Gamelyn Games Tiny Epic Dinosaurs, GSTGLGTEDINORE

Product Information

Tiny Epic Dinosaurs plays over the course of 6 rounds. Each round has 7 phases which players will work through and resolve. Next, you feed your animals. Herbivores eat plants; carnivores want meat. The bigger the dino, the more food they want. (All stated on your player mat.) Can’t feed your dinosaurs? They’ll escape. After feeding, comes breeding (like so many date nights). Play some smooth Barry White over the ranch speakers. Pairs of same-species dinosaurs in an enclosure do a special DinoCuddle™. A stork drops off a baby, which you then locate somewhere in your ranch. Can’t keep the baby/babies anywhere? They escape… One of the best things about gunslinging is… dueling! Duels allow you to take over certain spots previously occupied by others- if you win the duel! You can reroll the dueling die roll as often as you like, spending your resources to do so.

The components are high quality (screen printed meeples, nice cards, fun art) and the dinosaur meeples are all really detailed considering their size.Depending on the number of players, you get a character card, life token, ammo token and what’s called an “ITEMeeple” of your choice. Tiny Epic Quests introduced ITEMeeples, which give you the chance to outfit your character with some awesome gear. In semi-cooperative play, one player becomes the zombie boss, prompting some fun hide-and-seek player interaction.

The game board is divided into four cards, and can sometimes move across the table. This game may appeal to you who like playing: honey buzz, viticulture, dinosaur island, Agricola. Tiny dinosaurs wreaking havoc all over your epic island? You betcha! Collect, breed and create endearing dinosaurs in this tiny epic game.In theory, animals you earn this round contribute towards contracts for next round. There is one way to bypass this. One spot allows you to place a dino from your Holding Area into your ranch now. (This spot also lets you move a barrier, which you otherwise wouldn’t be able to move.) As a result, you can spend your next worker to complete the contract. Is it worth spending an extra worker for the points? And as far as foreshadowing your next move goes? It’s as subtle as introducing a bad guy – everyone knows they’re dino-chowder in the final quarter of the movie. “Hold Onto Your Butts” This element for a 3+ player game would probably be my only gripe, but it’s found in plenty of “full size” games so I’m not sure it’s entirely fair.) Can kids play?

The game repeats in this cycle of gathering resources, taking actions, and then tending to your ranch post actions for six rounds. After the sixth and final round, players add up their total points from dinosaurs in their ranch, contracts they completed, and research cards they earned. The player with the most points is the winner. Tiny Epic Galaxies plays well with multiple player counts- you can play it solo and have as much of a satisfying experience as when you’re jostling with four other players at the table. This game does have a good amount of randomness (both die rolls and card draws are random) which is going to be a turn-off for some. There are four “normal” types of dinosaurs in Tiny Epic Dinosaurs: allosauruses, brachiosauruses, stegosauruses, and velociraptors. These four breeds can be gained through the Free Range and Dino markets on the Action Mats. Once the dinosaurs make it from the market to the ranch, dinosaurs need to be placed within barriers so they can’t run away. If you have any sets of two of the same breed of dinosaur, they breed at the end of each round and make a dinosaur baby that is immediately placed on the ranch. When you think of dinosaurs, you might think that they are epic, but you probably wouldn’t think about them being tiny. Tiny Epics are what they say on the tin: tiny, and epic. One of the first ones we ever tried has held a strong place in our collection and is arguably our favourite one too! Tiny Epic Western is possibly the most complex of the series, what with its many mechanisms, but still easy to get your head around! It's a worker placement game for 1-4 players with enough of everything to make it so much more!

The resources visible on each ranch mat are the same for all players and are collected in the first phase of each round, creating a balancing act of placing enough dinosaurs to sell – more on that later – and leaving enough resources available to actually play the game and feed your dinosaurs. Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is another great game in the tiny epic collection. There are dino meeples, a solid theme, and a nice amount of strategy.

Due to its size, when you’re sitting across the table, it can be hard to read the text on the smaller cards and on the small board. When it comes to playing with just two players, you can sit next to each other all cute like without the need to lean over or ask other players to read the cards to you. Dinos, dinos, dinos. In all shapes, but not all sizes. These dinos are small. Tiny, but epic, just like the box itself and everything else within. This is a true and pure worker placement game with resource management. The art is colorful and cute, but the game is tight, and can sometimes be unforgiving. When you place your rancher you need to plan two steps ahead and there are plenty of different options every turn. The rancher placement reminds me of Honey Buzz, where you can occupy the same spot by paying additional ranchers. This is a nice, strategic element in the game. There’s also a big rancher that counts as two ranchers, that you can use to occupy already taken action spots. It’s a tiny epic game, and as I mentioned everything is tiny and demands some gentle fingers. I had sometimes difficulty organizing everything in my ranch, due to my inherited clumsiness. Everything about this game is high quality and offers tons of strategy and high replayability. - Beautiful componentsThis is a great way to get your children into coding and is a perfect gateway into other area control and action queue games. And as I say, you put meeples into mech suits. That in truth, really should be enough! The cards are really nice quality as well. Even though I’m not usually a small card fan, but I make an exception for the Tiny Epic games, and honestly, they mostly live on the tablet during the game so it’s not too bad. You’re in the middle of a humongous galactic empire. You’re completely in control- until you’re not!