Zoo Tycoon meets Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom! In fiction, mankind feels the need to bring dinosaurs back to life. This often leads to catastrophic consequences. However, breeding and rebuilding dinosaurs can also be a lucrative business. The filthy and crazy richt will pay big bucks for these rare, extinct and dangerous animals. In Tiny Epic Dinosaurs, from Gamelyn games, you and the other players will each manage a dino ranch to collect and sell the most dinosaurs. Will life find a way into your zoo, or should you have stopped to think whether you should?
Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a worker placement and resource management game by Scott Almes. You probably know this name from the other Tiny Epic games and from games like Claim and Cosmic Colonies. In this game full of cartoonish carnivores (and herbivores and omnivores), you will use your ranchers (your workers) to collect resources and dinosaurs, fill your lodges and ranch, and research and even sell dinosaurs. The game takes place in different phases. In short, everyone first performs actions with his/her workers and then puzzles with dinos.
Collected dinos must fit into your park and may not share enclosures with other types of dinos (with some exceptions). Also, the enclosure must be locked and you must be able to feed the dinos. Then two dinos of the same species in the same enclosure have a romantic night and baby dinos are born. If the enclosure is not properly sealed, you cannot feed a dino enough or you do not have enough space for the babies, then dinosaurs may escape. Herbivores demolish walls and fences during their escape and carnivores eat your other dinos. So make sure you have enough for and space for your dinos. Also, be aware that empty spaces in your park produce resources, but these spaces no longer produce anything once a dino is there.
To earn hard cash, you can sell the dinosaurs in your enclosure. You do this by means of contracts. A number of contracts are placed open and require a certain combination and amount of dinos to claim. The dinosaurs must be in your ranch. Dino’s in storage or at the emergency room do not score points (if you collect dinosaurs during the worker placement phase, the dinosaurs will initially be at those two locations and you can only place them in your ranch later).
There are normal dino’s but also unique ones. These unique purple dinosaurs are, surprisingly, unique. These purple dinosaurs do not escape from unfenced enclosures and even provide extra bonuses and actions. So think carefully about whether you want to use them for points or for their skills. Before you know it, the purple dino will be eating other dino’s or chasing Dennis Nedry!
Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a lot of game in a small box. This small box contains a game with a surprising amount of parts, table presence and playing time that is in no way inferior to larger boxed games. The components (especially the minuscule dino meeples) are of high quality. The game itself combines worker placement and resource management with puzzling in a very fun way. There is a lot of interaction on the “game board” and wrong choices are punished harshly. Besides that, it is just a nice colourful game that plays intuitively and is easy to take with you (although you do need a large table to play it). These dino’s do not have to go extinct, as far as I am concerned. Welcome… to Tiny Epic Dinosaurs!
