Aim of the game
Survive. It’s as simple as that, in Happy Little Dinosaurs disaster is coming and all you need to do is survive it but how? Use point cards to win rounds and move your adorable dinosaur meeple through your board until you escape, or watch your friends collect disaster cards and fall one after another leaving you as the last dinosaur standing!
Playability
Rounds have little to do with skill and are mainly decided by the luck of what cards you’ve drawn, and the type of disaster that is in play. For me, this gives Happy Little Dinosaurs a good amount of replayability. There are also a wide range of disaster cards to keep things interesting, if you find that over time the game starts to feel a bit stale then fear not! There are 4 expansion packs available.
Set up & Gameplay
Each player starts by picking a dinosaur, in the base game of Happy Little Dinosaurs there are 4 to choose from. Each dinosaur comes with its own player board and meeple.
Now shuffle both decks of cards, the purple deck is your disaster deck, the yellow deck is your points deck.
In the disaster deck there are 4 different types of disaster cards.
Natural, Predatory, Emotional and Meteor. Players can be eliminated if they pick up 3 of the same type of disaster cards or 2 of the same type and a meteor card.
Within the points deck there are 2 types of cards, the first is the point card which is a weapon with a point value and sometimes an effect at the bottom. The second is instant cards. These cards tell you the effect and when you can play them at the bottom of the card.
At the start of the game each player is dealt 5 cards from the point deck, every round each player will draw from the deck to build their hand back up to 5 cards. At the beginning of every round a disaster card is taken from the top of the shuffled pile and placed face up in the center of the table, here is where your choice of dinosaur makes things interesting. On the bottom left of each player board there are buffs and/or nerfs, if the disaster card type matches the buff on your board then you gain the amount of points shown, if it matches the nerf on your board then you lose the amount shown when it comes to scoring so keep this in mind when choosing what card to play.
Each player picks a card from their hand to play each round, and all cards are revealed at the same time. If multiple players play points cards with effects then the player with the lowest point card value uses their effects first unless another player’s card states otherwise. If two players play points cards of the same value with effects then the youngest player goes first.
If you have a tie for the highest score in a round each player moves their dinosaur the amount of points they’ve earned that round.
If there’s a tie for lowest points you go to sudden death! Play another point card from your hand face down, when all players have done this flip them over together for dramatic effect, the player with the lowest point card value here puts the disaster card on their board’s disaster area, if a tie happens in sudden death then repeat it. If more than 1 player runs out of points cards in sudden death, move the disaster card to the bottom of the deck and move on to the next round.
If a card is played that inverts player scores for that round and multiple people are tied for highest/lowest points then all people involved in the tie invert their points.
This gameplay loop continues until a player reaches 50 points on their points board and escapes or there is only 1 player left standing.
Final Thoughts
Overall I really enjoyed Happy Little Dinosaurs, it’s something that I would definitely play again and am excited to get the expansion packs for.
The artwork is cute and what I’d expect from Unstable Games who are owned by Tee Turtle, the disaster cards are quite funny with plenty of variety and the instant cards can provide sneaky last minute twists and keep the rounds interesting.
My only drawback with Happy Little Dinosaurs is the overall quality of the pieces. The meeples and boards are cute and somewhat thick but you can quickly see the lamination starting to crease on the boards. The rule booklet is a large sheet that folds out. My issue with this is the size when you’re sitting at a table with others looking for something specific as well as the flimsiness of the sheet itself. It’s similar to magazine paper and rips easily when folding and unfolding it.
With games running between 30-60 minutes depending on the number of players this is a perfect game for when you don’t want to think too hard or game too long.
Ratings
Artwork 3/5
Complexity ⅖
Replayability ⅘
Player interaction ⅘
Component quality 3/5
You might like
- The length
- Simple but engaging gameplay
- Plenty of replayability
- Expansion packs!
Might not like
- Rounds can go long if there are ties
- The longevity of components
About the author
Kellie is a gamer, book lover, and digital artist with a passion for the cute and cosy. When she’s not writing, she can be found sketching, reading or digging into another cute looking indie offering. Her favorite board games usually feature cute critters and lots of laughs.
