Review: Draftosaurus

Spider, Cat, Owl, and Dog
Jun 30, 2021
2 min read

This meeple bonanza is perfect for the family!

There's a summer side and a winter side of your Dino zoo. It's your job to populate your dinosaurs into just the right pens based on the dice roll. Everyone grabs six Dinos at random from the canvas bag. Keep your selections hidden. The lead rolls the dice to determine which pens are eligible to receive a Dino. Place one from your selection. Once everyone has placed a Dino, switchems! Pass your secret stash of now 5 Dinos to your left. Repeat until all six Dinos are placed. Then it's time for round two. Each person grabs six more Dinos from the bag and play proceeds just as in round one. Once all Dinos are placed tally up your scores and see who is the zoo master!

In the first week of getting this game we probably played about 40 rounds. Owl (7) and Dog (5) absolutely loved it. They loved the Dino meeples, the easy to read symbols, and the strategy. A lot of the times these early run throughs were played by Spider, Owl, and Dog. Cat jumped in on a few rounds to get a feel for the game.

Spider: The game play was simple, fast and easy to teach to children. The meeples are awesome. I like the two sided board, easy to come up with variations for gameplay. It seems like it would be a good gateway game for drafting style games. Particularly, for our younger kids once they manage the mechanics of this, they can start to understand more difficult games.

Cat: My favorite part of the game was the cute Dino meeples. Brontosaurus check, T-Rex check, stegosaurus check, triceratops check. Each Dino type had a different, distinct color. That made scoring the boards quick and easy work.

I liked the drafting style and I think the theme played really well on that. I agree that it is a great introduction to drafting games. It got the boys used to trying to make the most of what they got in their hands. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you can always try to make the most of the situation. I think a quick reference guide for images would have been helpful at the beginning.

Owl (7): I liked being able to take my time and come up with a plan. For example,

say I had to place my Dino on the bathroom side because that's the picture that was on the dice. Then I could think about which pen on the bathroom side to put my Dino in to get the most points. I also liked that if you were the person rolling the dice you could put your Dino wherever you wanted, but the other people had to follow the rule of the dice.

Dog (5): I liked the different Dinos. I liked taking my time to make my choices to put them on the board. The Dinos are really, really cool. I really liked the options on the dice and the options on the board. The game is maximum fun!

Pros: