TipToe Dino

‍For more than ten years, I’ve wanted to create a preschool game with animals — a 3D packing problem rather than a 2D one. I pictured big and small animals standing firmly with their feet on the game board, but getting in each other’s way. The first version actually used safari animals, but since we were already working on a game featuring elephants and giraffes, we changed the theme to dinosaurs instead.

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‍Usually, I start by sketching out my ideas so my colleagues can turn them into 3D models in SolidWorks. But with this concept, that wasn’t so simple. Because of the organic shapes and the 3D nature of the idea, it was difficult for me to visualize how the pieces might fit together — or even whether the game would be playable. Years ago, I tried making rough prototypes from LEGO and Duplo bricks. They worked to a degree, but not well enough to finalize the concept. So TipToe Dino followed a very different development path than most SmartGames. Normally, I design games together with my colleague Leighton, but he was already very busy with other projects I created for the 2026 lineup. Instead, my colleague Rein took on the challenge. He was eager to work on something concrete while learning a different 3D design program called Blender.

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‍The original safari version was meant to be a preschool game, so the setup needed to be easy. I imagined a snake figure — long, irregular, and flexible — that could be placed on the board in different positions, each creating a unique challenge. The working title back then was Don’t Step on the Snake!, inspired by the idea of animals carefully lifting their feet to avoid squashing the snake or getten bitten by it. Normally, by the time I hand a project to a 3D CAD designer, I already know how many pieces the game will have, what shapes they’ll take, and I often have a first draft of challenges prepared. But in this case, none of that existed. Rein had to start with just a general idea and a theme, and together we figured things out as we went along. Once we switched the theme to dinosaurs, the snake no longer made sense. And even if it had, one or two snake figures wouldn’t have allowed enough variation for a full SmartGame with dozens of challenges. So we replaced the snake with separate eggs, and the working title became Don’t Step on the Eggs! Rein’s first designs for the dinosaurs were adorable. We tried the idea of animals lifting one or two legs, but within a square grid, those poses made them look too strange — not like dinosaurs at all. Fortunately, dinosaurs have long necks and tails, which we could use instead to create overhanging parts. We 3D printed prototypes to see how the challenges might work, and slowly it started to come together. As with all puzzle games — and especially 3D packing ones — the hardest part was finding the right balance between possibilities and limitations. Too many limitations, and you end up with a single-solution brainteaser. Too few, and every setup has multiple answers, which isn’t satisfying either. Because the dinosaurs had such simple shapes, almost every arrangement of eggs resulted in too many valid solutions. To fix that, we added a border of plants around the board to restrict placement options, but with a few open areas where heads or tails could stick out to create some variety. At one point, we tried attaching the eggs directly to puzzle pieces. Visually, this looked great — but unfortunately this limited the number of viable setups too much. Originally, it was a 3×3 board with three dinosaurs, but one of my bosses wanted something a bit bigger. Expanding it to 3×4 with four dinosaurs added more challenge possibilities and made the gameplay richer, even if it did increase production costs by about 25%. In the final version, there are three closed eggs and one open egg with a baby dino peeking out. I had considered using a plant as the fourth, higher obstacle, but it looked awkward and didn’t work well in play. Rein’s idea to replace it with a baby dinosaur was much better — and far cuter. Most of the parts are made from TPR, a soft-touch material that’s pleasant for small children to handle. If the grassy border had been made from hard plastic, it might have felt sharp, but now it’s comfortably smooth. The board also has the SmartGames logo embossed on one side — partly for branding, but also to help children easily orient it during play.

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‍I’ve always enjoyed designing games for very young children. I try to make them more than just puzzles — toys that encourage role play and imagination too. TipToe Dino  fits that philosophy perfectly: it’s a game about logic and space, but it also invites kids to build their own little Jurassic world. TipToe Dino will be available summer 2026.