Dinos, Dice and Dynamite

PnP 1-player

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[u]02-Jul-2015[/u]: The player is an archeologist in search of dinosaur fossils in the early days of these discoveries. You are up against a brutal rival trying to find and publish these finds before you.

I really enjoy the dice mechanism of this one. After rolling the allotted number of dice, you may assign them to the actions you wish to take. Some actions will provide a bonus depending on the number of pips of the assigned die/dice. Additionally, the player has "Professor" pawns which can be added to these action spaces to help mitigate the luck of the roll.

The player is tasked with buying and digging potential fossil sites, and then selling or publishing his findings for profit or fame respectively. Fame is your ultimate goal, but your rival will not be easy to beat. You will have to slander and attack your rival along the way. Some of your students may even be killed in the process. But glory is what you're after, no matter the cost.

Overall, I like this game a lot. I really think the graphic design is excellent here with the muted browns throughout the game and the cool looking dinosaur art on the cards. It's really well done, IMO. The gameplay is engaging as well, but I fear most solo gamers will find the AI to random and brutal. It's controlled by a die roll so I can't honestly say that isn't the case. And while I have not beaten the AI since the game's final release, I still feel it can be done. I think this is just one of those games where a win will be few and far between but well worth the effort to get there.

Thematic, replayable and fun.