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If you happen to have been in Norwich recently you can’t help but have noticed that the whole place is riddled with dinosaurs! One of these critters, Roary, is sponsored by Zatu. This is for the Break Charity's GoGoDiscover 2022 trail. As we will take anything as an excuse to talk about board games over here with the Zatu Bloggers, I’m going to tell you about 5 great board games that are also stuffed with dinosaurs.
Dinosaur World
Oh do I like this game! Dinosaur World by Pandasaurus games is a stellar follow up to Dinosaur Island. You get to let out your inner John Hammond and build up a dinosaur theme park. You start off by drafting different worker meeples. These may raise money for attractions, aid you in your research or beef up your security to help keep your dinos locked up tight. You’ve also got some big chunky dice to be rolling to generate your DNA that you use to clone new dinosaurs.
At the end of every round, you can take your jeep all over your park to try and show off the best you have to offer. But if you keep showing the same attractions your visitors will start getting bored. So you have to keep pushing for bigger and better and eventually, something will fall through the cracks and the dinosaurs may escape. Quite how they do it? Life, eh, finds a way.
Raptor
This is a very different kettle of fish. This is an asymmetrical game where one player takes control of some scientists trying to investigate the other team, a pack of raptors. The raptors will have a parent raptor and a bunch of child raptors on the board. The scientist player will have a group of scientists that start off around the outside. Each round players will secretly choose a card and then reveal it. Each of the cards has a number and a special ability. The player who selected the lowest value gets to do the special action on their card and the other player gets a number of actions equal to the difference between the two cards.
It’s difficult to explain, but what I can explain is how tense this game can get. You’re really trying to outmaneuver your opponent and if you can work out which cards they are likely to be playing you can either try and minimise the number of actions they get or maximise the ability you get. It’s really clever and it’s one of those games that I tend to finish up, swap sides and then go again. Definitely recommend it!
Tiny Epic Dinosaurs
This is a nearly pocket-sized dinosaur wrangling powerhouse. Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a solid worker placement game that’ll have you building a little dinosaur ranch. You’ll be placing your workers out to try and gather food or dinosaur eggs to bring back to your ranch. Once you’ve got them there you’ve got to build up fences and pens in order to keep them safe. There are loads of different dinosaurs that can be obtained and brought into your ranch, each with different scoring conditions. You can also look to sell these dinosaurs off to private collectors for a boat load of points.
This is a great little game that reminds me a lot of Agricola, especially with the pen building. This one also holds a special place for me as a bunch of the Zatu bloggers ran a little Tiny Epic Dinos tournament, and I managed to come top of the table. It’s a good game but that win makes it just a little bit sweeter for me!
Welcome To Dino World
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.
Because of all this variety two games can feel very different from each other. And we haven’t even got to the best bit yet. The dinosaurs can escape! Yep, if you’ve not been securing your park enough, when the dinosaurs get rowdy they can start to break their protective fences. Too much damage and they’re out! Add to this a more simplified version of the game is also included and this is a very compelling box of Tyrannosauruses.
Tales From The Loop
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.
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!
So, those are 5 games with dinosaurs in that might just be worth you checking out. There are plenty more that could’ve easily made the list. The Jurassic Park set for Unmatched comes to mind and I’m pretty sure Smash Up has some dinosaurs in the base box as well.
Anyways, with all that said and done why not try and spot all the Dinosaurs on the trail in Norwich at the moment? Get yourself a nice pic with Roary, post it and tag @zatugames. Then once you’ve done that settle in with a nice board game full of dinosaurs.