Welcome to Dino World

Product Information

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, 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. 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. 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. 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.

Jurassic Park was an amazing movie and ahead of its time (watch the Netflix show on it if you do not believe me) Welcome to Dino World is a roll and write where players are competing to build the best dinosaur park. Players use dice to build special buildings, power generators and build dinosaur pens, draw paths to connect to the park’s entrance and attempt to stop dinosaurs attempting to escape. Players are also competing for visitor cards (aka objectives) and being the first to claim them means that you can deny your opponents from getting them.Two types of facilities can be built depending on the die value selected; recreation and welfare. Recreation facilities are built with a one, two or three and welfare facilities are built with a four, five or six. These facilities have certain placement restrictions and scoring requirements. Excitement scores players cash to spend the next round. Five rounds later, the game is over. Tally up those scores, subtract points for any dead guests (yes, this will happen), and declare one player the winner! I mean, look at all of this! The Big Negative? The Bigness 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.

The Dinoverse is many things to many people, but everyone I’ve played these games with agrees on one thing: these are the greatest dice in dice history. They feel great in the hands, have a satisfyingly chunky feel to them, and for reasons that only the Dinoverse (and the film series) can explain, they are an amber color that stand out no matter where they happen to be on your table. 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). 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 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).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.