Dino Museum Review: Welcome...to Dino Museum!
Transcript
Hey everybody, [clears throat] I'm Tom Vassel.
I'm Z Garcia.
Today we're taking a look at a game called Dino Museum.
Oo,
which 100% from the cover looks like a kids game.
Mhm.
Although it's a modern game and I know that cuz the the dinosaurs have feathers.
That's right.
That's like a more modern view of the dinosaurs.
Yeah. Spielberg was wrong. Here's the thing though. I and I'm surprised this game hasn't got more buzz because it's like a powerhouse duel of designers. Eric Lang, who's known for big games like Blood Rage and Ben Rosid who just did the big game changers and forage. So that combination sounds very interesting. But I do want to tell you going in this is a much smaller game.
This is sort of very casual in many ways. It's a small game. It has very small sort of decision pool and it's casual. Well, it is. You said it kind of looks like a game for kids. It's not, but kids can certainly play it.
Well, let's take a look.
The game is going to be played over five rounds, represented by these cards right here, with the players during those rounds, using their bag, pulling out bones from it, putting those on their action selection board in locations that match, and then taking special actions. populating this board that belongs to them, trying to at the end of the five rounds have the most points possible. And so during the first round, we're going to flip over one of these cards. We will lay out the things that it says are available up for grabs, which I've already done right here. That's going to involve the dinosaurs themselves. these research tiles and then these fossil tiles pulled randomly from that bag there and the research tiles randomly from this stack right here. Uh with that done, we have a start player. They are going to begin and on your turn, you are going to draw one of these bones like I said and assign it to one of these locations on your own board. Everybody has their own display and this action selection board in front of themselves.
And so I can put this anywhere I want as long as it matches the color or it is this dark coffee color. Anything can go in those locations. You'll see bones in your bag in white, blue, pink, and yellow. And there are also some gray ones, and those are wild. And so I can put the gray one in blue or in pink, for example. As you complete these sets, you are going to be able to take from the center of the table something that matches. And that is true for all of these right here. These five basically on the left hand side of your board. Once you complete these, you can take a dinosaur of either type, herbivore, carnivore, as long as there's still one available. And you are going to put that into one of these spots on your board.
If you complete this one, it's only a carnivore you're allowed to take. This one only a herbivore you're allowed to take. If you complete these two right here, once you fill in both of those, then you can take one of these that's available and it'll go on your board in one of these locations. Be aware you begin with one already preprinted there. So, I can put a further one there. For example, when you complete this one, which is two bones of the same color, it doesn't care what color it is. Then you can take one of these from the center and put them in one of these locations. That one's already preprinted there in blue, but I could put this, say, there. And then over here, we have three special ones. If you put a bone into this one, you get a visitor. Visitor means you're going to draw a card. It'll be a kid, and you're going to put that card anywhere along the bottom here that you would like, as long as it's still empty. So, that kid could go in that spot there. and he sees uh these two spots for kids. See these two locations in front. These two spots for kids see these two locations in front. And that'll matter when we get to scoring in just one second. Uh this next one over here let you draw again. Let you just go back in the bag and pull another one out and place it anywhere you want to. And then this one over here lets you take places that are filled and throw them back in the bag so that you have the bones or you can maybe activate that again. Be aware if you do complete
something in that category of whatever is fully gone, nothing happens. You just don't get the reward. And this continues with every player pulling one bone at a time, placing it, possibly triggering an action until we are down to only two things out here. As the players take these things, eventually there will only be two items left. Once that happens, this round is done. These will go away back into the uh supply here. We're going to get rid of this card. We will reveal the next one and put out some new goodies. The top line always in play for two or more players. And since we're playing with three, I would also put out these next two things. At the end of the fifth round, of course, your board is going to look quite different. It might look something like uh this for me.
Let's say I've gotten some of these and I've got here some of these uh studies, these uh fossils. Maybe I've got one there and maybe I've got that one there. It might look like that. And then of course dinosaurs out here. So perhaps I've got uh let me grab myself a new uh a new kid here. Put him there. He's going to love it. Um, something like this. Uh, what have you. I'm just going to make some things up. Okay. Uh, like that. Now, I am going to score everything on my board. Every dinosaur is one anyway, so I'm going to be getting points for that. Every kid that sees the dinosaur they want to see is going to be worth one. So if I have at least one of that dinosaur, it does not matter if they see two. So this kid can see both of these dinosaurs. This one matches. So one point. This one matches this one. So one point. This one's not in front of him. No points for that. So one each. These research or or little fossil tokens here. If you have both of the dinosaurs around it have that type, then you're going to be able to score that one. So, I get this one and that's worth two victory points because the dinosaurs have two descriptors basically across the bottom of their bases. In this case, it is carnivore and that represents their size. So, that purple
um both of these are purple. So, I get this one. That one's okay. Um this one also works. Both of these are blue. This one's empty. This one's not complete. Uh, and again, if it's wrong, it also doesn't matter. If this was here, these are not satisfying that. So, I also don't get that. So, two points here, two points there. And then these research tiles, if you satisfy their conditions, that's three victory points. I need a three purple around this one, and it's the four around the research tile. Purple, purple, purple. That works. Now, this one over here wants redu, which is a carnivore, herbivore, and that specific uh dinosaur. If I don't have that, then I don't get those points. And if you have them, uh if you have a one dinosaur that that satisfies multiple conditions, you cannot count it for both of those. Every one of these three symbols um has to come from a different location, a different dinosaur. You add up all those points together, see who's got the most points, and that is your winner.
So, this game has drafting in the meth. This is one of those games where you're taking stuff from the middle.
Yeah.
And I can't see you playing a game where at one point you're not annoyed.
You're like, "Oo, I really want that dinosaur." I swear if you take that
Yeah.
cuz it it's going to happen to you at some point. Going first in this game is a big deal.
Yeah. because you'll be like that and it might not be.
It's a very limited pool of stuff. And also the round ends when there's two things out there. So you're always like, "Okay, I can build those that and somebody takes the third thing and you don't realize it and you go, WELL THAT'S IT. OH NO, THE THING I WANTED DIDN'T EVEN GET TAKEN. It's just one of the last two and the round is over and we wipe that away now." So, it can lead to some frustration, but I do like that every aspect of this game seems to have they seem to have settled on what's the easiest way we can do this.
I agree.
I like that. This is like a game. This feels like two, you know, classically trained musicians being like, let's just do a little smooth jazz, man. You know, let's just go let's have something nice and easy. We do not need to like flex. Let's put something out incredibly welcoming and easy to tackle.
Now, that being said, I think that as easy as the game is, there's a little bit of small issues with the production. I think two of the dinosaurs look very similar.
It's that green long necked fella. My guy, they're too close.
Yeah. Everyone keeps grabbing the wrong one. Or when you look at the scoring card, you're like, "Oh, I just drafted the wrong dinosaur."
Yes, it happened. It happened quite a bit. And also remembering, okay, this kid goes with these dinosaurs and this goes with these things. Just there's like these area controls of the scoring
that I don't think is
I think people can easily get that confused.
Sure. Sure. The kids I did not have too hard of a time with.
The kids are more basic, but again, even then,
yeah, I thought it was okay. I didn't have too much of an issue with it, but I I get it. You have to sort of visually parse things that are not sectioned off. The kids are also kind of a weird thing because they're the one element of complete randomness in the game. You're drawing a kid. You're like,
I hope it's good. Yeah.
But they're also one of the things that you can almost always get while the other stuff is taken from you. You're like, I'll get a kid and hopefully I can put it in this spot.
Yeah.
What did you think of the sort of single bone at a time drafting set building thing? That's a great mechanism that I want to see in a different game because and weird because I just mentioned this in another game, the idea of throwing all your bones back in
and then pulling one
is done so random so rarely because usually by the time you get ready to do that, the round is over.
Yes.
And so it sounded cooler than it was. Also, you kind of just played with the bones you pull. Sometimes you pull the one color, you're like, "Oh, good. I wanted to meet a carnivore dinosaur anyway.
Yeah.
And now I'm waiting for those other ones to come out. Come on. Come on. You know what? I'll just get a different thing.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Um and I think it's probably a good thing that it's so easy for like as a great equalizer. You can play with anybody and they might win just because their bones came out in the order they needed and you just cannot pull the one you need to complete your carnivore pull or whatever. But I agree that that mechanism feels a little underbaked in this game. feels a little like like for one thing, I remember when I first opened the game. I'm the one that punched and opened it and this and that. I'm like, "Oh, cool. Bones and bags. Oh, this must be some kind of bag building game. That's cool. I bet you get like extra bones and they do thing." Nope. Nope. You don't ever get new bones. It doesn't do anything different. There is none of that in the game. And you might say, "Well, the game's too small for that." Okay, then the whole recycle the bag thing needs to just go.
Yeah, that the recycle the bag thing. And I mean it was done in games but never almost never to the benefit of the person who did it. Right.
Definitely when I played my wife would be like I'm going to recycle my bones. And I'll be like cool. Also the rounds over you know every time people like oh I should have taken a kid or done something.
And maybe the rounds it could be fixed if the rounds were longer. If there was more stuff out there to draft then I think it would be much more interesting. Or if the bones didn't
recycle between turns or
Yeah. Yeah. something something that made that mechanism more cuz if I like the round's about to end now I should recycle my bones and prepare for the next [clears throat] round.
That's interesting. Yeah, I could see that being an interesting way to do it. That might mess with the cadence too much. But yeah, no, I agree because that one spot is the one spot on the board that seemed kind of like, huh, that didn't matter.
I like the idea of this game a lot. Dino, if there's a museum with dinosaurs, I'm going to it. You know, I love to go to museums. I like to look at the dinosaur bones. I like the idea of building my own museum. That's also one of my favorite themes in a game. Like, yeah,
here's my museum. Y'all come in and come see what I put up there.
Um, but and and I like that bone thing. Again, I want to see that mechanism used in another game. It's an interesting idea of pulling stuff.
I guess it is. There's other games that do this, but I not a lot.
Yeah.
Um, but this one just just misses for me. It's a 6.5. It's close. It's simple. It's fun. It gets the job done. But when I was finished, I was like, "Well, did I, you know, did the winner play better than everybody else?" Maybe. Sort of. It It's just I I it I I it for me, it gets hurt a little bit just by it being It feels more strategic than it is, and that bugs me a bit.
I agree. I I think I agree with you. Um and I find it to be kind of like an equalizing thing as opposed to something that really bothers me because the game is really easy to play. And I I like the idea that if I'm playing with anybody, you can sort of play this game, not on autopilot, but there is a certain sort of coasting feel to this game. Um, the part that engages my brain and gives me a little bit of that turn angst is the taking from the middle and then the puzzly nature of it, the the putting the the footprint or whatever, the research token between two and the, you know, the plaque that goes among the four, the puzzliness, the sort of clicking it all together, the kids looking at the dinosaurs this way and and the production I think is nice, too, with those nice chunky wooden dinosaurs. So, I like it a little bit better than you.
I give it a seven. Um,
I I thought it was very pleasant. It's one I'd be happy to sort of keep keep messing with
and I think it's one that's going to go over super well to relatively new hobby gamers
and it should be sold like in dinosaur museums.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Because it's got it's got some juice in there for those folks that maybe are only used to playing mass market games. Something not too complicated, but I think they'll gravitate to it and I think they'll really enjoy the puzzly nature of it. Well, there you go, folks. That's Dino Museum. I'm Tom.
I'm Z.
We're off to see the T-Rex. Hey, uh, thanks for watching another video here on the Dice Tower. Uh, we really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at the Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support the Dice Tower. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description to this video and we have links to lots of other things we do down there. So definitely check it out. But either way, we're glad you watched us. Tell your friends about the Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vassel and I hope you enjoyed this video.