When you think of dinosaurs, you might think that they are epic, but you probably wouldn’t think about them being tiny.

But today we’re reviewing the pretty tiny and very epic dinosaurs you’ll encounter in Tiny Epic Dinosaurs from Gamelyn Games.

What is Tiny Epic Dinosaurs? 

Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a worker placement, resource management game where players are going to use their workers to fill their ranch with dinosaurs that they will then use to complete contracts and earn points. 

The player with the most points at the end of the game wins. 

Brief Play Overview

Tiny Epic Dinosaurs plays over the course of 6 rounds. Each round has 7 phases which players will work through and resolve. 

Players will gather resources that they will need to feed their dinosaurs, take turns assigning ranchers on the action spaces to perform various actions like gaining dinosaurs, fulfilling contracts, building fences to contain dinosaurs on their ranch, gaining research cards, and gathering more resources to feed their dinosaurs. When a player takes an action, it is no longer available to other players unless they use either their Lead Rancher or two regular ranchers.

After taking actions, you’ll need to arrange your ranch so any acquired dinosaurs have a home. They’ll then need fed, and then any dinosaurs with two of the same type in a pen will breed, so you’ll need to plan for those as well! If you don’t plan well enough for your ever growing ranch, your dinosaurs might escape or, unfortunately for your stock, eat other dinosaurs. So you’ll need to carefully consider the moves you make during the action phase so you don’t run into any issues later on!

The game repeats in this cycle of gathering resources, taking actions, and then tending to your ranch post actions for six rounds. After the sixth and final round, players add up their total points from dinosaurs in their ranch, contracts they completed, and research cards they earned. The player with the most points is the winner. 

What do we think?

I tend to enjoy dinosaur games personally. They are always a draw to me and I was certainly drawn to Tiny Epic Dinosaurs from the moment it was announced. 

I’m happy to report that Tiny Epic Dinosaurs does not disappoint! I love how it takes the feeling from my favorite dinosaur game, Dinosaur Island (One of the very best dinosaur games out there) and manages to capture it in a smaller, more portable package with about half the playtime required. It’s also easier to teach, meaning that there’s a good chance we’ll play Tiny Epic Dinosaurs more with new players than we currently do Dinosaur Island. 

What I love so much about Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is that it is very easy to learn how to play while still being a challenging game. I am so often turned off by games that seem difficult for the sake of being difficult. Personally I find the mark of a great game is one that doesn’t require players to sit there for hours scratching their heads over how to play and rather helps them get playing so they can scratch their heads over how they want to play. 

The downtime during play is also minimal. We felt consistently engaged throughout. Turns are quick and because the moves of your opponents impact what you’ll be able to do with our workers, you’re constantly paying attention to the choices they make.

When starting our first play, I thought the number of rounds we were going to have to play through seemed to be too long as there are a lot of phases to work through in each round. However, the game felt zippy and progressed nicely. I neither wanted it to be over sooner or felt like it should have been longer. It was, as Goldilocks would say, “just right.”

We also loved the research deck! There is so much content packed inside it with each card offering players something different. There weren’t ever any dud cards either. We could see each one being beneficial to our games in unique ways or they got us excited for entirely new strategies for following games! It felt that each time we’d choose to take a research card we were excited about, we’d flip one and go, “Oh! That’s cool too! Dang!”

Theme

The theme of Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is spot on! It is incorporated into every aspect of the game in such a way that not only does it create an immersive experience, but it also helps players learn how to play because each part of the game makes sense. The game doesn’t feel nearly as difficult as it looks or sounds like it will and I think some of that is due in large part to the theme being very well flushed out in the various stages of play. 

For instance, it makes sense that you would need to build fences to help contain your dinosaurs. If you don’t, your dinosaurs will escape, sometimes causing damage on their way out (like eating other dinosaurs in your ranch!) So players know that they have to think not only about which dinosaurs they are going to add to their ranch, but how they are going to contain them. This helps cut down on indecision during the worker placement phase. 

Keeping dinosaurs fed and happy can be a challenge too, which makes sense as well. Each type of dinosaur requires a different amount of food. The larger the dinosaur, the more food they require. Knowing that your dinosaurs need fed also helps guide you in strategy to make sure that you gather enough resources to keep your dinosaurs fed.

I love that your ranch produces resources itself, but the more dinosaurs you add to your ranch, the fewer natural resources you’ll be able to harvest, needing instead to go out and gather them yourself. Again, this makes sense! 

Components

Everything is tiny, but still super high quality with beautiful artwork and nice player pieces. While the pieces are small, we still found them easy to handle and use during the game. However, if you don’t like smaller components, obviously that will impact your experience playing this game.

The detail on dinosaur meeples is really well done. Each species is easy to tell apart and looks great set out on your ranch.

It never fails to impress me just how much content Gamelyn Games manages too pack inside these little boxes. 

The cards are really nice quality as well. Even though I’m not usually a small card fan, but I make an exception for the Tiny Epic games, and honestly, they mostly live on the tablet during the game so it’s not too bad.

The Rules are very well written and players can easily learn to play the game from reading them. It’s also really easy to use to quickly answer questions that might pop up during your first few plays. 

How does it play with two? 

This played spectacularly with two. The game was tight and well balanced to keep everything interesting and challenging. There were many times we could tell we were both rushing to fulfill the same contract and kept needing to rethink our strategy based on what the other did too foil our plans, intentionally or not.

Due to its size, when you’re sitting across the table, it can be hard to read the text on the smaller cards and on the small board. When it comes to playing with just two players, you can sit next to each other all cute like without the need to lean over or ask other players to read the cards to you.

(This element for a 3+ player game would probably be my only gripe, but it’s found in plenty of “full size” games so I’m not sure it’s entirely fair.)

Can kids play?

Due to the amount of strategy and planning that will be necessary to be successful, we’d recommend players be at least ten, maybe even a bit older before playing Tiny Epic Dinosaurs. 

Could a younger child play? Sure. But we feel the goal should be for a kid to play independently and confidently without the need for a parent or partner to help guide their strategy. If you have a dinosaur loving kid check out our list of Games for Dinosaur Lovers which has some great suggestions for younger gamers.

Summary

If you are a fan of dinosaur games, Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a great fit! Because of the well incorporated theme, players will enjoy an immersive experience! This is also a great choice for any fans of worker placement games where you can work through various strategies. If however you do not like games with lots of options or where your ability to think two or three turns ahead is vital, this may not be the best fit for you. 

We consider Tiny Epic Dinosaurs another great addition to the Tiny Epic line and one we look forward to playing many more times in the future. 

If you are interested in bringing home a copy of Tiny Epic Dinosaurs, you can find it here!

Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is also included on this year’s 2020 Board Game Gift Guide where you can find a wide variety of our favorite “giftable” games for players of all ages!

A special thank you to our friends at Gamelyn Games for sending us a copy of Tiny Epic Dinosaurs for review.
As always our thoughts and opinions are our own. 

Game Info:
Title: Tiny Epic Dinosaurs
1-4 Players Ages 14+
Designer: Scott Almes
Artist: Nikoletta Vaszi, Benjamin Shulman
Publisher: Gamelyn Games
Published 2020

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