Boardgames are a great way to spend time with friends and/or family Dinosaurs are cool, Jurassic Park was an amazing movie and ahead of its time (watch the Netflix show on it if you do not believe me)
So, regardless of point #3, dinosaur board games should be a slam dunk, right? Apparently, Pandasaurus Games, publisher of Dinosaur World, believes so as this is their fifth dinosaur-themed game. Dinosaur Island, the most similar to Dinosaur World of the bunch, funded on Kickstarter in 2017 and was a success. I was also one of its backers. How does the recently released Dinosaur World stack up to its cousin? Is it worth getting if you already own Dinosaur Island? Hopefully, my review will help you decide.
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.
Dinosaur World Center Board. The central playing area. I will warn you now, this game can be a table hog!. The game lasts five rounds, with each round consisting of five phases:
Hire Workers – players draft a card representing their available workers for the round. Public Actions – players take turns using placing workers to select tiles for their park or DNA dice for their dinosaurs. Unused workers are used in the next phase.
Private Actions – players simultaneously place their workers in their park for actions and resources. Unused workers carry over to the next phase. Jeeple Tour – Plan your Jeeple’s route to score the most excitement and/or most potential tourist deaths. Income/Cleanup – cleanup the round, check to see if anyone dies due to overall lack of security and prepare for the next round
Once all five rounds are completed, final scores are tallied based on points earned during the game plus extra points for money on hand at the end, minus points for the “much more frequently than you would like” deaths at your park. The player with the most points is the winner and grand champion of dinosaur theme parks!