlers and Preschoolers
The best dinosaur games for toddlers and preschoolers are simple, engaging and educational. Our list includes learning games like Dinosaur Park, Dino Fun, and Dinosaur Digger 3: Truck Games. Each game is designed to teach young children basic skills or simple dinosaur-related facts.
- Dinosaur Park: Games for Kids
- Dinosaur Games for 4 year olds
- Dino Fun – Kids Learning Games
- Archaeologist: Dinosaurs Games
- Dino Puzzle Kid Dinosaur Games
- Dinosaur Digger 3: Truck Games
- Kids Dinosaur Games age 2 to 5
Dinosaur Park: Games for Kids
Pick an excursion vehicle and drive to the site where 12 buried dinosaur are waiting to be excavated. Once your kids have managed to dig up the fossils, they bring them back to the lab to examine and resurrect them. Surprise adventures await.
The app is designed by Yateland, a software development company that specializes in dinosaur-themed childrens’ learning apps. You can find other dinosaur-related apps on their website if you like their games.
Recommended Age: 2 to 5 years old
Available on: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $3.99 for the full version)
Dinosaur Games for 4 year olds
Chip away at ice blocks to rescue dinosaurs frozen from the Jurassic era and say hello to your new dinosaur friends. Kids can then join their new Tyrannosaurus, Pterodactyl or Pterodactyl friends and explore the prehistoric island, protecting dinosaur herds, gathering leaves and collecting colorful crystals.
The game is designed to improve your toddler’s memory, attention span, and hand-eye coordination.
Recommended Age: 2 to 5 years old
Available on: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $1.99 – $6.99 for in-app purchases)
Dino Fun – Kids Learning Games
This app is designed to teach young kids valuable life skills. Children are encouraged to look after their favourite dinosaur by helping the dinosaurs with a series of tasks such as putting on shoes, washing hands, and brushing teeth.
In addition, there are also fun educational games, crosswords and puzzles in beautiful graphics with kid-friendly controls to keep your child entertained and engaged.
Recommended Age: 2 to 5 years old
Available on: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $5.99/month subscription)
Archeologist – Dinosaur Games
Tap away to bring dinosaur skeletons back to life! Kids can have plenty of fun digging for dinosaur skeletons, assemble them, and watch them wiggle back to life and roar.
While playing the role of a budding palaeontologist, your child will learn dinosaur names, and dinosaur facts like what they like to eat and their size, all by completing puzzles, music and coloring activities.
Recommended Age: 2 to 5 years old
Available on: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $4.99 for the full version)
Dino Puzzle Kid Dinosaur Games
What’s interesting about this app is that not only can you set varying difficulty levels for the dinosaur jigsaw puzzles to suit your child’s age, you can also create your own dinosaur stories or puzzles by importing pictures from your phones!
It’s a great homeschooling support app that can help your child learn his or her alphabets, shapes, maths, and many other topics to get ready for school.
Recommended Age: 2 to 5 years old
Available on: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $3.99 for the full version)
Dinosaur Digger 3: Truck Games
If you have a child that loves his vehicles as much as dinosaurs, this is the app for you. Pick from 6 construction vehicles, including bulldozers, trains and trucks, and dive into the world of construction and exploration.
Each terrain is full of fun excavation animations, satisfying digging sound effects and surprise discoveries.
Recommended Age: 2 to 5 years old
Available on: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $3.99 for the full version)
Kids Dinosaur Games Age 2 to 5
Give your child the chance to be their very own super hero in this app, where the main charactor of the game is personalizable to show your kid’s face (if you choose to). Enhance or change any features you want, like a different hairstyle or skin tone. Your child is then ready to leap into the prehistoric world, flying Pteranodons, racing Velociraptors, sorting dino bones and driving a monster truck to rescue T-Rex eggs.
With plenty of brilliant imaginative role play games available in app, your child will be mesmerized and have plenty of educational fun with this app.
Recommended Age: 2 to 6 years old
Available on: IOS
Price: Free (or $6.99 for the full version)
Dinosaur Apps for Kids (School Children)
The best mobile dinosaur apps for kids are games that are fun, educational and stimulating. Our list includes augmented-reality options that help you see dinosaurs in real life, and world simulation games that let you nurture and grow your own dinosaur empire.
- Jurassic Dino Water World
- Dino Tales – HD
- Ice Age Village
- Dinosaur Rampage
- Dinosaur Simulator 3D
- Jurassic World: The Game
- VR Jurassic – Dino Park World
- Walking with Dinosaurs: Inside their World
- Dinosaur 4D+
- Jurassic World Alive
Jurassic Dino Water World
Dive into the underwater world to explore and build your very own Jurassic underwater home. Similar to other fantasy world games, this app allows you to breed your own underwater sea creatures, raise them, and help them fight and win in underwater battle arenas.
Recommended Age: 4 to 7 years old
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $4.99 for a starter park)
Dino Tales HD
Although this is the only app on the list that does not have a free version, it is nevertheless a very popular app with parents and teachers around the world, winning the PTPA Award of Excellence and being top of the app leaderboard in 29 countries.
Graphics are excellent in the HD version of the app. The app is designed for children aged 4 to 8, where they get to hatch, personalize and nurture little baby dinosaurs and explore the rich and expansive interactive dino land, filled with musical boneyard, lush islands, lava slides and more. They can even create their very own storybook and share them with friends or parents at bedtime.
Recommended Age: 4 to 8 years old
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: $2.99
Ice Age Village
Although the Ice Age technically happened after the dinosaurs, who could resist a game that features Scrat, the furry squirrel who is forever chasing after a golden acorn?
In this game, your child will help Scrat in his hunt for this favourite acorn, learning kung fu, diving underwater with Sid, and building homes for the entire Ice Age family of raccoons, sharks, monkeys and of course, dinosaurs!
Your child can also invite her friends to her village, or visit her friends’ villages.
Created by GameLoft, a gaming studio on a mission to design games that bring a moment of happiness to everyone.
Recommended Age: 4 to 7 years old
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: Free (from $1.99 for in-app purchases)
Dinosaur Rampage
A very simple game with a simple 90s game graphics. There is only 1 task for the players of this game – to create as much destruction as possible! As you set the dinosaur off on a rampage, you collect points as you eat tiny people or destroy buildings in a city. It is a fantastically satifying game for children (and adults) who like to see things being knocked over.
Parental discretion is needed as the game might feel offensive to some.
Recommended Age: 5 to 10 years old
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: Free
Dinosaur Simulator 3D
Similar to Dinosaur Rampage, Dinosaur Simulator 3D is an app that let’s you take control of a T-Rex that rampages the city. Smash into car, street lights, moving trains… but don’t worry, unlike the dinosaurs in Dinosaur Rampage, this T-Rex do not eat people, he just likes to play with them!
This is a fantastic app to blow off some steam after a hectic day at school or at work.
Recommended Age: 9 and above
How to play: IOS
Price: Free (or $0.99 to remove ads)
Jurassic World: The Game
This is the highly anticipated official Jurassic World game based on the hit movie series of the same name. The game is made for more serious gamers, judging by the high quality and detailed graphics. There are 150 gigantic dinosaurs featured in this game which you can collect, hatch and evolve to fight in earth-shaking battles… all while constructing and building your very own Jurassic theme park.
The only thing to note about this game is that your child can purchase additional dinosaur card packs to uncover unique dinosaurs. This is of course a fun addition for the child, but something you might want to oversee just in case they go on a spending spree on your behalf!
Recommended Age: 9 and above
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: Free ($9.99 for VIP membership)
VR Jurassic – Dino Park World
Experience a fully immersive virtual reality experience with VR Jurassic – DIno Park World. Get transported into a hyper-realistic Jurassic Park where you can walk around in an endless world and meet the dinosaur of your dreams. There is even a rollercoaster you can go on to experience the thrill of a fast ride among deadly dinosaurs.
In the movie mode, you will follow along from episode 1 of the island’s history. Something will go wrong and you will find out why…
Although you can play this game in 3D mode, for the full effect, you will need a cardboard or a VR headset and a set of headphones to play.
Recommended Age: 12 and above
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $9.99 for the full version)
Walking with Dinosaurs – Photo Adventures
This award-winning app is developed in collaboration with BBC Earth and BBC Worldwide to bring the dinosaur encyclopedia to life.
The app allows children to interact with 60 different dinosaurs, and watch them stomp down the street, roaming through schools and homes in augmented reality. Players can zoom in and out as they wish to see each dinosaur up close while they listen to an engaging description narrated by a reknown British actor, Stephen Fry.
This is a fantastic app for dinosaur-loving children who want to see “real”, scientifically accurate dinosaurs.
Unfortunately this app is only avilable on an Apple device.
Recommended Age: All
How to play: IOS
Price: Free
Dinosaur 4D+
Grab a set of dinosaur flash cards from the developer’s site and point your phone’s camera at any of the dinosuar cards to see the featured dinosaur leap into life on your phone’s screen! Don’t worry, you don’t have to buy the flashcards just yet, free sample versions are available to try.
The app is designed to make STEM learning fun for children with augmented reality. Learn about the different dinosaurs, what they like, their diets… and see them in their natural habitat. Pair the app with a pre-made lesson plan available on the developer’s website for the full learning experience.
Beside dinosaurs, the same company has a series of other apps availble for kids to learn about animals, space and career / jobs.
Jurassic World Alive
Do you remember the smash hit app, Pokemon Go that captured the world’s attention in the summer of 2016? Of course you do! It is a location-based augmented reality (AR) app that had both adults and kids running around in the real world, pointing their phones at imaginery Pokemon creatures to capture and fight in battles. It was hilarious and oddly addictive. Not to mention a very fun way to stay active with all the walking you needed to do.
Released in 2018, Jurassic World Alive is essentially a game based on a very similar concept. Instead of Pokemons, you will be capturing dinosaurs. For many, this is a much better game than Pokemon Go, with better battle experience and more free upgrades without having to purchase add-ons. The occasional scientific infographics also add an educational element to this game for younger players.
Just remember to watch where you are going in real life when you play the game!
Recommended Age: Teenagers
How to play: IOS, Android
Price: Free (or $9.99 for the full membership)
Related Post: Best Educational Dinosaur Games for Kids and Preschoolers (Free options)
What to look out for when purchasing apps for kids
Age recommendation
As you can see from the list, dinosaur apps come in all shapes and sizes, from cute cartoon-like charactors to terrifyingly realistic creatures. We’ve separated the apps into different age groups based on the app developers’ recommendations. However, you know your child best, so it is worth trying out the app yourself before giving it to your child, in case there are content in the app which you do not think is appropriate.
Educational content
Palaentology is a subject that is constantly evolving as we learn more with better technology. Even highly regarded movies like Jurassic Park can get many facts around dinosaurs wrong. Therefore, we expect most of the apps to have some element of factual errors. However, some apps are designed to educate – whether it is to help children learn general knowledge and skills, or to learn about dinosaurs themselves. Hopefully we are able to highlight the educational content available within in the apps in our list above to help you make an informed decision.
Parental lock
All apps take time and investments to build. Many apps are made free because they are either supported by display ads or in-app purchases. Some of the simpler apps will accept a one-off payment to unlock the full content without ads and some are subsription-based. The trickiest type of paid apps for parents to monitor are the ones that use virtual currencies. Your child will be encouraged to buy upgrades or packs to unlock rare charactors or features to the game. For both Apple and Android phones and tablets, you can set a parental lock to prevent unauthorized purchases, which we strongly recommend that you do!
