Dinosaurs ruled the earth for 165 million years and died out around 65 million years ago. To put that span into perspective, the dinosaurs in this image lived further apart in time than the Tyrannosaurus Rex does to our time. But did you know that they also liked racing? They also had marriage customs and possibly children out of wedlock based on the latest paleontology pamphlet I read: the rules to Mini Dinosaur. Or maybe not, I’m not sure how the Baby dinosaur, skateboarding dinosaur, and grandpa dinosaur are related to the bride and groom dinosaurs.
Mini Dinosaur is a betting game about a possibly lopsided race (a baby vs. a dino on a scooter vs. one with a cane doesn’t seem fair to me) for two to five players aged eight and up and plays in about 15 minutes.
Gameplay Overview:
Each player in Mini Dinosaur gets eight betting cards and between seven and 10 depending on the player count. In a two-player game, a third deck of 10 cards is also made to add more cards to the race.
On a player’s turn, they can opt to either play a dinosaur or place a bet card.
When playing a dinosaur, the player may opt to discard any card before playing the leftmost dinosaur from their hand. Each turn, the left most dinosaur card must be played. The dinosaur will be added to the race, adding to the set of the same dinosaur type. A slip card, represented by the banana peel and art of the dinosaur slipping, removes that card and one more dinosaur card. There’s one of these per dinosaur.
Bets can be placed face up or face down with a maximum of two face up and two face down bets over the course of the race. These bets represent the scoring and will be things like how many cards will be used in the race, specific number of dinosaurs played during the race, and dinosaur finishing order.
Races continue until a dinosaur has five race cards or all players can’t take any more actions. Up to that point, players may skip a turn until all the other players are out of available actions.
Bets are evaluated and the player with the most points wins.
Game Experience:
I appreciate a small box game that plays fairly quickly and is easy to teach and Mini Dinosaur checks all of those boxes. At first, I thought the game played itself but the discard a card mechanism does give you some control of your dinosaurs and your bets.
The flipside is you can’t control your opponents, so feel free to discard away to try and get some zero dinosaurs or low race card counts, but you are at the mercy of your opponents having similar goals.
I wasn’t sure the easiest way to hold the cards so I could plan, not mess up the order, and not give away that my hand was heavy on scooter dinosaurs. I ended up using the tile holders from Rummikub to hold the dinosaur cards and that leans into one of my issues with the game—I don’t want to hold a spread of cards for 15 minutes. Some of this is that I’m left-handed so I’d pick the cards up with my left hand which made grabbing the left card awkward (I mean, I’m awkward anyway but this just added to the feeling). This can be easily solved by picking them up with my right hand too.
Overall, the game itself is just okay. I felt slightly more in control over the later bets while the early ones felt more random. I find the game overly random to a point where I questioned how much strategic or even tactical play really mattered. The luck of the draw of your specific betting cards and the hands of the players and what they opt to do could make or break your bets more than anything you have control over.
But, placing an open bet for the intent of deceiving an opponent *twirls awkwardly glued on mustache* is a neat twist. If I play an open bet showing, I’ll get 1 point per groom in the race, and a face down bet of the groom being last, people might help me accomplish my more valuable goal. Sure, it cost me one of my four bets but with the randomness of early betting, being clever/devious might be more beneficial than being strategic or being lucky. But with each dinosaur only having a single slip card, the best you can hope for is people discarding cards they think are valuable to you.
Humor me while I take a small excursion as I compare Mini Dinosaur to Deep Sea Adventure from Oink games. There’s randomness (dice), a lack of control of other players’ actions, and the treasure chits you draw in Deep Sea Adventure. But I feel like I have control to turn around whenever I want, and when I end up suffocating two steps from my ship, I can point both to bad luck with rolls as well as all the greedy goblins I’m playing with for my fate—which is part of the strategy. You can also be devious as you pick up one more treasure to use more air before climbing up onto the ship, and watch the rest of the fools drown. In both cases, while I wasn’t in full control, my choices mattered.
Why the long comparison? My plays of Mini Dinosaur lacked those feelings of making impactful decisions or reactions from the table (I played Mini Dinosaur at two and three players). The race just kind of happens and the bets, while they can become educated, can get screwed up faster than that guy who grabs all the treasures on the way down during Deep Sea Adventure.
Overall, it’s a small and quick experience but I found it shallow and sort of unsatisfying. It’s a game, so by default it’s more fun than yard work, but it’s not as much fun as some other games in a similar size class (though I believe Oink games are more expensive).
Final Thoughts:
The art is cute, but the overall gameplay in Mini Dinosaur felt like it lacked meaningful decisions because of the lack of control in the final outcome. And I’m struggling because I’m trying to see if this is a me problem where I’m not the right person for this game or if it’s a game problem. The betting system, when deviously employed, may present the best opportunity to exert control over the table, but that style of gameplay isn’t my jam even in this low-confrontational way.
Final Score: 1.5 Stars – Mini Dinosaur is a small betting game that plays quickly with limited player agency
Hits:
• More fun than filing taxes
• Discarding a card from your hand gives a small sense of control
• Clever betting system with open and closed information
Misses:
• Feels too random with limited player agency to influence game
• Luck of the draw could determine outcome
• Cards have to stay in order without components to make that easy
