Tiny Epic Dinosaurs
Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a game that makes you feel like you’re in Jurassic Park. Your task is to bring in new dinosaur species, build enclosures for them, and feed them just like in the good old Tamagotchi.
Mechanically, the game is based on classic worker placement. On your turn, you send a meeple to a selected space and gain certain benefits from it. An interesting twist, however, is that if another player wants to join you, they must sacrifice two standard workers or one large one.
In addition to acquiring new dinosaurs and food, the action spaces allow us to fulfill contracts, build dwellings, and acquire technology cards.
It is new technologies that add variety to our daily routine, opening up entirely new possibilities and activities for us. Investing in research will also allow us to introduce genetically modified dinosaurs into the game, which will provide extra points and various useful bonuses.
The last twist in Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is that we have to feed the park’s inhabitants and build enclosures for them. Because, as we all know, a hungry dinosaur is a bad dinosaur. Just like me. When we fail to meet a requirement, the dinosaurs escape from the park, wreaking havoc or eating their fellow friends, thereby ruining our chances of fulfilling contracts.
Number of Players and Game Duration
The number of players in the game mainly affects the duration of the game and the frequency with which players block each other’s action spaces. The gameplay remains the same.
The game is lightning fast. It takes just half an hour to complete.
Quality and Components
As is often the case with tiny, epic games, NASA engineers could learn a thing or two from the publisher about how to pack everything into such a small box. In Dinosaurs, though, this isn’t a problem at all. Even Denver could handle it.
The only issue he’d have is telling the purple dinosaurs apart, since many of the models look too similar.
Summary
Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is essentially a game about fulfilling contracts. We invite new residents to the park, build enclosures for them, feed them, and then send them out into the world to earn points. All of these actions are based on worker placement mechanics and managing your own park.
This is also where I see the game’s main problem. First of all, it’s not some groundbreaking innovation that archaeologists would be talking about. There are literally hundreds of titles combining worker placement with contract fulfillment. It’s such a standard formula that my T-Rex hands didn’t tremble with excitement at the prospect of another game. I played a bit, built some stuff, and nothing really motivates me to keep playing, especially given the game’s low complexity and fairly repetitive gameplay. It was okay, but for me, it’s a bit too little.
Final verdict: Tiny Epic Dinosaurs isn’t likely to make me turn my head in awe. Even if someone helps me do that, like in this meme.
[Game provided by Galakta]
