Dinosaur Island Board Game - Create Your Own Dino Park! Worker Placement Strategy Game, Fun Family Game for Kids and Adult, Ages 8+, 1-4 Players, 60-120 Minute Playtime, Made by Pandasaurus Games

Dinosaur Island is a brilliant Euro-style, worker placement game that actually has a brilliant theme! Also, the component quality (with ONE BIG EXCEPTION) are exceptional! Especially if you can get the kickstarter version! In Dinosaur Island, you're completing with the other players to build the best, most exciting and profitable dinosaur theme park. DI uses a fairly innovative worker placement system where you have two different sets of works-scientists and basic workers. Furthermore, the game has FOUR separate actions boards that all the players use during each of the games phases (their even labeled phase 1, phase 2, etc....). The two sets of workers (scientists, workers) can only be used on certain boards. It's really interesting. During the course of the game, the players will place scientists and workers in order to obtain dinosaur DNA (from amber-colored dice!) to create dinosaurs, hire "experts" that allow to break the rules of the game, or give you a special power. You can build extra attractions to add to your park in addition to the dinos! You can also increase the security of your theme park to keep those dinosaurs under control less the escape and attack your theme park guests (which CAN happen!)!! Victory points are scored in Three main ways: First, obviously, is building up your dinosaur theme park. Every dinosaur you add to your park (both multiples of the same species and/or new and different species) adds to your park's "excitement level." Your excitement level determines the number of paying customers your park attracts at the end of each turn. The customers are meeples that are pulled from a bag. The reason they are pulled from a bag is that there are a certain number of "hooligans" (a different colored meeple) inside the bag. These hooligans will cause your park all kinds of trouble and cost you money and victory points. Each customer you pull pays money to enter your park then is placed on your parks dinosaur attractions, or other attractions like rollercoasters, restaurants, and souvenir shops! Any hooligans you draw are placed FIRST, which can really cost you! The dinosaur and other attractions can score you VPs and/or money. However, before you can score your tourists, you have to check your theme park's "Security Level". Each dinosaur has a "Threat Level" (per dinosaur!). If your security level is higher then your threat level, you're running a safe, family-friendly park. However, if the threat level is higher, your dinosaurs ESCAPE and begin eating your visitors, due to your incompetence and greed!! Hooligans are immune to this. Your park is scored AFTHER your security level/threat level is checked!! Secondly, there are objective cards (the number placed depends on how long you want the game to last.). Players can claim these objective cards buy doing things like have 5 different dinosaurs, or having a theme park who's excitement level is 10, etc. Each objective card is worth a certain number of VPs. Usually, only ONE player can claim each card. However, if two or more players can qualify for the same objective card if they qualify during the same phase. Otherwise, it's first come, first serve. When all the objective cards are claimed, the game ends. The final way to score VPs is end-game scoring. At the end of the game, all dinosaurs, certain buildings, expert cards and/or special abilities are all scored at the end of the game based on their printed VP score. (see above.). Obviously, there is ALOT going on in this game! It's brilliant. About the ONLY flaw this game has is the color pallet of the game. For some reason, the designers chose a color scheme of garish greens, yellows, purples and PINKS! Yes! This game has PINK DINOSAUR MEEPLES! PINK!?!?!?!? W-T-F, Pandasaurus games?? I guess they were going for a cheesy 90's era videogame color pallet....sorta'...maybe! Yuch!

Dinosaur Island has several game mechanics listed on its BGG profile. For instance it has worker placement, but I wouldn’t consider it a “worker placement game”. In fact there are only 3 turns to make 4 decisions at the beginning of each round and there are only a handful of rounds to a game, depending on the end game objectives. The same goes for “tile placement”. Placing tiles is simply placing attractions and exhibits on your player board where they’ll fit. There are no placement requirements and therefore no strategy to be had. As you go through the other mechanics of the game you start to notice a trend. It appears to be watered down. It's a difficult game to explain to people who play a lot of boardgames. They can’t picture how all these lite versions of game mechanics can come together and make fun. But once you gather the workers, DNA, specialists, cash flow, recipes, hooligans, lab upgrades, starting player (huge), you get a game that works. There aren’t a lot of paths to victory and I think some won't like that. You can’t only build dinosaur exhibits and paddock upgrades and then swoop in at the end and build a bunch of dinosaurs- at least when I tried it. The game came out in 2017 and I was on the fence for 2 years. I watched the play-throughs and never fell in love, but recently I watched and read what the overall feeling of the game was. People could pick it apart if they wanted to but most of the people I’ve come to trust who review games came away with the same conclusion, it’s a pretty good game with a unique theme based on the 90s era I grew up in. I decided to excuse some of what looked like weak gameplay and bought it. My take away is the same as what those other reviewers said. It’s a pretty good game. It’s not ground-breaking and there are other games I like more, but this is a solid 7.5+ on BGG for me. I love the theme and I have zero interest in dinosaurs, but I liked Jurassic Park and the 90s. If only it came with some grunge rock. Then it would be complete. Fitting everything back into the box once you’ve organized it without removing the insert is impossible. I bought the broken token insert to solve this, an investment that I think speaks to how much I like the game.

I'm a gamer so my boyfriend and I got this to play when we both have time. It's so fun! It is a bit more advanced with a lot of pieces but once you learn the game...its so addicting! We play it a couple of times a month!

We’ve played this game while visiting my son and his wife a dozen times or more over the past few years. He has the Kickstarter version as well as the water dinosaur expansion. When we first started playing the game, my son was always the “game master” and he led us through each phase. Though we love the game, we didn’t think at home (we live 900 miles from my son) we could play it because it was pretty complicated. However, my wife saw the game at a great price on Amazon. We have played it twice since it arrived and thoroughly enjoyed it. There is very little different from my son’s Kickstarter version. My wife and I had no trouble setting up the game and playing it. I definitely give this game 5 stars and highly recommend it. Whether you win or lose it’s very fun building your dinosaur park. However, I did mark 3 stars for beginners because it’s a pretty extensive game. If you are coming from the “chess and checkers” world, it will be difficult to play. If you are coming from the “Cataan world” then more manageable. The instructions are quite good so I did give it 4 stars regarding easy to learn. The rounds are broken into 4 main phases. Each phase is well explained. Again, this is a great game. It’s a favorite for all ages.

This game is really fun. It is probably a medium weight game, though. With the fun colors and the theme, you might expect something more light. There are a lot of choices to be made and my family thinks it's a bit much. They probably could have done away with a couple of elements and still ended up with a nice game. Set up is slightly cumbersome, and explaining the game takes a while, but I like it. I probably won't be able to get it to the table too much because my family doesn't love it, and I am not a fan of the solo mode. But, a great game if you and your family love strategy and dinosaurs!

Good condition.

This game is AMAZING! My partner and I own and play board games all the time, and we love Dinosaur Island. The first time that we played, we were a bit hesitant about the space and setup required for game play because we worried that the game itself would be too complicated for easy, intuitive play; however, after we finished, we loved it so much we immediately played another game! This game is one of the most intuitive and enjoyable games we have played - and we own about 45 indie board games! We highly recommend this game and purchase it for our friends as gifts whenever we get the chance. Great for playing with just two people, which is not always the case with multiplayer games!

This board game was made exceptionally well. From the thick boards to the amber dice, it is clear that a lot of effort went into this game design. Although it took a few plays to really get the hang of it, this game is excellent. It has three different game lengths and thus each game is very unique. We like to put on the Jurassic Park soundtrack, and totally immerse outself! This is a perfect gift for Dino lovers, or anyone who grew up playing Zoo Tycoon. It’s loads of fun, and I highly recommend it!