Dinothawr was released in September 2013, written by Hans-Kristian Arntzen ("Themaister", one of the RetroArch developers), with graphics and artwork by Agnes Heyer. It is a puzzle game played on slippery surfaces: your dinosaur pushes stone blocks which, once set in motion, slide until they hit an obstacle. You must bring them onto the target areas to free your fellow dinosaurs trapped in the ice, planning every trajectory in advance — and you slide too, which makes matters considerably harder.
The game holds a particular place in libretro history: it was never designed as an emulator, but as an original game written directly as a libretro core, to prove that the API could serve other purposes than replaying old machines. It has been the reference example for anyone writing a core ever since, and is still distributed for free with its data.
Ten chapters, fifty levels, a slow pace and a discreet soundtrack: Dinothawr is the kind of game you play calmly, one board at a time.
| Authors | Agnes Heyer and Hans-Kristian Arntzen |
| Year of release | 2013 |
| Engine | Native game written as a libretro core |
| Game type | Puzzle, block pushing |
| Port licence | Custom licence, non-commercial use |
| Controller | Mandatory |
Dinothawr is shipped complete with Recalbox — the game, its levels, its graphics and its music: there is strictly nothing to provide or install. See the Included games page.
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro dinothawr | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Libretro dinothawr is the only emulator for this system and is therefore used by default on every machine, including the Raspberry Pi Zero 2: the game is very light. Netplay is not available on this system and RetroAchievements are not supported. CRT output is handled by the core.
Dinothawr is a read-only system: the game is shipped complete and its folder is not meant to be modified.
/recalbox/share_init/roms/ports/Dinothawr/
Supported extensions: .game .zip .7z
The folder holds the complete installation of the game, more than a hundred and forty files:
/recalbox/share_init/roms/ports/Dinothawr/
└── dinothawr/
├── dinothawr.game ← the game entry, launched by the core
├── level_1-1.tmx … ← the 50 levels
├── dino.font
├── assets/ ← graphics, sound effects and music
└── *.glsl / *.glslp ← the game's shaders
The dinothawr.game file is an XML descriptor: it lists the ten chapters, their levels, the menu images, the sound effects and the music. The core then reads the .tmx files and the assets/ folder sitting next to it, so all of them must stay together.
Unlike the other ports, this system does not read
/recalbox/share/roms/. Dropping files into/recalbox/share/roms/ports/Dinothawr/has no effect: they will not appear in the game list.