Thoroughly Modern Take on Prehistoric Adventure

The Mongolian desert yielded oviraptor. “Jurassic Park” gave us velociraptor. Now from Dinamation International Corp. comes . . . Cyberaptor.

In “Devils Canyon: A Dinamation Adventure,” participants travel back to prehistoric times aboard a computer-generated robotic dinosaur. “Devils Canyon” is one of two projects marketed under the banner of Time Blazers as the first educational interactive multimedia series combining CD-ROM and on-line technologies.

It may feel like a game, but the keyword is educational.

“My job was to make sure of the scientific accuracy,” said Eric Nelson, project director for Irvine-based Dinamation during development of the computer adventure. “I worked with the illustrator and three paleontologists to make sure that it had Dinamation’s seal of approval.”

Dinamation designs and manufactures fully animated robotic dinosaurs. Nelson, who works out of his home in Laguna Beach, now consults for TeraMedia, the electronic-publishing enterprise that produced Time Blazers; TeraMedia has offices in Washington, D.C., and Auckland, New Zealand.

With Time Blazers, TeraMedia partners Vivien Horner, creator of Nickelodeon, and Sally Celmer sought to expand the “edutainment” software category. They hooked up with two organizations to oversee creative development of the Time Blazers efforts.

A collaboration with Washington’s Young Astronauts Council launched “Space Station Alpha: The Encounter.” Efforts with Dinamation yielded “Devils Canyon.”

More than 60 million people have visited almost 700 Dinamation exhibitions around the world since 1983. Last year, more than 12 million people visited 125 exhibitions that encompass more than 800 different creatures now on display at museums, zoos, aquariums, malls and theme parks around the world.

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Local mall-goers periodically take in displays at MainPlace in Santa Ana. This year, Dinamation has exhibits at 35 malls across the country.

Dinamation’s prehistoric creatures are based on fossil evidence, on the latest research from paleontologists and on existing creatures with analogous qualities.

Dinamation also lets the public assist at actual dinosaur digs with its Dinosaur Discovery Expeditions to Colorado’s Grand Valley, where fossils from 30 individual dinosaurs have been unearthed. In 1994, Dinamation opened Devils Canyon Science and Learning Center near Colorado National Monument.

The computer adventure marks Dinamation’s first venture into the high-tech interactive software industry. The CD-ROM and on-line activities are complementary but separate. Noted Nelson: “The technology to use them simultaneously hasn’t caught up to our ideas. But we’re working on it.”

Visitors to the Web site at www.timeblazers.com can browse in a Dino-Gallery that employs illustrations and text. Occasionally they also can chat with paleontologists working at the real Devils Canyon site in Colorado.

TeraMedia is taking a two-pronged approach to marketing “Devils Canyon.”

According to Nelson, the first phase, now underway, involves selling it at Dinamation’s mall shows and traveling exhibits to “people who are already dinosaur freaks.” The second phase involves distributor Ingram-Micro, which plans to place the product in retail stores such as CompUSA by November. It’s also available by mail order through TeraMedia. Suggested retail price is $45.

The target age group is 8 to 12.

“People say kids today have a short attention span, that they’re the TV generation,” Nelson said. “But I’ve shown this to inner-city youths, and they get into activities that adults might say are dull and work 45 minutes or an hour straight. This was developed by paleontologists; these kids are learning something. It’s not a game.

“Still, it’s a tough market we’re getting into,” he said. “There are all sorts of kiddly-wink products, such as ‘Grandma and Me,’ for 4- to 6-year-olds. There’s a whole slew of products for 12 and up, mostly shoot-’em-up games that are fun but also violent. There aren’t a whole lot of products geared from 7 to 13, kids too old for kiddly-winks but not ready for violence. There’s . . . no in-between.”

Nelson is impressed by the variety of people outside the target group who respond favorably.

Paleontologist George Callison, Dinamation’s senior science advisor, is not surprised.

“This CD-ROM has both fun and education value for kids of all ages,” Callison said. “I know people 60 years old playing with it and having a lot of fun. It’s got enough diversity of activities that I enjoy playing with it myself. Play is the natural way of learning, and this is very creative way of playing.”

The plot of the “Devils Canyon” adventure centers on a rescue mission. Players navigate through a virtual-reality environment, solving scientific tasks laid out with graphics, sound effects, animation and video footage; illustrated reference materials can be accessed in an Encyclosaurus.

Four sectors, each hosted by a real scientist, must be traversed to complete the mission:

* “Looking for Fossils,” with geologist Jonathan Cooley.

* “On a Dig,” with paleontologist Jim Kirkland, discoverer of Utahraptor.

* “In the Lab,” with paleontologist Karen Chin, renowned for her work with fossilized droppings.

* “The Living Dinosaur,” with Callison, who draws careful distinctions between what we know and what we think we know.

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Nelson made careful distinctions when a paleontologically challenged journalist asked whether the velociraptors made famous in “Jurassic Park” were fictional.

They were real.

“Absolutely, but the ones in ‘Jurassic Park’ were grossly exaggerated,” he said, “at least three times the size they were in real life.

“But that’s OK; we’ll cut [Steven] Spielberg some slack. He made them larger than life [because] nobody would believe a 4-foot creature would be that vicious or that intelligent,” he said. “Velociraptor could fit on your lap, just like a little dog, a bite-size creature, a cute little guy--and vicious as all get-out.”

Then, as the film was being shot, Dinamation researcher Kirkland discovered a new raptor in Utah. The Utahraptor, he said, “has become a signature creation for Dinamation. . . .

“It was actually the same size and shape as Spielberg’s,” Nelson said, “one of the few times that science actually followed art.”