Draftosaurus

What do you call a dinosaur with one eye?… Do-you-think-he-saurus

What do you call a dinosaur with cracks under its doors?… Draft-o-saurus…

Anyway having had it on my wishlist for ages (it constantly being out of stock everywhere) and not wanting to crack and get a version with spicy language my FLGS finally came up trumps and as of about a week ago I own a copy of Draftosaurus and today was the first time Jack(7) and I played it as game 15 of the “Bailey Family Sorta Summer Board Game Bonanza.”

Draftosaurus is a drafting game where you place Dinosaur meeples around your park following certain conditions to score points.

Each round you take 6 dinosaur meeples out of the bag and choose one, You then pass your pile left for the next person to choose one to place in their park. While this is going on each meeple placed will follow the rules rolled on the dice (unless it was your turn to roll in which case you can ignore the dice rule).

You then place one of the 6 dinosaurs into one of 6 spaces. We played the summer board but there is a winter one we have yet to play.

1 space increases in value as you put dinos of the same species on it.

1 space increases in value as you put dinos of different species on it.

1 space you get points for if you have 3 and only 3 dinosaurs on it.

1 space gives you points for matching pairs of dinos

1 space gives you points if it is the only one of that dinosaur

and 1 space gives you points if the dinosaur in it has more in your park than everyone else’s.

You also get 1 point for every Trex and 1 for every dinosaur in the river (where any unplaced dinos go essentially)

The dice rolls affect where you can place such as which section or side of the board.

Overall it’s a simple drafting game but it works well and is a lot of fun. We played 3 games and they were all tight (which due to the fairly symmetrical scoring would make sense). I never really felt like I didn’t have an option on each turn and only ended with a few dinos in the river.

Oddly due to multiples going into 6 the game actually uses fewer dinos in 3 players than 2 players so I will be interested to see how a 3-player game plays as you have less per player to utilise.

While I super enjoyed it and played it again as an adult I wanted a little more depth and definitely intend on picking up the aerial show and marina expansions which add more to the experience and provide more options.

Component quality is good and the meeples are lovely. I did have some issues with Quality Control however having 1 meeple missing feet (but painted meaning it was broken before it was even painted) and one with a big gouge in the side but overall nice components. You could conceivably cheat and “feel” for certain components when choosing your meeples out the bag but maybe that’s me being cynical.

Draftosaurus is a great drafting game that I would definitely recommend. Jack loved it and I think this is definitely one Toby(4) will enjoy. We are heading to Wales for a few days next week and this is def one that will be coming in the board game bag. I am going to buy the expansions (probably before I go to bed if I can’t talk myself out of it) and will report back later in the Summer on those.

What do you call the dog of a dinosaur with one eye?… Do-you-think-he-saurus rex.

What do you call a dinosaur who eats super spicy curry?

Mega-Sore-Ass.

I’m not saur-ee I came up with these half-baked puns. I feel ptero-bill