How to Play Happy Little Dinosaurs

Happy Little Dinosaurs is a 2 to 4 player card game by Unstable Games. It is rated for ages 8+ and takes around 30 to 60 minutes to play.

Prepping for Disaster

The game will start with each player choosing a Dinosaur player board and the corresponding Dinosaur meeple to go alongside it, with the remaining meeples and boards being put back into the box.

Each player board has the same layout. On the left there’s an image of the Dinosaur along with some symbols at the bottom with positive or negative bonuses applied to them. In the centre of the board there’s the Escape Route and on the far right is the Disaster Board.

Inside the box there are two types of cards, separate them so that the light backed cards and the dark backed cards are in two different decks. Shuffle the light deck together and then deal out 5 cards to each player before putting the remaining stack of cards in the middle of the table face down to form the “Main Deck”. Make sure that there is space to the side of the deck for a discard pile. Then shuffle the dark deck together, which forms the “Disaster Deck” and put it face down on the table to the left of the Main Deck.

Running from Trouble

The game is played over a series of rounds. At the start of each round a new card from the Disaster Deck will be flipped over, revealing which of the three types of Disaster card it is. Then each player will play one of the cards in their hand, so long as it is a point card which will have a points value ranging from 0-9. If the symbol on the card matches the symbol on a player’s board then they apply that bonus to the card they play that round. The winner of the round will be determined by which of the players played the card with the highest points and the loser the lowest.

In order to edit this result players can play instant cards from their hands which could switch scores, add a bonus, etc. When all the cards have been played and the results finalised the winner of the round moves their player piece a number of steps down the Escape Track equal to the points the winner has. The loser of the round then takes the Disaster card and adds it to their Disaster Board. At the end of each round, each player moves their Dinosaur down their Escape track a number of spaces equal to cards on their Disaster Board, adrenaline kicking in and urging them forward.

Once this is done, players draw one card from the Main Deck, regardless of how many cards they have played during the round. An exception to this is if they have no cards left in their hand at all, in which case they will redraw up to five. With those cards drawn, the next card from the Disaster Deck is drawn and the next round begins.

Making an Escape

Winning the game can happen in one of two ways, the first being that they are the last Dinosaur left standing. In order for players to be eliminated they have to have collected a certain number of Disaster Cards. Either having 3 of one colour of Disaster Cards or having one of each of the 3 colours of Disaster Card. The Meteor Disaster Cards are considered to be Wild, and so would eliminate the player when collected with any 2 other cards.

Note: For a 2 player game there are variant rules that aim to make the game more balanced. These involve removing cards that score from 1-3 points from the game and having a player only be eliminated if they have 4 of one colour of Disaster Card or 2 of each colour.

The other way for a player to win the game is for them to have reached the end space on their Disaster Board, and having their Dino finally escape.