Top Recommendations:
Top Evolution Simulation:
American Megafauna
Top Dinosaur Simulation:
American Megafauna
All Dinosaur Games:
Top Dinosaur Fun:
Evo or Trias
Top Dinosaur for Kids:
American Megafauna
Top Dinosaur Role-Playing:
none
Top Dinosaur for Two Players:
American Megafauna
Top Dinosaur Solitaire:
American Megafauna
Top Dinosaur Cooperative Game:
Bambino Dino
Top Dinosaur Action Game:
Dino Booom,
Discovery Battling T-Rex Game or
Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur
Top Dinosaur Trivia Game:
Dinosaurs and Things or
Walking with Dinosaurs
Top Dinosaur Card Game:
T-Rex or
Walking with Dinosaurs Card Game
Top Dinosaur Collectible Card Game:
Cazaurio or
Dino Hunt
Top Dinosaur Free:
Dinosaurs of Catan
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Top Evolution Fun:
Evo,
Primordial Soup or
Urland
Top Evolution for Kids:
Quirks
Top Evolution Role-Playing:
Insecta
Top Evolution for Two Players:
American Megafauna
Top Evolution Solitaire:
American Megafauna or
Quirks
Top Evolution Card Game:
Quirks or
Lamarckian Poker
Top Human Evolution:
Origins: How We Became Human
Top Evolution Free:
Lamarckian Poker or
Dinosaurs of Catan
Bambino Dino ·
Bitin' Off Hedz ·
Burp ·
Cazaurio ·
Conquest of Pangea ·
Conquest of Pangea: Atlantis ·
Dino ·
Dino Booom ·
Dino Dino ·
Dino Dodg-Em ·
Dino Drache ·
Dino Hunt ·
Dino Math Tracks ·
Dino Xcavator ·
Dinoland ·
Discovery Battling T-Rex Game ·
Die Dinos sind los ·
Dinosaur Chess ·
Dinosaurs Gotta Love Me ·
Dinosaur Island ·
Dinosaurs Extinct? ·
Dinosaurs of the Lost World ·
Dinosaurs and Things ·
Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur ·
Escape from Dinosaur Island! ·
Fossil ·
Fossil Island ·
Genesis ·
Giganten ·
Go Diego Go ·
Iridium ·
Jurassic Park Game, The ·
Jurassic Park III: Island Survival Game ·
Jurassic Park III: The Spinosaurus Chase Game ·
Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs ·
Lost World: The: Jurassic Park Game ·
Prehistoric War P.I.G.s ·
Professor Noggin's Prehistoric Mammals ·
Rettet die Dinos ·
Revenge of the Dinosaurs ·
Run Dinosaur Run ·
Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier ·
T-Rex ·
Trias ·
Tyrannausorus rex
· Tyrannasaurus Wrecks ·
Tyranno Ex ·
Walking with Dinosaurs ·
Walking with Dinosaurs Card Game
All Evolution Games:
American Megafauna ·
Animality ·
Dinosaurs of Catan ·
Evo ·
Evolution [Bütehorn] ·
The Evolution Game ·
Evolution [Super-Ape] ·
Extinction ·
Extinction ·
Insecta ·
Lamarckian Poker ·
Origins: How We Became Human ·
Pangaea ·
Primordial Soup ·
Primordial Soup: Freshly Spiced Expansion ·
Quirks ·
Shapeshifters ·
Urland ·
Urland Expansion ·
Wildlife
More:
Learn About Dinosaurs
·
Also...
The evolutionary contest between dinosaurs and mammals, starting with
the Triassic (when these two megadynasties were on equal footing),
through the Mesozoic (when dinosaurs had the upper hand), and into the
Cenozoic (today's struggle between mammals and birds).
Not a kiddie game (although the introductory game can be played by them)
but a full-fledged, fairly realistic simulation.
[synopsis]
[summary]
[DNA chart]
[analysis]
[errata]
[variants]
[scenarios]
[playback]
[pbem playback]
[pbem playback 2]
[background]
[Buy it at Sierra Madre Games]
A species begins as a single body part and evolves, gaining additional
parts and abilities. Each turn players must choose between hunting, birthing,
changing the environment (?) or developing a new effect. Eventually
players can attack one another.
For 2-4 players.
A variant for the popular game Die Siedler von Catan / The Settlers of Catan
for 3-4 players.
[rules]
weather, land (3 levels from sea level (warmer) to high mountains (colder), other players' dinosaurs, movement points, attacks and an auction system allows you to buy new genes (horn, fur, leg, etc.) in order to evolve your dinosaurs. The prototype was the winner of the Sim D'Or 99. [Review: Haag] [Review: Faidutti]
This is played in rounds divided into three phases: Growth, Movement and Attack. Players begin by placing one piece on any intersection. Then in Growth, new pieces are placed for the existing ones, but not adjacent to any other pieces. The maximum size of a group is five pieces. After all growth is complete, Movement begins. Only groups of two or more pieces may move and moving has several other rules. Following this are Attacks. Each piece bordering an opposing piece may attack, calculating its strength from its neighboring pieces of the same color. The weaker piece is removed. Only one piece may attack in a round. At the end, for each occupied intersection a player receives one point. Also known as Guerilla.
Players attempt to lay their path of six cards in proper evolutionary order (from bacteria to primates) and have their token arrive at the last stage to win. There appears to be quite a bit of luck as one of the chief mechanisms is to correctly predict the next card to be drawn from the deck, based solely on what has been seen before. There are also event cards in the form of volcanoes and thunderbolts and the chance to affect other players by inserting dangerous cards into their paths. The chief purpose here is education.
Simulates competition for territory with other species, changing environmental conditions, plagues, starvation, natural disasters, global catastrophes, mutation, ecological niches and the geological sequence from the Precambrian to the Pleistocene on an abstract board.
During the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous players try to expand their herbivorous dinosaurs as much as possible by "laying eggs" but their plans are impinged by carnivores and other calamities.
An educational product. There were rules for several games, but only the main one seems to have any interest. Players represent a species on an island and have genes, reproductive rate, prey attack and defense, habitat, mobility, etc. Players can change their "genes" during play, with players eliminated by competition, being preyed upon, or over-population. The 1978 edition changed the reproductive attribute cards from a fixed litter size to a multiple of the number of creatures in an area. [more]
Mix-and-match body parts to create mutant bugs and
try them in combat! Then mutate into new and larger forms.
Detailed simulation of desert arthropod combat but easy to learn.
44 counters, 131 cards, 17 x 22" map.
Rainforest and Trilobite are expansions to this game.
[Buy it at Fat Messiah Games]
Requiring only an ordinary deck of 52 cards, players follow the wrongheaded Lamarckian principles to "evolve" their hands into the best possible poker hand. [rules]
This is the game of human evolution. Players begin as one of the Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, Peking Man, Homo Floresiensis (often called the hobbits) or Archaic Humans and must progress through three eras, ending about World War I. In the first era they must develop their brains to become fully human. In the second era they domesticate plants and animals in order to harness energy. In the third era they exploit natural resources to gain even more capabilities.
There are a number of innovative game systems plus auctions and occasional
simple conflict. The number of different technologies on the two-part
cards is impressive. There are also extensive background notes (in English
only with rules and components in both English and German).
[more]
[Buy it at Sierra Madre Games]
The game object is to evolve from a lungfish into modern man. A set of event cards allow moving predators, evolving predators, and shifting continents. Somewhat high on the luck factor. A little like American Megafauna stripped very far down. Also known as Evolution. [Carolina Biological Supply]
Amoeba compete and evolve, somewhat abstractly.
[Variant]
[Variant genes]
[Review: O'Sullivan]
[Review: Game Cabinet]
[Buy it at Amazon]
Adds new gene cards and enough bits and pieces to permit up to 6 players.
[Buy it at Amazon]
An evolutionary card game; out of print. Also published were Quirks Expansion Kit 1 and Quirks Expansion Kit 2.
An evolutionary battle of wizards using shapeshifting magic to transform
into a number of different animal forms and thereby destroy their opponents.
[Buy it at Fat Messiah Games]
A successor to Primordial Soup in theme only, probably one of the greatest successes from Essen 2001. Perhaps in response to complaints that every Primordial Soup turn was more or less the same, now one has at least three or four different types of turns. There is the turn in which one chooses the island of competition, after that the turn one spends only planning, after that the turn in which one goes last and has a very good chance of knowing what the land of competition will be and finally the neutral turn. As in the predecessor there are still gene cards which permit players to "break" the normal rules, but now the game is one of regional dominance rather than of feeding. In addition, in deciding to breed more fish (which will later walk onto land), one usually helps other players as well as oneself. There seem to be curiously few gene cards, but there is already precedent for an expansion kit. What many players may not realize and what designers will most admire is just how clean all the rules have been kept, how just by details like the clever ordering of the phases, the handling of the scoring track, etc., many extra and niggly rules, e.g. what to do about ties, have been very neatly avoided. Recommended for all strategists.
Adds 10 new gene cards.
Features up to six types of organisms, each adapted for
a different type of landscape: eagles (mountains), bears
(forest), crocodiles (water), mammoths (steppe), humans (savannah) and
snakes (desert).
Each player tries to expand into other landscape areas and evolve new abilities.
When food becomes scarce, the types fight each other. Success
depends on how well they are adapted to the landscape.
[Buy it at Amazon]
Cooperative game for children who must work together to rescue a baby dinosaur.
[Buy it at Amazon]
A simple race game that lets you use your own plastic dinosaurs for pieces. Dinosaurs can throw rocks at each other to knock the other guy back to Start, and they can accomplish the same thing by "Bitin' Off Hedz" (landing on the other fellow's square). You win by being the first one to get to the volcano and throw yourself in! It's a very simple game, which is usually short, but it can become interminable if too many players get on-board.
Players represent a stone age village struggling to climb the evolutionary ladder by discovering inventions.
Collectible card game in which humans fight to capture dinosaurs which have somehow mysteriously returned to the earth. Card types include dinosaurs, hunters, equipment and adventure.
Species advance, evolve and battle on the super-continent which re-shapes itself during play. Apparently there is a great deal of randomness...
An expansion kit for the above game, it adds Atlantis as an additional continent plus a few other additions, as well as clarifying the rules to the main game.
The board is a 6x6 grid, on which a jungle valley is shown. Each player runs a science team, travelling to the past to steal dinosaur eggs. Each player gets 2 play figures, then 6 nests are allocated to different playing fields with 5 dinosaurs to guard them. A meteorite is placed on a track which runs around the board. On his turn, a player may move a piece up to four fields. Unused points are used to advance the meteorite. Players must walk around squares containing dinosaurs. If it reaches an egg space, he may take it. The more eggs obtained, the greater the number of points. But take care to return to the present before the meteorite strikes, which ends the game. Positive points are awarded for eggs, negative ones for researchers still in the past.
Originally published Edition Perlhuhn as Iridium in 1988.
Children's action game of using plastic lengths to spear the dinosaur cards that appear on the day's menu.
There is a plastic dinosaur with a long tail which connects to an electric cord. One can press the tail into the Dino, whereby the head and neck are raised. There is a turntable with 4 fields in four different colours and a joker field, on which all colors are shown. The colors are identical to those on the gem stones.
Each player gets a gem stone of each color. On his turn, each player turns the disk to determine a color. If one has jewels of this color, he puts them into the neck of the Dino. If he has none of this color, he removes jewels with a hammer, several of which may fall out. If any of these match the color, they are placed in the tail. Others must be kept by the player. The player who manages to get rid of all of his gem stones first wins.
Each player starts with 3 dinosaurs on adjoining edges of a 4x4 grid. The object is to be the first to move all dinosaurs off the the other side. Prohibited are diagonal movement, jumping and entering the other's start area. Based on Dodgem.
Collectible card game with booster packs; is said to have more real dinosaur information in it than Dinosaurs of the Lost World. Players travel back in time to capture different dinosaurs. Easy to learn and quick to play. The boxed set comes with 109 cards, as well as two booster packs and 4 plastic dinosaurs to use as playing pieces. The cards have information about the dinosaurs on them. Known as Dino Jagd in Germany.
Roll and move dinosaur pieces around the board, along thew ay
reinforcing counting, addition, subtraction and place value skills.
Includes game board, 16 dinosaurs, cards, a die and instructions for
various levels of play.
[Buy it at Amazon]
For those who know the 1965 Milton Bradley game Operation,
this is essentially the same thing, but the illustration shows a
a T-Rex skeleton and the challenge is to carefully
remove each bone from the dig site. Draw a card and answer correctly to
earn a chance at removing a bone using the excavation tool.
[Buy it at Amazon]
Each player leads an expedition to save dinosaurs, eggs, fossils and babies from a volcano-threatened island. Play is determined by a videotape with Professor Darmin on your screen as if it was at the spaceship window. The trick is that the professor's description matches the spaceship's current location so getting close to it will ensure success.
This is the dinosaur version of Rock-em Sock-em Robots where players use controllers located in the tails of the battling tyrannosaurus rexes.
The cards show different dinosaurs and the board a jungle as well as nests with colored eggs (nest tiles). Each player gets nest tiles in his colour as well as the suitable dinosaur. All figures start at the volcano. The remaining nest tiles are shuffled and dealt to the individual nests on the playing field so that that nobody can see where the broken eggs are. Each player is dealt three cards. On his turn, each player plays a card and then moves his piece. Cards alow movement of the dinosaur or the players. The idea is to collect good eggs from nests and avoid empty nests and broken eggs. In English, the title is The Dinosaurs Are Loose.
Not chess with dinosaur pieces, but a simple little game that has to do with shifting continents, etc.
Game for children ties into a television program. All the members of the baby dinosaur's family race to feed him by collecting creatures to store in the refrigerator.
A board game for 2-4 children aged 5 and above, players roll to move, trying to travel from the Jurassic era to the 21st century, dealing with other ice ages, volcanoes, meteorites, earthquakes and other dinosaurs. Available dinosaurs are triceratops, stegosaurus, corythosaurus and brontosaurus.
Said to have similarities to Careers. There is also a simplified ruleset for young children. Older players may get bored with it once they learn which strategies work. The game is based on the Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World novel.
An trivia game based on the Trivial Pursuit model, but oriented to dinosaurs.
In this racing game for children, wind up the dinosaur and watch him stomp. If he knocks your piece over, it must return to start.
Solitaire game of World War 2 marines battling a variety of dinosaurs and other megafauna such as sabertooths on a Pacific Island.
Each player represents a paleontological researcher trying to make major fossil finds. Success brings more money and fame; failure the opposite.
The board is a 9x9 grid, each space of which is covered by a tile depicting
a portion of a fossil. Each tile also contains a point value from 1-3. On
the board are 2 stones, one of which can be moved by each player on his turn
in order to claim a fossil. Fame is expended in quantity equal to the number
of spaces moved. When the last tile of a particular fossil is removed, players
receive points based on the number of components they have and the point values
on those tiles. In addition, the player completing the fossil can exchange a
tile he has collected with one of those from another player. Players who had
no component in the fossil lose points which are then given to the player who
had the most points in that fossil.
[Rules]
[Pictures of Tiles]
[Pictures of Tiles]
[Buy it at Amazon]
Roll-and-move game your dinosaur along an eggshell path, but after you roll you need to solve an addition problem.
The time is 250 million years BP, just after the great extinction. Players represent one of dinosaurs, reptiles, mammals or man trying to dominate the earth. Theme is very abstract in this tile-laying, majority-control game in which the right to place tiles depends on a roll of the dice.
Differently-equipped dinosaurs battle on a checkerboard à la Chess or Stratego.
A Chutes & Ladders variant in which players try to rescue a baby dinosaur.
Includes board, stand-up visitor center, pawns and dinosaur figures (T-Rex, velociraptors, etc.). Play cards to race for the safety of the center, trying to hide in the maintenance sheds on the way and get more cards. Dinosaurs move via roll of the dice. Being caught delays final escape.
The race game includes board, four pawns Spinosaurus pawn and deck of 48 cards using artwork from the movie. Cards are played to escape the Spinosaurus and also to move the Spinosaurus so that it can catch one's opponents, which makes final escape more difficult.
Includes board, 7 cardboard pawns, life chips cards, special dice and dinosaurs (T-Rex, velociraptors, pteranodons and spinosauruses). Humans are racing to escape the board; the dinosaur player tries to stop them. Movement is controlled by the die, as is combat.
Explorers of a lost valley must dodge dinosaurs and a volcano to collect ancient treasure.
Includes cardboard buildings, pawns, helicopter and plastic dinosaurs (T-Rex and velociraptors). Human players try to escape the board via the helicopter while the dinosaur players try to stop them. Movement is controlled via dice.
Roll a die to move your dinosaur, trying to avoid the tyrannosaurus rex.
Racing game for children – avoid the cavement, T-Rex and dangerous lava.
A P.I.G. is a plastic infantry guy and this is a miniatures war game of plastic dinosaurs and cave men (why do some think they are co-evals?) fight.
Trivia game on the early dinosaurs and mammals.
Includes 1 board, 12 small eggs, 6 large eggs, 4 pawns, a colored die, a number die and a wooden ring. The board shows a circular path with 18 colored fields. In the center is the ring. In the course of play eggs are stacked within the ring to form a small nest. There are four versions of the game. The first is suitable for younger children. The active player rolls the dice and moves the pawn clockwise to the next space of that same color and puts two small or one large dinosaur eggs into the nest without letting them slip out, otherwise having to move backward or lose a turn. In another version the number die is used and anyone's pawn may be moved. This player must resolve the specified action. A third version uses only two pawns, the blue which represents a slowly approaching meteor. The other is used for all of the players who are working together to ensure that no eggs are lost before the meteor arrives. In the final version, each player has his own pawn and rolls both dice. The player decides which one he prefers to use and then moves. The components are quite attractive and the diagrams clear in their meanings. Title means "Save the Dinos".
The theme sounds just like that of Dino: Each player runs a science team, travelling to the past to steal dinosaur eggs, taking care to return to the present before meteorites strike the earth, which ends the game. On each turn, the players choose to play high cards to collect eggs or low cards to be able to direct future collecting efforts. The winner will be the player who collects the most points in dinosaur eggs in the 12 rounds of the game. A mix of trick-taking, card counting and bluff.
"Trias" is German for "Triassic". Each player steers the fortunes of his dinosaur herds as they peacefully coexist on the splintering continent of Pangaea. The winner is the player who manages to dominate the most of the new continents before the meteor strikes.
Each player manages a different dinosaur, one of: Triceratops, Pteranodon, Diplodocus, Stegausorus. Each has different capabilities and attempt to fill-up their larders with trees. The Tyrannosaurus Rex is played by all the players. Action cards and simultaneous movement are the chief mechanisms.
Folio game about time travellers hunting dinosaurs and trying to avoid getting chomped. Includes two cardstock pages of reference tables, cardstock hunter record sheet and dinosaur record sheet, 17" by 11" cardstock hex map (the actual playable area of the map is 9.5" by 10"; the rest of the map contains a turn track and reference charts/tables), and 141 cut apart counters. Images: [Map] [Map] [counters] [counters]
Race around the board attempting to evade the T-Rex and other evolutionary threats in order to evolve and survive the Late Cretaceous period.
A trivia game based on the BBC series of the same name. Includes 70 large cards.
A memory-based game of somewhat abstract evolution. [Review: Game Cabinet]