Happy Little Dinosaurs Game Review: Many board games have been produced over the years that require you to accomplish challenging goals in order to win.
Happy Little Dinosaurs Game Review
Such a board game is not Happy Little Dinosaurs. Instead, this card game challenges you to survive all the curveballs life throws at you as the titular small dinosaur. This includes spa days, meteors, and even verbal assaults.
What Is In The Box Of Happy Little Dinosaurs Game
Happy Little Dinosaurs’ unboxing is delightful, much like it was with Unstable Games’ earlier board games. The package has been meticulously designed in every detail to not only keep your components nice and safe, but also to look stunning.
The player boards and the box are both made of sturdy, thick cardboard, which contributes to the small game’s very hefty weight for its size. When you first open the box, the four player boards are there, each sporting an appropriately labelled miniature dinosaur. There are Stego, Nervous Rex, Cry Ceratops, and Bad Luck Bronto.
Each board is constructed from very sturdy, thick cardboard that opens up to expose a score tracker and a spot to set your hand of cards. Along with the player boards, the game comes with a rulebook, a disaster deck, a main deck of cards, and my personal favourite, tiny wooden dino meeples.
Each Happy Little Dinosaurs card has the bright and adorable artwork for which Unstable Games is well-known. And I have to admit that I have quite a prejudice when it comes to the artwork because I adore its vibrant and cartoonish style. Each card is nicely made and has a linen texture that makes shuffling easier.
The four wooden meeples that are each shaped like a different dinosaur are the final addition. Although Unstable Games could have used any kind of token for each player, the addition of such small elements elevates the quality of their board games. This game shares the same peculiar humour that can be found in the majority of Unstable Games titles.
How To Play Happy Little Dinosaurs Game
Keeping your little dinosaur alive long enough to be the last one standing is the main goal of Happy Little Dinosaurs, as was previously said. As an alternative, you could score 50 points before your competitors, which is much harder than it first appears.
Each player receives a player board, a dino meeple that corresponds with it, and five cards with bright backgrounds at the start of the game. Just that. You set the main deck and the disaster card deck in the centre of the playing field, and you’re ready to battle.
Players will play cards from their hands during each round to score points and counteract some of the misfortunes that come their way in life. One card from the disaster deck will first be turned over and shown to all players. Natural disasters, predatory disasters, and emotional disasters are the three categories of disaster cards.
Each player will then select one Point card and set it face down in front of them after reading aloud the potential catastrophe that could befall their tiny dinosaurs. If a player has no Point cards in their hand, they must discard their five-card hand and shuffle their deck. Up until they have at least one Point card in their hand, this process continues.
After each player has dealt a card face down, all of the cards are simultaneously exposed. The person who scores the most wins the round and sees their tiny meeple go up or down the scoring track accordingly.
The face-up catastrophe card is then claimed by the sad little dino who finishes last. They can then choose to discard a card from their hand and draw a new card from the main deck as a consolation award. Additionally, a player advances one square on the score track for each catastrophe card they have on their side.
See, it’s not all horrible. Players who get three disaster cards—whether they are of the same kind or three different kinds—have fallen victim to the perils of life and are immediately disqualified from the game.
Although a player’s point score corresponds to the cards in front of them, the score can also be impacted by immediate card effects, point card effects, and dinosaur attributes that are listed on the player board. The winner is the last person standing or the first person to reach 50 points overall.
Our Final Thought On Happy Little Dinosaurs Game
I was immediately drawn to Happy Little Dinosaurs because of its top-notch components and eye-catching graphics. However, after a few games, we fell in love with how simple it was to pick up and play the game (also it has tiny little meeple dinos). As a filler game, we discovered that the game performed well, much to how an appetiser gets you energised and ready for the main course.
The high calibre of Happy Little Dinosaurs’ parts helps it go from an excellent game to a terrific one. It is commendable that Unstable Games put so much work into the quality of their board games. This is a piece that any collection needs if you have young children. My two girls fell in love with the adorable dinosaurs right away, and the game was simple enough for them to understand.
Yes, Happy Little Dinosaurs isn’t particularly deep or complex, like many filler games. However, we thought this was part of its appeal because we could fit one or two rounds in between all of our everyday activities.
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