Dino Garden Review: Meaty Choices
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Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassal.
I'm Chris Yee.
I'm Mike Delisio.
Welcome to part three of Mike's series on the gardens.
It is.
Mhm.
Uh so Aqua Garden was published by Uchikopoya, one of their first games.
Yes.
Kind of put them on the map, a small little game, and they said, "Hey, we're going to not only make it bigger and put it in a normal-size box like this. We're going to make two sequels that are kind of almost the same game.
Mhm.
One with birds, one with dinos.
The fourth one very different sound garden.
Yes.
Fifth one mass appeal with savage garden.
This is Dino Garden. I'm calling this the third in the series that they don't really have them numbered or anything. Are they numbered?
They're 100%.
Never mind, it is numbered. It is the third in the series. I was right. Um so, this is sort of like Aqua Garden, but with dinosaurs. But, there's some more stuff, and Mike is about to show it to you.
Okay, here you see Dino Garden, and I'm not going to be doing a traditional full rules overview for this, because this is the third game in this trilogy. I've already uh reviewed Aqua Garden and Sky Garden, and uh did overviews on those. So, you can look to those if you want a more detailed explanation, but I'll just kind of go through the basics and then highlight mostly the things that are specific to this game in the trilogy. So, uh it's going to go through a round flow, uh four steps. There are four rounds in a four-player game, three rounds in a three-player game. Uh but, each round is going to go the same particular order. You're going to have an action phase, a predator phase, a producer phase, and then you prepare for the next round. So, the structure of the game is very much like Aqua Garden and Sky Garden in the sense that you're going to be moving your owner token along this circular type board and stopping on a particular space and doing the according action depending upon where you stop. Most of these spaces are the gray or orange spaces, which is going to mean simply that you stop there. You can't go to a space where somebody else is and you're going to take whatever is there out of the supply and put it next to your player board.
So, let's say that I went ahead and I went here. Okay? This is showing a particular type of dinosaur, which I will take and put it next to my board. Now, some of these are herbivores and they come with a particular type of meat that is associated with them. There's three different types of meat. You got small, you got medium, you got large, okay? And they'll tell you which one of the associated. So, this one comes with the large uh piece of meat there. And then, I would go to the next part of my turn, which is moving my assistant one to three spaces, potentially an extra two if I wanted to pay for it, and placing out any of the creatures that I have gained that turn. You could also um make as a free action on your Well, it's not free, but as a something on your turn, you can buy something from this board. You can buy these volcanoes.
You can buy these two randomly seated dinosaurs at the beginning of the round. That's going to happen every round. Um the way that the volcanoes work is similar to uh what something in the trees in Sky Garden, which is going to essentially increase the size of each of your pens. They start out at four. If you put a volcano on it, then now it can hold up to six uh size. Same thing if you pay $2 to remove uh this token and make it a lake, which I'll be showing you in a moment. So, let's say I I boom, boom. And now, these are going to be placed in one of these two tanks because those are the two that are adjacent to my assistant. But, this one shows me at the bottom of my board that it takes up three space out of the four, but it has to be placed in a lake. So, I would pay the two funds. I actually would have gained one by crossing this.
So, actually I'd be down to here. And let's say I removed this one, paid paid the two to do it. And now, this can be placed here. Whenever a dinosaur comes with a meat token, it's going to be placed on this outer edge here, this kind of rocky outcrop on each of these different pens. Okay? Main flow is exactly the same. When you are going to the blue spaces, you're either going to be getting funds or you're going to be getting one of these special dinosaurs that are here. The costs on them are all shown on the cards. They're going to have some type of a special ability. Sometimes they'll have end game scoring. These do not take up any space in any of your pens, and they can be placed any pen. Doesn't have to be adjacent to your assistant. Let's say for sake of example, we'd gone a little bit further in the game and I had some more dinosaurs on my board and some of the associated meat tokens that go with particular dinosaurs. There are certain areas on the board that allow you to do special things in addition to getting whatever is depicted on the token. There are two different types of symbols. This is a feeder token feeder symbol and then this is a special dinosaur. This is handled the same way as these tokens, meaning that you can just buy one of these special dinosaurs and place it into your player board. The feeder tokens are something that are different and it's specific to this game. All right?
When you stop on one of these spaces, in addition to getting whatever it said, like I said, you're going to be moving your feeder token. It starts right in this space and it's It's to be going, unlike your assistant, it's going to be going in counter-clockwise order. And what it's going to do is it's going to be able to pick up these meat tokens and deliver them to the creatures that want to eat them because these are herbivores, they're not going to be eating meat. So, when you activate this, you can move from one to three spaces for free and you can pay an additional fund for extra spaces. Unlike the assistant that will only allow you to go two extra spaces, you can go as far around as you want as you can afford it. So, let's say I triggered that and now I'm going to go here and now he can take a piece of meat that is on his spot and place it in this food storage area. That'll be one space, two spaces. Now, this particular dinosaur likes to eat that meat. That's its favorite type, that's depicted right here. I can drop this off right here, okay? And then I can go a third spot here, pick that up, pay a fund to go one more spot, and I can drop this off right here. And you'll see why I did that in just a moment. Now, this is telling you that you can have a maximum of three pieces of meat here held at any one time, but you can at any time in the game pay three funds to flip this over and now you've got space for five and you're also going to get three points at the end of the game. That's one of the
free things that you can do on your turn in addition to buying from this board over here. All right, so let's say that we had gone through and now um we had done the action phase. Now, we're going to be in what's known as the predator phase and this is where the carnivorous dinosaurs are going to eat the meat tokens that are within the same area of that as they are. So, you'll see why I did this movement around in a second. So, uh this particular dinosaur is telling you that it will eat all three types of the meat, the small, medium, and the large. If it eats small or medium, it's going to move along this track one space. However, if it eats the large meat, it'll move two. That's specific to this one. Well, we happen to be able to do that, so that would go back to the supply, and now I would move my my marker two along this track. This particular dinosaur here will eat that type of meat, but it's only going to be moving one space along that track, so I'd move it here. This is a brand new part of this game specifically is this little board on top that's kind of like your predator track eating the the different types of meat. They tell you which dinos eat which meat. Some are specific to them. All right. And they're going to give you some abilities, and these are all slightly different depending upon which one you get. You get one of these randomly at the beginning of the game. As you go to the fourth, seventh, 10th, and 13th spot and then beyond, you're going to trigger
some type of bonus. It might be an immediate bonus depicted by this lightning bolt. It could be an ongoing bonus. It could be potential end game points. So, in this first area here already, these particular dinosaurs on my board would be worth an extra two points. If I get into this spot, now I can immediately buy one of these special dinos at a discount of two. That's a one-time thing that happens immediately. Here, now I've increased my income by one for the rest of the game, and so on and so forth. Okay? Also, where you end up on this track at the end of the game is going to be the number of points that's depicted there, so you're wanting to do that. So, that's the predator phase that you're doing at the end of every action phase. The next thing that's going to happen is the producer phase, and that's where your your herbivore dinosaurs will produce the meat that it shows on the board here.
So, again, these two um dinos are going to produce that meat. If I had other um herbivores out here, like maybe I had had this one right here, it tells you that that one's going to produce a small one during this phase, and so forth. And then you're going to you're going to prepare for the next round by clearing out these tokens, putting out new tokens. You're going to do that either three or four times, depending upon player count, and then at that point you're going to be adding up scores. You're going to be getting scores from a number of different locations. As I mentioned, you'll be getting scores by where you end up on this track. You'll be getting scores based upon the placement of different dinosaurs within your park, and sometimes they'll be worth more if they're in a spot with a volcano, and so you want to account for that. One other thing I forgot to mention that you'll also be scoring points on are these milestones. This is a free action that you can take on your turn. If you meet any of the requirements of these, you can place one of your cubes on them. So, let's say that uh for example, at at one point this player had gotten two of these, that's a requirement for this, they'd put this here. Then, if they later met the bottom requirement, which is to have two special dinos anywhere in your park, they would then move their cube down to the leftmost open spot, and those are points that you can gain at the end of the game. So, that's another way you're going to be scoring points. You'll potentially score points based upon your position on this turn order track at the end of the game. You might get points
from your uh upgraded storage. And you could also get points depending upon if you move your um token along the bottom of your event card. Okay? So, you'll add up those points, and whoever has the most will be the winner of Dino Garden. Let's head back up and let you know what we think.
Theming-wise, this is a little bit of a weird one because of what I think is happening is some of these different dinosaurs are out there and they saw off part of their bodies, throw it to the the meat-eating dinosaurs.
So, you think that the herbivores are sacrificing portions of their body for the carnivores
it. There's a guy running around picking up meat. Either that or it has to be even worse than that, he's hunting down them and then dragging their bodies and throwing it to the carnivores.
It's very funny because they they refer to the herbivores in the game as producers and there's like a production phase.
It I I I feel like it was a different game. I mean, it's not I mean, it it was Aqua Garden, right? But I mean,
Yeah.
I don't understand that theme. This game is like the least Jurassic Park
You
Jurassic Park
I mean, it's the dinos, but there's
have 80 T-Rexes, you'll be fine.
Mechanically in game, you you don't kill the herbivore dinosaurs to feed the other ones.
They just produce meat, which I assume means that this is like a herd, right? And you're you're picking some of the herd, your least favorite
Yes.
uh to say, "Hey,
Your slowest herbivore
But I mentioned that because I do think this is a slight obstacle to any human being who plays this game and goes, "Can I put the herbivores with the carnivores? Won't they eat them?" I'm like, "No, but they poop meat out that the they eat." I don't know what's going on.
you're incentivized to put them together.
Right.
That's true.
So, it's a little So, are they eating a You know what? It doesn't matter. But
Yes.
beautiful-looking dinosaurs. Um I don't think it's particularly difficult to understand.
Um
With one exception,
Mhm.
I think that it is a pain in the butt to score. Even more so than the other ones because I have a dino who's worth points. Where are those points? You look at the main board.
Yep.
Okay, it's 1 + 2. Then I go back to my meat board to see the bonuses
Mhm. and I say that plus that and goodness put a scoring sheet in the box. Don't tell me to copy one out of the back of the the book.
I agree. I agree.
Boo on that.
I do agree with that. That seemed very silly to me as a I guess a cost-cutting measure, but yeah, it's it's a little odd.
It's weird when every other bit of production of this is astonishingly great and beautiful and good and everything. Yeah. Um I think that this So, I've not played the middle one, Sky Garden, but
have not played that one.
Okay. The jump, the leap in complexity from Aqua Garden to this one is impressive. I I think that it's is represented in the scoring a little bit. It's represented in some of the gameplay choices and uh the the fact that each pen, prehistoric pen, I guess,
Sure.
you know, can only hold you can either build a lake or you can put the volcano on it uh to affect some of the scoring and stuff. So, there's it it's asking you to make a few more of these kind of difficult choices. The meat handler running around in the opposite direction of the of the main person. [snorts] Yeah, it's it's it's a notable step up, but I enjoy what it's adding to it, to the experience.
Yeah. Yeah, it it it absolutely is the heaviest game of the three and it kind of goes in the order of the of the games. Aqua Garden is the simplest, maybe a little more complex if you add in the the expansions. Sky Garden is a bit of a step up from that, but this is a step up from Sky Garden as well. It definitely has more going on, but I wouldn't consider it uber complex. I
No, but I do think it gets into the range of a minute of a medium weight.
Sure.
Yeah, and and whereas I think Aqua Garden is much more of a a welcoming style game.
Yeah.
It definitely leads you. So, we'll pretend you never played Aqua Garden or anything, which is very possible.
Mhm.
The idea has the one of my favorite mechanisms in the game, the ratchet mechanism where you can go as far as you want down the path. The person in the back goes. I love that. Um in this game, usually just want to go to the next open spot cuz you want us more, but the fact that they make some of these spots bonuses is really annoying because you would like to do a double action if you can possibly do so. But then you might not take a turn for a while.
When you say annoying, you mean in like a like oh, I want to do oh, I want to do not bad
No, no, no, no, no, no. I did it's it's a good juicy decision and I'm sitting there going
[sighs]
I want to jump ahead, but then I I'll skip a turn. But does it matter? And that's where you that's where it comes down to I think it's a good the game's really good in that regard.
And and if that does not exist in Aqua Garden, there's no such space that gives you kind of the thing because in in Sky Garden and in Dino Garden those extra actions are the only way you can do those things sometimes. Well, one lets you get a special dino and you there's several ways you can do that, but moving the meat
guy, which is a lot of points.
It is a lot of points and it's that's the only way you can do that. So those spots are super fought for and usually when I see someone making a big jump, it's because they've got to I got to move my meat. I'm going here and I'm going to jump past four other dinosaurs to do it because I know the people behind me are going to do it if I don't. Um so yeah, I think that adds a really interesting element to it. I think that Aqua Garden and Sky Garden they always had this kind of logistical puzzle that's kept here. But then you've got the added element of the reverse logistical puzzle, which I think is really, really yeah, juicy. It's satisfying and and it leads to some very, very interesting decision points and a lot of interaction honestly in this game, too.
More much more so than I feel like in Aqua Garden.
Cuz sometimes in the in in Aqua Garden, yeah, you would jump ahead. Oh, I wanted the whale shark, right? That that piece is kind of like the thing that you people will jump ahead a little bit for, but I think that there's a lot more considerations in this game of how far are you willing to jump for that specialty space and for this action and for that dinosaur and so I've seen and then on the contrary I've seen people say okay well I really need to get an early turn order for next round so I will forego a third of the board almost to jump into first spot I know that I'm foregoing the meat handlers bonus spaces but I have this other way of covering it if you like crunchy Eurogames like that then this yeah this serves up those decisions in spades.
Without a lot of rules quite honestly it's not a terribly terribly difficult game to learn. Um can I address the question of you know if do you need all three type of a thing or do you want to
No yeah I mean that is a thing right they made three games that are very very similar not having played the middle one but 11 looked at it again very similar and it's a tough one for me I mean not a tough one I think the answer that is no you don't need all three. It'd be a tough one for me to decide which one to keep.
Right so I agree that you don't need all three I think between Aqua Garden and Sky Garden pick the theme you like right I happen to like the underwater theme so Aqua Garden of those two I just like the theme better but I like what I what Sky Garden added what little bit more it added. Um this I feel is unique enough from the other two that's just my opinion that central mechanism is the same you're you're going down the time track or the ratchet track and you're you're placing those things by moving your assistant around that is the same right and and and so that is the the core loop of the game but I feel like this adds enough other things that it feels different enough to me.
Yeah I'm going to put this one and Aqua Garden those are the two I'm going to put in the Dice Tower library but if I had a personal collection I would just pick one I think and it would be tough because I I like the gameplay in this one better than Aqua Garden, but I love that thing. I like dinosaurs, but I really like the idea of having an aquarium and it also makes sense to move through the aquarium and look at it. Both of them have a, you know, expansions and stuff. With, you know, a lot of just different fish and different dinosaurs. It's It's a tough call for me. Um, but it does play the same. Now, if you love it and it's your favorite game, then definitely you want more. I don't know. What do you think?
Um, I think I'll I'll just dive into final thoughts and scores. Uh, this one I'm giving this one 8.5. I I would say my my biggest like concern is for if if you've played the original, then this might feel like a lot of systems bolted onto that central I'll say it, the ratchet. The leap is leap as many spaces forward as you want, right? Does this support all of the extra decision-making going on? I think that it does. I could see some people saying though, I'd rather just play the simpler version of this. And so I in a in a in a way I agree with the idea of pick the thing that you like the most, you should have that one. If you want a a more teachable game, go with Aqua Garden. I think that this The only thing I'll contradict you Mike on is that I think that this has a lot of teaching.
Yeah.
There's a lot of little rules to kind of remember to teach and and the those little things you might say, oh hey, sorry, by the way, this thing. Oh, remember this thing. Uh, going along a little bit with the scoring. Remember that the scoring is represented a few different places and and and shown different places. It's almost too big for its britches, so to speak, but then once you get through and you're playing and you're in the flow of it, it's very rewarding and I really like what it does. 8.5.
Yeah, I'm almost there. I'm I'm an eight. I like it a lot. I think it's very enjoyable. I have some issues. Again, minor issues. I thought scoring was a bit of a bear to to go through and add up all the points. It's easy to make a mistake in count. And I also think I wish there was an easier way during the game to keep track of how much space these dinos take up. It's not intuitive. It's not It's not like the ones that take up more space are bigger. Well, yes, obviously the the biggest one, but I always have to look at a space and go, "Hang on. Okay, 2 + 1 + 1 + And there's a I know it's not that big. I understand that, but it's still not
Yeah.
It's still not like It's not obvious from how much is in a space. Special dinosaurs don't take up any room at all, which makes no sense thematically, you know, but
Yeah.
a couple special you know, if there's a special dinosaur that Again, I just felt that that part is a little fiddly. There's just little fiddly things about it, but I still like it. And I like the meat track a lot.
Mhm.
I think that gives you a strategy that you can completely ignore if you want to, I think, and do okay in the game, but it also gives you special upgrades and scoring. You want to move it at least a little bit. And then the dual bonus playing a card that gives you a bonus That's just great. There's just so much fun things to do in this game. It feels good. So, eight for me.
Yeah. Well, uh this is my favorite of the three. So, uh Aqua Garden I rated I I've just reviewed the other two recently. I an 8.5 for Aqua Garden. I went up to a nine on on uh Sky Garden. This is a 9.5.
Woo.
Um is it perfect? No. Um I do I do agree with a couple of your things. Scoring can be a little bit tough. The other thing that uh no one's mentioned is I think a couple of the dinosaurs look more similar to each other than I would like. And so, sometimes you think you're getting one and you mistakenly grab another one.
one guy who thought this one dinosaur is T-Rex is the whole game. And we're like, "Nope, not T-Rex."
Not a T-Rex, but but to me those are quibbles. Like this is one of my favorite game systems. Uh I I've just I've I loved it four years ago, right? I still love it. I still play it all the time. I still teach it all the time at our conventions. I mean, I'm always teaching this. And um while my favorite theme is still AquaGarden, this is a close second, and the extra weight that you have here, the extra meaty choices, just put it up to to that score for me.
There you go, folks. That is DinoGarden. I'm Tom.
I'm Chris.
I'm Mike. And we're dinosaurs.
Everyone get on the floor.
Hey, everybody. Thanks for watching this video. If you liked this review or whatever you just watched, wasn't it amazing? Uh, check out our channel, Dice Tower. Uh, we have all kinds of things. We review games, we do top 10s, we play games live. It's all about board games, but especially the people who play them. Check out Dice Tower YouTube channel.