Welcome to Dino World

Product Information

That’s too long for a solo game. As a parent, I approach the gaming experience more and more from an accessibility mindset: what game is the easiest one to get to the table? Which game offers nice, crunchy decisions with a setup, play and teardown time in under an hour? What gives me chances at near infinite replayability? Which one will my wife play with me more consistently? Like its predecessors, Dinosaur World puts players in the shoes of burgeoning entrepreneurs aiming to build the best dino theme park over a 5-round experience. As far as roll and writes go I would say Welcome to Dino World is on the meatier side of the genre. It is not a complex game but offers more than the average roll and write. It is a refreshing change to have a game in this genre, a roll and write with more than just crossing a coloured box (not that there is anything wrong with these, time and a place). 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. 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.

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). Depending on the danger level certain generators might malfunction. If they malfunction, then a part of the dino pen is damaged. If all the squares in a pen are damaged, then the dino escapes and causes additional damage to adjacent pens. Final Thoughts on Welcome to Dino World 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 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! I was talking to my buddy Kev about games our review crew was going to play in the month of March. I like to mix the review copies I get from Meeple Mountain with games from our group’s personal collection, because it’s not always possible to get a review copy of new games from our publishing partners. Jeeple Tour – Plan your Jeeple’s route to score the most excitement and/or most potential tourist deaths 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.

Dinosaur World has 17 different types of dino meeples (the deluxe version that I’m using for review does, anyway; the retail version just uses a single type of green wooden dino-meeple to represent all the herbivores in the game). In many ways, that’s cool. Or, it’s cool until someone says, So, we did. And I’m glad we did. Dinosaur World is great and builds on many of the same ideas that were successful in the other 2 main games in the “Dinoverse”, the name of the collective Pandasaurus universe of dino-games: Dinosaur Island, Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n Write, and Dinosaur World.Sorry. Had to pause and talk dice. But if you’ve played any of the Dinoverse games, you know I’m right! I had been intrigued by Dinosaur World, from Pandasaurus Games ( Wild Space, That Time You Killed Me, and of course the many other games/expansions in the Dinosaur Island space), but didn’t have the cash to shell out for another round of dinosaurs. Examples of the three dinosaur types, from left to right: Herbivores, Small Carnivores, Hard Carnivores.

In danger mode there are three research lab action cards that are available. These are sorted in two three groups – Z, Y and Z – and one from each group is revealed at the beginning of the game. These offer game changing abilities and powers that can be actioned like the research ability in the lite mode. You can use the X, Y and Z research actions three, two and one time(s) through the game respectively. The shape of the path will be determined by the pip value of the die. A player can draw multiple paths as a single action if the total value of the paths does not exceed the pip value of the die. TheJeepleTour stage injects a dose of reality into the gameand alsopresents a charming logistical puzzle. As you start each tour from the Welcome Centre tile, playersmustconsider wheretheyplace attractions to keep them accessible. As new tileshave to be connected on at least one side, there is a huge amount of freedom in how you build your park. At the end of round three, the Welcome Centre tile will move three spaces away and become the Park Entrance. This means youhave tothink carefully about where to put your attractions so that you can still get to them later in the game. Bored To Extinction 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.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.

Dinosaur World is a lot of fun, but it is much more likely that I pull down Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write to play because it’s so much easier to set up and play right away.This creates a number of problems. You need to be in a well-lit room. You need to not be 47 years old and suffering from near-blindness. (Maybe that’s just my problem.) You need to NOT play this at a bar or game cafe that doesn’t have large tables. This is a tight game on a 6-foot long, 3-foot wide table, as noted previously. At one friend’s house, Dinosaur World required a small poker table on the side to hold all the stuff. The pip value of the die will determine which dinosaur pen can be drawn. A dinosaur pen must be connected to an existing path already drawn. Dinosaur pens are also required to be adjacent to a power generator. If when drawing a new pen it is not connected to a generator, then one must be drawn. Drawing a generator is a free action and does not require a die. Depending on the dinosaur pen drawn they may require to be connected to multiple generators. A generator can be connected to a total of four dino pens. 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.