The Thrifting Gamer Reviews 6 - Dinosaur Island

Parker Brothers 1980 edition

Game: Dinosaur Island
Publisher: Parker Brothers
Designer: Uncredited
Year: 1980
Price Paid: $1
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Recommended Ages: 7-14

Synopsis: Dinosaur Island is a game in which you are rival photographers attempting to take the best pictures of the dinosaurs, recently discovered on a remote island. The better the photograph, the more points they are worth. The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

Components:1 game board, 48 cards, 4 photographer pawns and bases, 1 six-sided die

* My copy of the game has only 46 cards, with a breakdown listed below:

Photograph Cards:
5 - 0 point
7 - 1 point
6 - 2 points
5 - 3 points
5 - 4 points
1 - 5 points

Attack Cards:
1 - The creature leaps
1 - The monster attacks
1 - The beast charges

Weather Cards:
1 - Eclipse of the sun
1 - Tropical Storm
1 - Nightfall

Action Cards:
4 - Rescue opponent
4 - Opponent loses supplies
2 - Opponent caught in quicksand
1 - Opponent attacked by dinosaur

Thrifting Notes: None 



Gameplay: Players roll and move around a board comprised of six connected areas, each with a number of different spaces and eight cards. Landing on different types of spaces cause different events to happen:

Starred spaces allow the player to draw a card from that area. 
Spaces with two stars allow the player to draw two cards from that area. 
Dotted green spaces allow the player to take a card from ANY area
Go To spaces send the player to certain other locations on the board
Red Spaces indicate danger and require a die roll. Even rolls are safe, odd rolls force the player to discard one card from their hand

The cards are comprised of photographs, each with a point value, weather cards that you can play on an opponent to prevent them from drawing a card on their turn, attack cards that force the player back one die roll and message cards that cause some action to occur, such as switching places with an opponent or taking a card from an opponent’s hand.

Players roll and move around the board, collecting photograph cards and attempting to prevent their opponents from doing the same. Once all the cards on the board have been taken, the game ends and the player with the most points wins. There is no mechanism to handle a tie.

Review: This is a bad game, comprised entirely of luck and take-that play. There is no strategy involved, nothing you can do to improve or counteract die rolls, nothing you can do to prevent bad actions from happening. You simply move around the board collecting cards and messing with your opponents until the cards run out. The artwork is bad, the components are cheap and flimsy and the gameplay is boring. The end of the game drags out by rolling the die until someone lands on the needed starred space to gain the last card, which can be prolonged even further by action cards. The only thing that keeps this from being a 1 in my book is the player interaction can be somewhat amusing and there are some VERY simple choice that players can make (which direction to face, direction choices at intersections). Otherwise there is nothing here that elicits ANY kind of fun.

Rating: 2/10