Dinosaur Island

Would you like to be the operations manager of Jurassic World? That’s the job of Claire Dearing (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) in the movie.

Well, now you can – with Dinosaur Island by Pandasaurus games. It’s a game with lots of bits; I played an Xtreme edition version with a little extra chrome as shown in the pics below. (Poor picture quality is from my shivery hands. Sorry!)

Each player has two boards. The first is to keep track of their stats. On the left are the levels of different types (colors) of DNA needed to make new dinosaurs. The middle portion shows lab improvements. Each player begins with four basic labs such as Dino Research and Tool Bench. In the game below, I have acquired a Ride Improvement for extra Victory Points (VPs). My workers, scientists, and cash are near the top near my company name: Panda Gen, Inc. I’m competing against my fellow-players running rival companies with rival dinosaur parks.

To the right are two columns important to management. The red column is the base threat level of the dinosaurs in your park. Larger carnivores are more dangerous than smaller herbivores. The yellow column is your security level. If your security does not equal or exceed the overall threat level (base + variable), dinosaurs can get loose and eat your patrons causing you to lose VPs.

The second board (below) is your dinosaur park. This echoes the game Zooloretto by having paddocks (for creatures) and attractions, except things are more complex and varied in Dinosaur Island. All players start with a single small dinosaur. Mine is Albertadromeus. My paddock size is one so I will need to increase it before I can create a companion for my lonely dinosaur, which will bring in more customers. I have recently purchased a DNA recipe for a large carnivore, Saurophaganax, but have yet to create one. I will need two purple, one green, one red, one yellow, DNA. My stores (first board, white cubes) show I’m close but I need one more purple.

Each park also comes with one basic attraction: a Hat store. I have recently purchased a Log Plume ride for guests to my park. That’s why I acquired the Ride Improvement mentioned above. A large variety of attractions in Dinosaur Island allow you to pursue different strategies of pursuing patrons. I have also hired a security specialist (card in top left) to improve the security of my park. I’ll need it when I create my Saurophaganax, sure to be a crowd pleaser!

There are two central boards accessible to all players. The first (below) is what I call the Scientist board. Your scientists can increase the DNA in their stores – do they use PCR? I don’t know, the manual doesn’t say. They can also increase the storage limits of their DNA. Do they need minus eighty freezers? The manual does mention “cold” storage. Your scientists can “procure” a new Dino recipe. Among those currently on offer are a small Pachycephalosaurus and a larger Ceratosaurus. Do the scientists discover these through research? I hope so. Or they could be scouring the dino DNA black market if such exists – I don’t know, the manual doesn’t say.

A second board keeps track of the turn order, victory points, the excitement level in each player’s park, etc. There is also a Plot Twist card and several Objective cards, shown below, that provide more variability to each game. The Objectives control the length of the game: Short, Medium, Long. Once a certain number of objectives has been “claimed” the game ends.

At heart, Dinosaur Island is a worker-placement game with some bells and whistles. There’s some money management, and finding combo cards (lab improvements, specialists, attractions) to plot a unique path to victory. You’ll need to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, but there isn’t much direct competition. Unlike the game O Zoo Le Mio where players directly compete for patrons based on their exhibits, each dinosaur park in Dinosaur Island has a number of patrons visit equal to its own internal excitement generated by its dinosaurs. Patrons come in two types from a randomly drawn bag; a small proportion are termed “hooligans” who don’t bring in any dividends.

The card combos and indirect competition reminds me of the game Terraforming Mars (not zoo-related), although more interesting and sustained development in Dinosaur Island requires playing a longer game. The short game is good to get you started, and the first game feels rules-fiddly, but after one game under your belt you will find it overall straightforward. The game is about being an operations manager, so you’re not going to get have your blood pumping when dinosaurs get on the loose and eat patrons – it’s more of a minimax exercise where you sigh briefly if such a tragedy happens, but the show must go on. The short game ends a little too quickly to be interesting, in my opinion.

Of the zoo-like games I’ve played, the closest is Dungeon Petz, also a worker-placement game where you build enclosures, buy strange pets, keep them fed and entertained, and then try to make a profit either by parading them or selling them. Manager of exotic magical pets versus park manager of exotic thought-to-be-dead reptilian beasts. There’s more direct competition in Dungeon Petz and its gameplay is fiddlier, but it feels more thematic and players actually get attached to their unique pets cutely illustrated. In Dinosaur Island, all dinosaurs within a category have identical stats, just different names, and there are only three categories to choose from. You’re much more like Claire Dearing without the excitement, rather than Owen Grady (played by Chris Pratt) who gets to know the creatures under his care.

Overall Dinosaur Island is a decent game. The theme is potentially attractive even though game play is more prosaic. Having played many kinds of games, there isn’t anything novel about the game mechanics or how different aspects combine – I didn’t have a wow moment. The version I played has nice bits, if that’s your thing. The game itself takes up a lot of table space. I don’t know if it has staying power. Novel at first, but it might become less interesting after multiple plays. There is enough variety in the card/tile decks for at least a decent number of games before it starts to feel too prosaic.