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 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.

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.

Easy to pick up and fun to play again and again. Highly recommend this game!

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!