Dino Racer Review: Run, Don't Walk, the Dinosaur
Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassal.
And I'm Chris Yee.
Today we're taking a look at Dino Racer. Silly racing games are in and I'm all here for that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I don't know if you've noticed, it's one of my favorite genres.
And and and games are in the works for a while. This is not reactionary, I don't think to you know, a lot of these games coming out. This is it it's kind of
I'm not as convinced on that, but
Okay. No, I mean I just I um games take a year to two to three years to kind of get through. So, I think it's just been I think people have been excited about for a bit and now we're seeing them all coming out.
Yeah. Well, this is a fast racing game for up to six players. 20 minutes it says on the box. That is truth. Chris is going to show you how it plays.
Here's Dino Racer set up on the table. Now, whether you're playing two to six players, this is going to be the setup for the first of three races. This is a card revealing and drafting game, meaning that as you reveal these different cards out, it's going to move these five dinosaur racers forward in this race here. These are also the cards that players will collect as bets to see how well they think each of the dinosaurs are going to do. And the dinosaur who is in first, second, and third place are going to award that number of points to players as they as they have collected these cards. So, you'll take this race end card and you'll stick it on the bottom of this rather large deck and you're going to run up to three races or until this card gets revealed, which will end the game overall. Now, each race is going to be a certain length. There's seven of these checkpoint cards in the first race.
You'll run it, you'll draft all the cards, and then you'll score. Then, you're going to run race number two, which is going to be actually one checkpoint longer than this. Run it, score it, and then do race number three. So, how does the game run? Starting with a player, let's say the player here on the bottom right of the screen, Uh they are the first announcer. When you're the announcer, you'll flip over a card and you're going to run that racer forward. You'll then flip our next card and you'll continue doing this until you have revealed cards equal to the number of players plus one. So, this were a four-player game, this is one reveal phase and then starting with the announcer, they're going to each draft a card. He says, "Well, Bronto's doing pretty well. He'll take this one." The next player says, "Well, I believe in Steggy." And so on and so forth until everyone has has taken a card. Whichever leftover card is not taken is going to advance forward one step and this card will be removed from the game. The deck will pass to the next player and they get the chance to be the announcer and they will continue running these until the draft occurs or in this case, as the T-Rex moves forward, once the last place racer has moved onto a checkpoint for the first time, they'll flip over this checkpoint and reveal what it says. So, this one says right here, we're going to interrupt the normal reveal and draft flow. Says, "Discard a race card from the race deck.
That dinosaur moves forward two steps." Oh my goodness, Bronto's going to move two more steps forward. You'll then continue revealing cards and moving the racers forward. Bronto is having a day here. Now, this checkpoint won't get revealed until both Steggy and Triceratops move forward and once fifth place is here, then you'll reveal any more of these effects. So, now starting with this player, they're going to draft cards, going around the table like such until every one player has taken one. This dinosaur moves forward and we keep going. Eventually, a dinosaur will hit the end. So, let's just kind of simulate all the racers move forward a little bit more. This is the situation that we have here. Triceratops moves forward. We flip this over. It says, "Catch up. Fifth place is going to move one step forward." Which will trigger another one of these checkpoint events, which says that Steggy's going to slip and fall and move back, so on and so forth. So, eventually, you're going to have a racer reach the finish line. Once this has happened, every player is going to look at the cards that they have taken in hand.
And so, let's say this player down here has one Raptor card, so they're going to score five points for betting on Raptor who took first place. Each of their Bronto cards is going to score six points for it being in second place because it is a little bit slower of a racer. And then, third place T-Rex is going to be worth one point each. Every player does this with all the cards they've taken. If you're a fourth or fifth place, it does not score out at all for that bet. And that will be one race. You'll reset all the racers, and then you'll replace all the checkpoints with new checkpoints from this very large deck with all sorts of cookies, any effects, specific dinosaurs fall. Whoever is in uh fourth place moves forward two spaces, certain dinosaurs move forward, whoever is in first moves back.
Uh first and fifth place racers swap locations. Uh and so, yeah. So, you're going to see all of these types of uh all these types of effects here. And then, whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins. Now, other little nuance rules here, uh the order of the dinosaurs matters. So, for example, right here, whoever's closer to the actual line is going to break ties. So, T-Rex breaks ties with Raptor. So, if this were the end game state, Bronto's in first place, T-Rex is in second, and then Raptor would be in third. Uh and so on and so forth. There's a few variant rules like if you're playing with two or three players, you can flip over more cards. Each player will draft two, and then the leftover one card will advance the dinosaur forward. And you can play with these bets either open face up or face down. And uh that's the rules for Dino Racer.
There's a lot I like about this. I like the the name I don't I don't know why Bronto is a funny name.
Oh, the names of the dinosaurs.
Tritop. Yeah, and everyone calls him that. The art looks good. The game is very easy to teach and play. Now, I will say and first of all, I really like this game. But, it is
[sighs]
it's not made in a vacuum, right? And so, there is a very popular game called Hot Streak out there. We have these little mascots that you race on. And when I played this game, every time I pulled this out, somebody has said, "I wish there were little dinosaurs racing." I think the first time that was me. Um, but it is a thing and also the grid, it's a invisible grid on the table. You have to make sure it doesn't get too messy. Sometimes you're moving the dinosaurs back and forth like which column were they in? Not a huge deal, but I I I would have I know it's portable, right? I I can't get over you know, it's portable. I'm not What can I say? But, if it was a little bit bigger, they could have put some wooden dinosaurs in there. I don't know. Sorry.
I I love I love the form factor of this. It's to your to point, highly portable. It's also highly affordable and
Yeah, I know. So, I may I Wishes were fishes, right? I don't know.
Yeah, exactly. And and I agree that multiple people I've taught this to have said, "I kind of wish there were like little like dinosaur toys." Like I'm going to go peruse the Walmart shelves for those like, you know, 80 pack of like cheap dinosaur plastic pieces and and throw a couple in here. Or like
I might do that.
Yeah, and I think that at home, I think people will because that it's This game leans into that silliness. Having little toys would be fun. I personally love the fact I love having affordable small box card games. You could throw this in your backpack. You can bring it places. You can play it you know, it actually does take up a lot of table space, so maybe that's the one thing is it's
Yeah, you're not playing this at a restaurant before the meal unless you have nothing else on the table.
And eight people at the a table for eight and six people.
Now, I will say this, the mechanisms of the games are pretty sound. What they did here was they took a racing game and mixed it with a very popular mechanism that some designers have used in their games before. But most notably I would say it was in what's that little stock market game?
Vegetable stock.
Vegetable stock, right? Which I like a lot, vegetable stock. And this game has that same aspect where the dinosaur no one picks moves forward one. Such a simple little mechanism and I love it.
Yeah, it it it takes the workload and makes it uh game mechanism, right? So as you reveal the five cards for four player game, that's moving the dinosaurs, right? Everyone open face drafts it and then the leftover one as you discard it moves the dinosaur also. So everything that you have to do in a game like this anyway, revealing cards, is super exciting. Discard the leftover card, super exciting. Taking the cards as your bets, super exciting.
Yeah. And even the the flipping the cards over, the um event cards, what are they called? The the
The the checkpoints.
The checkpoints, right? It's a simple mechanism, it works well, it adds a little bit of chaos to the game but not overwhelming amounts, right? Like, oh, this dinosaur GOES BACK ONE. AH! ANYWAY, we keep going and it's fun because people are like rooting for checkpoints. Like, come on that last dinosaur, I want to see another checkpoint. Cuz you don't know what's going to happen.
Absolutely.
Some of the things are a little more crazy than others, switching two of the dinosaurs or whatever. But it doesn't matter cuz races are so short. This is one of those games that I don't know if I ever care if I'll win. I try to, obviously.
Mhm.
But it's pretty good. The scoring is a little The scoring is actually a little odd at you get to the end and you're like, okay, how many points does everyone have? Everyone's like, It it slows down just a bit. Not a big deal, but just a bit and then we keep going.
to catch your breath, I think, in between the races, which is good. I do I I like the little the the Rex is up top and so it breaks the ties because it's closest to the racetrack, but also has four more cards than the racers below it. You know what I mean? It's 21 21 19 cards. Yeah, it's it's just stacked a little bit in its favor, so it's worth the fewest. Like all those decisions are mechanically very sound.
Math-wise, I'm not I I I went through looked at the numbers. I'm not convinced the the lowest dinosaur was that's Bronto, right? Bronto. I'm not I get that the upper one has fewer cards. It has one fewer two three has four right then use that right four. I don't know that that's worth the difference in points, though.
It's it's a huge difference cuz even getting second place with the Bronto is six
Yeah, it just seems like it's better to bet on the lower ones if possible.
But then, the you know, to the contrary, everyone says, "I don't want to grab the Rex because, you know, that's that's the the weak bet." And all of a sudden a bunch of leftover T-Rexes become extra movement for it.
Yes. And so no so I the game is I'm not I'm sorry. I apologize for bringing balancing into a game like this anyway. It doesn't really matter.
But but [clears throat] to your point, I think that it's it's well thought out. It's really well made and then none of those things are done in a way that complicate the game. It's all very smoothly built into the experience.
It's a very fun game. Um It's not as good as Hot Streak for me. It's not as good as um Ready Set [clears throat] Bet or Magical Athlete, but you know what? We live in a plethora of amazing games. This is easily the most portable of this type of game and I still love it. 8.5 for me. I think it's a great little game. It plays so quickly and and everyone is laughing and cheering. It's a It's just a blast.
Yeah. And I That's funny. Yeah, you you did share your complaints with it which I think is worthwhile.
But they're also very minor complaints. I mean, I'm I'm complaining because it's not in a vacuum. It's not If no other if if this was the first of these racing games, I'd be like
I'd be floored by it.
You know.
Right. No doubt.
It that's
But I still think it's fantastic.
I'm also giving this 8.5. I think that it's excellent. I think it's wonderful. Uh I think that it scales pretty decently because of that uh you know, deal out cards and then everyone drafts the leftover cards and the fact I think that all of those mechanisms are very good. The excitement is good. It's obviously more raucous with more players.
Right.
Or a small group of very loud players. It's that's true.
I'm not sure I would often play this with two. But
Yeah. And
For six players, this is almost a gimme to that player count.
Yeah, exactly. I think that it's I think that's fantastic. Uh personally, I like it more than Magical Athlete, more than the DC Arkham Breakout one.
Yes, it is better than that one for sure.
Yeah, I think it uh it uh sits just a little bit lower than like Hot Streak and and uh and Ready Set Bet, but I think it's I don't know. Because people might ask, I think it's phenomenal.
Get them all. Get them all. Fun fun genre. Yeah. So, there you go. It's Dino Racer. I'm Tom.
I'm Chris.
We're fast. Hey everybody, thanks for watching another video from the Dice Tower. Hey, you want to learn more about us, communicate with us? We have a Facebook group. We have a Discord channel. Lots of different ways to get involved with the Dice Tower. You can find that in our link tree link below. So, just click that and it will take you and you can communicate with us on Facebook, join our Facebook groups. There's lots of cool things that you can find and become part of the Dice Tower.
Thanks so much for watching. I'm Tom Vasel.