Pandasaurus Games Dinosaur World - Strategy Board Game - Game for Adults, Family-Friendly Board Games - 60 Mins, 2-4 Players, Ages 10+

Product Information

If you are wondering, Dinogenics is my favorite dinosaur game. While Dinosaur World’s park building is more thematic, I prefer Dinogenics’ gameplay and game length. If you were NOT wondering… well, I guess it is too late. Sorry. 😊 )

Dinosaur World simplifies many steps that I thought were a bit of a stumble in Dinosaur Island. In Dinosaur World, round steps are easy to teach but thinky, especially as you plan out how to run your “Jeeple” (the game’s term for your wooden Jeep playing piece) on a tour of your personal theme park. Before that, you’ll take steps that are quite easy. Now that the scientific triumph of Dinosaur cloning is public knowledge, competition is hot and new parks spring up regularly. Though many of these amateurs are opening their gates before everything has been safety-tested, there’s no shortage of patrons eager to be entertained by extinct behemoths! You might face some visitor deaths along the way, but don’t worry - as long as your park is “safer” than your competitors’, it won’t hurt your score!

Rarity

Guests are always looking for something new and more exciting, and it's not like nature was gonna make new Dinosaur types. Jurassic Park was an amazing movie and ahead of its time (watch the Netflix show on it if you do not believe me) At a high level though, you play as a bunch of kids who are going to a school near an experimental particle accelerator called The Loop. Strange things keep happening and the kids all get curious and decide to investigate. You have a story to play through, but you also need to do all those kid things like homework and taking the dog for a walk. If you neglect this stuff you may get grounded. That means you can’t go out and investigate and things start slipping by. There are definitely a few rough edges with Tales from the Loop. There were a few moments when it felt like a rule was missing. But if you can see past that and really get into the exploration of the fantastic setting, you’re going to have a good time. Now with dinosaurs! If this can be believed, the biggest takeaway from Dinosaur World is its size. I have a Game Topper for my game room (3 feet wide by 6 feet long) and it is normally enough for any game I play.

This is especially true when you consider solo play. I only played Dinosaur World once solo for this review, and that was enough to confirm what I already guessed: Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n Write is simply the better game for a single player, mainly because there is no setup/teardown time. You can get all of that Dinoverse magic in about 20 minutes. It took me about 75 minutes to set up, play solo, and put away Dinosaur World. Dinosaur World is a worker placement, tile placement dinosaur theme park building game four two to four players. Games can take between 60 to 120 minutes, with higher player counts taking longer until all involved have had experience with the game. The central playing area. I will warn you now, this game can be a table hog! Now, here’s one set of stuff that is NOT in Dinosaur World: Specialist cards, which were so good in the previous Dinoverse games (although they are here in the solo game, strangely). I like that getting specialized workers has been streamlined here. I need someone better at making me money? I need green meeples. That’s great. But the Specialists are so good and add so much variety to every playthrough.As with any form of entertainment, triumph is often accompanied by tragedy - which is why your investors demand that you take every precaution (and ensure every visitor signs the safety waiver) before you show them the wonders of Dinosaur World! So, this one may be a bit of a stretch as Tales from the Loop is mostly about big lumbering robots. But there are dinosaurs in there too! The base game has a few event cards and tasks that are all about the characters stumbling upon these wild dinos on their travels. An expansion for the game adds a whole story based around these wily lizards. I don’t want to give too much away as discovering the story is part of the fun.

These are the questions I ask, but I get that for some people, roll-and-write games are not for them. Some players can also hurdle the challenge of getting a big game to a big table with ease; in that case, I think Dinosaur World is going to fit best. Once players have finished the construction of their parks, they’re then free to improve them wherever they see fit, attracting even more visitors and wowing their guests with exciting new exhibits. Most importantly, players will have to ensure the safety of their visitors, as they will lose points if too many of their guests are tragically eaten by dinosaurs. These tokens can be removed by sending workers to clean them during the Jeeple Tour phase. The algae collected can then be exchanged for DNA, the precious resource used to make the dinosaurs. This new mechanic works nicely with the base game and really drives the theme home, as it fits perfectly with the aquatic dinosaurs. The aesthetics of Dinosaur World and the quality of the components are both incredible. The artwork, fromKwanchaiMoriya, JoeShawcross,andAndrew Thompson,isstunning. Every tilepops, andthe gamebrings your table to life (especiallyas it will take up pretty much all of it). This expansion comes with 6 new dinosaurs species (18 meeples and 6 tiles total!) that add some aquatic variety to your games! All dinos will have heat transfer artwork on both sides of the blue translucent plastic meeple. Which of the dinos is your favorite: Dunkleosteus, Elasmosaurus, Kronosaurus, Mosasaurus, Plesiosasurus, or Plotosaurus?Once you’ve finished drafting dice and tiles, and taking private actions on your player board , you’ll run your tour, scoring points, cash, and/or excitement along the way. The triumph of science that led to dinosaurs returning to the world once more has become public knowledge. New parks spring up regularly, often beginning operations even before everything has been finalized. There is no shortage of patrons eager to be entertained by these returned species in new and exciting ways. However, as with any form of entertainment, elements of triumph are often accompanied by elements of tragedy. This means it is of the utmost importance that you take every precaution by ensuring each visitor signs the safety waiver before enjoying the wonders of Dinosaur World! Examples of the three dinosaur types, from left to right: Herbivores, Small Carnivores, Hard Carnivores.

I liked Dinosaur World. I definitely prefer it to Dinosaur Island. The randomness of the hooligans has been removed (replaced with the randomness of dice at dinosaur exhibits, but I preferred this mechanic) and the park building aspect was placed center stage, a theme that has more relevance to me. Building the parks is very enjoyable, as are the decisions of when and how to use your workers. I only wish the Jeeple Tour was a bit more robust. Overall, I recommend this game, especially if dinosaurs or theme parks are your thing! I was torn between this one or Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n’ Write, but as I’ve already mentioned the big version of that, I figured I’d pop this underappreciated gem on the list instead. This is a great little roll and write that has you building up a dinosaur park. That is definitely a popular theme here, Jurassic Park has a lot to answer for! Anyways, with Dino World you’re building up a dino park with some randomised facilities to give you different scoring conditions each time you play. You’ve also got a different set of research cards which give you access to those sort of ‘re-roll a die’ powers you get in roll and write games.Let’s confirm this much: if you have Dinosaur Island, I think Dinosaur World is the better game and I’d replace Dinosaur Island with Dinosaur World if I had all the money in the world. If you don’t have any of the Dinoverse games, you are looking for an excellent Jurassic Park simulator AND you have a large table and the time to regularly get in a 2-hour experience, Dinosaur World is an excellent choice. Dinosaur World barely accommodates 4 players thanks to all of the tile laying you will do during play. This massive table hog left me in the place I expected: as fun as Dinosaur World is, it is not my favorite game in the series thanks to the Tyrannosaurus-sized footprint. This expansion comes with 3 new dinosaurs that are a hybrid of different types: Galliraptor (herbivore Gallimimus & small carnivore Raptor), Tyrannaceratops (herbivore Triceratops & large carnivore T-Rex), and Velocidon (small carnivore Velociraptor & large canivore Pteranodon).