Chrome Dino

The static dinosaur shipped first, in July 2013, replacing a sad face on Chrome's no-connection page. The joke is that a dead connection throws you back to the prehistoric age. The endless runner came in 2014 under the code name Project Bolan, after Marc Bolan of T. Rex, with Sebastien Gabriel drawing the character, Edward Jung writing the game and Alan Bettes doing the motion. Gabriel called him the Lonely T-Rex. The team deliberately kept him to run, duck and jump, cutting a roar and a start-line kick borrowed from a certain 90s hedgehog, and made the motion rigid on purpose. It grew into a hidden shared ritual with anniversary costumes, pterodactyls, night mode and a full merch line.