The running T-Rex made its debut on Chrome four years ago. On the occasion of Chrome’s 10th birthday this week, we sat down with its creators from the Chrome Design team—Edward, as well as Sebastien Gabriel and Alan Bettes—to learn more about the dinosaur’s journey from the Cretaceous period to the modern browser.

How did you come up with the idea of running T-Rex?

Sebastien: The idea of “an endless runner” as an easter egg within the “you-are-offline” page was born in early 2014. It’s a play on going back to the “prehistoric age” when you had no Wi‑Fi. The cacti and desert setting were part of the first iteration of the “you-are-offline” page, while the visual style is a nod to our tradition of pixel-art style in Chrome’s error illustrations.

Alan: The only restriction we placed on ourselves was to keep the motion rigid, reminiscent of vintage video games. At the beginning we thought, “What if it did a cute little kick in the beginning like our favorite 90’s hedgehog? What if it roared to signal to people that it was alive?” But in the end, we settled on the basics of any good runner game: run, duck and jump.