To me Jurassic Park is a perfect film, I will happily watch it anytime. I have recently seen the trailer for Jurassic World – Rebirth and am VERY excited. It’s made me even more keen to play some of my dinosaur themed board games and there are some great ones to choose from!
1. Draftosaurus
I absolutely love this quick puzzly little drafting game. There’s minimal set up and a light rule set making it suitable for younger players and non-board game folk too. It can play up to five people, but the two player rules scale perfectly. Each turn players draft adorable dino meeples and place them on their player board according to the placement rules. One of the players rolls a die which adds one additional constraint for that round. Arguably this is an abstract game, it’s pretty tricky to make lighter games deeply thematic. However, the meeples are so lovely and I find it really satisfying seeing them all lined up on the board. It’s often a go to starter or filler game on games night.
2. Raptor
This is an asymmetric two-player game where a team of scientists are trying to recapture a raptor and her babies before they disappear into the wild. (Think Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom and Dominion).
Each player has a set of cards that they will use to control their miniatures. There are core actions specific to each character and special actions on each card in the player deck. At each round whoever played the lowest scoring card uses the action on that card. The other player cannot use the action on the card that they played, but they can use some of their core character actions, these include movement and attacking your opponent. The scientists can use fire to create blockades, sleep tokens to tranquilise the raptors, and add extra scientists to the mission. The raptor can terrorise the scientists, call her babies and use some hidden movement to bamboozle the scientists. The number of the core actions is determined by the difference in value between the cards played. The raptor wins when three of their babies escape or there are no scientists left on the board (I don’t think I’ve managed this ever). The scientists win when they capture three baby raptors or place five sleep tokens on the mother raptor.
Despite not loving the art, particularly the way that the (two) women have been illustrated, I love this game. It’s quick yet thinky, with plenty of depth and tactics. I often lose it so quickly we have time to play a couple of games. I have only ever played as the raptor, I can’t help but think
of the scientists as the baddies. Still, even without swapping the roles I’ve found so much replayability in this due to variety the card play creates.
3. Unmatched: Jurassic Park – InGen vs Raptors
This is my only Jurassic Park IP pick, although if I could get my hands on the Dr. Sattler vs T.Rex set, I have a sneaking suspicion it would make the list too. At first glance this might look like a Jurassic Park branded Raptor. It’s a two-player game with asymmetric roles that uses cards. However, the style and feel of play is really quite different. The Unmatched system uses unique card decks for players to move and attack/defend in combat. Three raptors are being hunted by InGen, led by Robert Muldoon and his three staff. The raptors can increase the power of their attack when they’re together, but they can be blocked or hurt by the traps the InGen team leave across the board. InGen win if all three of the raptors reach zero health, the raptors win if Robert Muldoon reaches zero health.
This is the only version of Unmatched that I’ve played, and it was absolutely the theme that drew me in. I’m so glad it did as the system is great, and I will definitely try others now. That being said, I think you really do get something extra from this if you like the films. The cards have some great quotes on them like ‘clever girl’, ‘they remember’, ‘I’ve hunted most things that can hunt you’, amongst others that are indelibly etched into my brain. Although I do often reveal my cards by re-enacting parts of the film after replenishing my deck. Where it is like Raptor is that I only want to play the raptor side and I’m rubbish at it. It doesn’t matter though; I still find the game exciting, and I have improved after multiple plays which is satisfying in itself.
4. Dinosaur World
Although this doesn’t use the Jurassic Park IP, it certainly feels like Jurassic Park the game and there are some fun nods to the film series. Packed with strategy, players use worker placement and resource management to develop and run their dinosaur theme parks. The game is played over five rounds split into different phases; Hiring workers, public actions which happen in turn order, private actions, and a park tour, both of which happen simultaneously. During the public actions players can gather DNA, or build attractions, paddocks and buildings. During the private actions players can refine DNA, make dinosaurs or manage different aspects of their park like security or the jeeple garage. In both the public and private actions their benefits may be more powerful if players can match them with relevant workers. For example, the scientist gets more DNA from the gather DNA action.
Next players plot a jeeple route through their park and collect any benefits that they’re able to activate, as well as raise the excitement levels in the park. However, as Dr Wu points out in
Jurassic World, visitors get bored by seeing the same ho-hum dinosaurs (“But you didn’t ask for reality, you asked for more teeth.”) and once a tile has been visited on a tour the boredom level there increases, lowering excitement levels in future rounds. When the tour has been completed players must check they have enough security to manage the level of threat in their park and collect death tokens if they’re in a deficit. Victory points are scored throughout the game and at the end points from coins are added, as well as deducting points based on the death toll.
Worker placement is one of my favourite mechanisms and I love the way that it’s been done in this game. Drawing a different group of workers with different strengths each round adds to the puzzle and creates interesting choices throughout the game. Admittedly managing some elements of the game is fiddly (the boredom level in particular) and set-up is not quick. However, it very much sits in the fiddly-but-worth-it category for me. The gameplay itself is near perfect for my tastes and the graphic design and components are fab, the amber dice please me beyond measure, it’s such a lovely thoughtful touch. I also love the ‘jeeple’ it’s a very fun word to say.
5. Dinosaur Island Rawr n’ Write
Based on Dinosaur Island, the Rawr ‘n Write version is a draft dicing and worker placement game. The aim is to build a dinosaur park using polyomino shapes with routes throughout. As well as building an exciting park with varied exhibits and attractions, players need to keep the visitors and staff safe. There are two phases of the game, building and running the park. During the building phase players gather resources by drafting dice and then use the dice to place workers to create dinosaurs, improve security, and extract DNA. When it comes to running the park players complete stages outlined on their sheet to trigger different bonuses based on the attractions in their park, the staff they’ve recruited, running a dino tour, and measuring guest satisfaction. Then players check the difference between the level of threat in the park and the level of security. If there’s insufficient security, players adjust their score on the death toll track. After three rounds final scoring takes place.
I haven’t actually played Dinosaur Island, just Dinosaur World (which I love), so I can’t offer a direct comparison, but this is an absolutely fantastic version that gives the feel of a much bigger game. I’ve always been a bit of a sceptic about the roll and write trend they’re just not my favourite, but after playing this I did have to wonder if perhaps I’d just not played good ones? This is a wonderful puzzly and thinky game with proper depth. The combos that you create, and trigger are deeply satisfying. Like Dinosaur World, it has great art and components, particularly for what might be considered a lighter or smaller game. I only played this for the first time last year, but it might be one of my favourite games.
6. Tiny Epic Dinosaurs
In Tiny Epic Dinosaurs each player manages a dinosaur ranch and place workers to wrangle new dinosaurs, build fences, and improve security. Worker placement actions provide resources and allow players to gain benefits through research cards with special powers or unique dinosaurs. There’s also the opportunity to fulfil public and private contracts by supplying dinosaurs, presumably to other dinosaur parks and ranches.
After the worker placement phase and before the feeding phase players place dinosaurs in enclosures on their board. Players need to have enough of each food type to cover the food costs of all their dinosaurs. If dinosaurs go hungry, they’ll escape and will cause damage on their way out of the ranch. Once feeding (and hopefully no) escaping has been resolved any pair of dinosaur species in the same enclosure will breed and the new dinosaurs they produce can be placed in empty spaces.
This is a great game; it’s got all the elements of a bigger strategy game whilst playing quickly and not being too brain-zapping. It feels like a constant juggling act and requires careful resource management. When I learned the rules I rather smugly thought ‘well I won’t let my dinosaurs escape.’ Cut to me completely overlooking food in one round and the feeding phase turning into absolute carnage. The contracts and unique dinosaurs add further strategy, is it best to breed and acquire high-value dinosaurs to fulfil contracts or is it better to perfect a chosen few? Although it doesn’t necessarily offer anything super new it’s a superb blend of the DNA (extracted from a 65-million-year-old mosquito preserved in amber) of some of my favourite games. The Head Rancher is like the Grande Worker in Viticulture. The need to manage resources to feed dinosaurs at the end of each round feels like Agricola. The dinosaurs escaping reminds me of the pets getting out of their cages in Dungeon Petz. It’s lovely to have the elements from some of my favourite games tie up in a nice, neat light package for when I don’t have time to play a bigger game.
In summary
Recreating dinosaur life has had disastrous consequences in every film in the Jurassic Park franchise, and it’s a great set up for games. The theme really lends itself to creating interesting gameplay and tension when players have to balance different priorities like making appealing parks and keeping people alive.
I’m giddy with excitement for the new Jurassic World film, so I am very happy to have these games to fill in the gap whilst I have to wait.
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