You are cordially invited to the finest, most exclusive party of the year: Dinoton Abbey for high tea. 

Be sure to wear your prehistoric best and be ready to enjoy an afternoon of high-society and chit-chat.

You’ve secured the invitation, gotten all dressed up for the occasion, but unfortunately you’ve forgotten the names of everyone in attendance! How dreadful! You must be careful to work out everyone’s name without committing any social faux pas. You don’t want to become the subject of all the gossip!

“So old chap! What exactly is this you’re going on about?”

Dino Tea Party is a deduction game for 3-5 players. 

Each player takes a card that corresponds to one of the 20 dino guests. 

Players take turns asking each other questions or guessing their dinosaur’s name. If a name is correctly guessed, the guesser takes a sugar cube and the guessed player draws a new card. 

The first player who guesses three names correctly and collects three lumps of sugar wins the game. 

Deducing the identities of the guests wont be easy, however. Three special quirks that make it so you can’t be certain if the answer you were given is the correct answer or not; perhaps the dinosaur is trying to trick you!

“Well I do say! This sounds wonderful!”

Getting into character is one of the best parts of the game. I love that everyone is encouraged to really have some fun with it. Rather than saying something like, “Do you have a hat?” You can ask, in your finest British accent, 

“My my, darling, I say, it is quite a bright day for a stroll out in the garden, did you happen to bring your hat today?” 

Or “I say, it is positively delightful to see you so well, will you be having anything to eat?”

Our kids really got into this, especially our daughter. At nearly 7, she is all about the princess life and practically plays this game with her pinkie out the whole time. Such a lady!

Even our son loves to try his hand at a fancy accent; if he can get out his question through the giggles!

“Dinosaurs? At a tea party? Do you really think that’s suitable?”

The theming is such a fantastic choice. Making it about both dinosaurs and tea parties makes it a great choice for either girls or boys.

The very idea of a dinosaur tea party conjures up hilarious images and the beautifully illustrated cards don’t disappoint on that front. From wonderfully disgruntles Harriet to zany, burger eating, Kenneth, everyone will have fun looking at these characters. The personalities of the dinosaurs really shine through and help get players into character as well. 

Along with the theme, one of my favorite aspects of this game is how easily it is scalable for different ages. 

The box recommends ages 7 and up and I agree with that. If you are looking to play with the full game age 7 is place to start. 

But by simply removing the Dino “quirk” tokens you can make this game easily work for younger kids as well. Our son Sebastian (who is just tickled to no end that a dinosaur in this game shares his name) is 4.5 and can play this game pretty well with out the quirk tokens and just a little bit of help from us. 

For the most part, we just let him ask the questions and then we help walk him through what he has learned by asking him which trait tokens he needs to flip over. 

“Brilliant! But how to I keep it all sorted?” 

The trait tokens are a really great tool. There are 15 different traits a dinosaur could have. From what color of room their in, what’s on the table in front of them, or if they have spikes, stripes, or teeth showing, players use the trait tokens to not only help them know what they should ask, but also what they have learned. 

When a player is asked a question, they answer by moving the token that corresponds to the question asked and reflect their answer. If it is a yes, they’ll show the yes side, if the answer is a no, they’ll flip it over and show the “X” side. This helps everyone keep track of the known information. 

While we remove the quirk tokens when our son plays, when we play with our daughter we use them as it adds a nice challenge to the game. 

The quirks make it so you can’t really be sure if the answer you received is correct and forces you to use critical thinking skills and deduction to figure out the answer. 

“Always lies,” “Switches answers,” and “Always says ‘NO’” are the three quirks that alter three guest’s answers. 

These tokens make the game more challenging, but again, are not necessary if they complicate the game too much for your players and can be easily removed. 

I recommend playing the game a few times first without them so that kids can get a feel for how the game works, and then add them in when they’re ready for that challenge. 

This scaleability is great in kids games and really lengthens the lifespan of the game. 

“This really sounds like the bee’s knees!”

There’s nothing really to not enjoy about this charming game. While the box says 3-5 players, I really don’t see any reason why 2 players couldn’t enjoy this together. Having that third player will obviously give more options in who to ask questions to and make it a bit more difficult for someone to run away with the win. But if you have a younger player, I recommend teaching them in a 1v1 setting. Limiting their options can help keep them focused on finding one person’s identity, rather than 2 or 3 or 4. 

Restoration Games truly did a fantastic job bringing back Whosit? to life and making it an inviting game that the whole family will love. I feel also that this easily replaces Guess Who on the shelf. It’s far more enjoyable to get into character, the artwork is just lovely and really pops off the table, and it adds much more of a game aspect to it. Kids will really have to use their critical thinking skills and hone their powers of deduction by learning to use the trait tokens, ask strategic questions, and interpret the answers. 

All in all, its a wonderful children’s game that I can see becoming a classic and one I highly recommend.

Pip! Pip! Good show!

Game Credits
Dino Tea Party
3-5 players 15-30 min
Published: 2018
Designers: Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, Justin D. Jacobson
Artists: Matijos Gebreselassie, Jason Taylor
Publisher: Restoration Games

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