Welcome to Dino World

Product Information

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! 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).

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. 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. 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. 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! 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.

The Verdict

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. 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.

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. 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.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. 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). 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! Examples of the three dinosaur types, from left to right: Herbivores, Small Carnivores, Hard Carnivores. If that was not enough there is also the danger mode which all of the above can be played with as well. The amount of content is higher than the tallest T-Rex and more varied than the dinosaurs pens you can draw.

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. 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. 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). The power generators also behave slightly differently. You can add a total of eight generators (rather than 12) and each generator produces four megawatts of energy to an adjacent pen. So, one generator might supply four pens or supply one pen four times. Every time you build a new pen you also increase your threat level depending on the dino drawn. A herbivore will increase the threat by one and a carnivore will increase your threat by two. 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.My only two other issues, which are both player count specific, is that at three or four players, the game can overstay its welcome, especially if you have AP prone players. In addition, anything beyond two players and the game is really a table hog. I enjoyed the game the most with at players. Final Thoughts: The game comes with two different modes. A lite and a danger mode. The danger mode offers additional rules and is a more complex game. The lite mode is a lighter affair but still on the complex side when compared to most other roll and writes. Gameplay 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. Jurassic Park was an amazing movie and ahead of its time (watch the Netflix show on it if you do not believe me)