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‘What do you call a dicey dinosaur? Do-you-think-he’ll-draft-us!’
In Duelosaur Island you and your opponent compete to build the biggest, busiest, and most exciting dinosaur theme park. You can pack out your park with a whole heap of tantalising thematic content, such as a Stegosaurus, a merch stand, a Velociraptor, even a Chaos Theorist! This game is essentially a more streamlined version of its predecessor Dinosaur Island, also from Pandasaurus Games. Duelosaur Island has been designed by Ian Moss specifically for the two-player count, although it does come with a neat solo variant too. The game’s mechanics centre around dice and card drafting and resource management, with some dice rolling and set collection thrown in for good measure.
Gameplay Overview
Each round of Duelosaur Island consists of 4 phases. I will give a super brief summary of each of these phases to give a sense of the game’s flow, without getting too bogged down in the details. Then we shall delve down into the glorious nitty gritty in the analysis that follows (or skip ahead if you just want that part!).
1) Income
Players gain coins (used for buying things like park attractions and security) and Park cards (each card can be used to either construct an attraction or develop a dinosaur)
2) Draft
The first player takes 3 Specialists (cards that give you special abilities) and chooses 2 to add to the draft pool for the round. They then take 5 dice out of the dice bag, roll them, and add them to the draft pool by pairing them up with a range of bonuses called Plot Twists. The faces of the dice feature various resources, such as DNA (of which there are 3 basic types and 3 advanced types), security, or coins. These 7 items form the draft pool for this round. The second player takes the first pick from the cards and dice on offer, and then the first player, and so on, until there is 1 die or card left over.
3) Build
Players can use their DNA to develop dinosaurs (increasing both their park’s excitement level and the threat level), spend coins to build park attractions (Food, which gives +1 coin each turn; Merch, which gives +1 Park card each turn; Rides, which give one-time bonuses), increase security, and sell or mix DNA.
4) Visitors
Players compare their security level with the threat level of their park to work out how many visitors have been eaten, and then gain visitors according to how exciting their park is. The player who has the least exciting park gets to choose a Public Relations bonus from the PR track (usually additional DNA, more coins, etc), and the other player chooses from the remaining PR bonuses. Everything is then reset for the next round.
The end game is triggered when one player reaches the visitor target (25 visitors for a short game, 35 for a medium game, 45 for a long game). Then the final points are tallied up, and the winner changes their name to ‘John Hammond’ (optional).
Analysis (What do you call a dinosaur that helps you write a review? A Thesaurus!)
So let’s delve into some prehistoric specifics. The ‘I Cut, You Choose’ mechanic in the Draft Phase is really well-implemented in Duelosaur Island, giving players plenty of delicious decisions and tricky trade-offs to consider. Quite a few games use this mechanic (Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Hanamikoji are two prominent examples), but what sets its implementation in Duelosaur Island apart is how this mechanic is combined with the Plot Twist tokens. Rather than the cutting player simply deciding the order in which the dice and Specialists can be chosen, they pair up the dice with the Plot Twist bonuses, leading to lots of opportunities for varied strategies. These tokens do things such as double or treble the value of whatever is on the paired die, gain a basic DNA and a coin, gain any Advanced DNA, and so on. For example, if there is a particular DNA strand on a die that I really want, and that I can see my opponent will also really want, I might pair a different tempting die with a fantastic Plot Twist bonus in an effort to dissuade my opponent from going for the die I want.
Another key aspect of Draft Phase is the threat level, which in the game’s symbology is represented by maroon dots. After each player has drafted 3 items in the Draft Phase, the one remaining undrafted die or card is placed in a temporary threat area. As well as the permanent threat posed by the number of maroon dots on the players’ dinosaurs, any dots on the undrafted item is added temporarily on to both players’ threat level at the end of the round. This also adds to the tactical choices that players can make. For example, imagine there are 2 dice left and you have the last pick. There is a die with some advanced DNA that you really need to create a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but doing so will leave undrafted another die with 3 maroon dots on it. A T-Rex would give a big boost to your park’s excitement but also poses a big threat. The combination of the permanent threat from the T-Rex and the temporary threat from the undrafted die would cost a substantial number of coins to mitigate by increasing your security level. So what do you do?
Juicy conundrums such as this occur constantly in Duelosaur Island, and these considerations of what you need, what your opponent needs, your threat level and cash flow situation, your opponent’s threat level and cash flow, means there is a great deal of player interaction. Yet more interaction and strategic avenues are created by the Specialists. A player can have a maximum of 3 Specialists at any time, and they provide a range of bonuses that allow you to adapt your strategy in exciting and meaningful ways. For example, if your opponents has gone to town on Specialists and you can get the HR Manager card, you will get +1 coin in the Income Phase for every Specialist your opponent has. My two favourites are the Sales Manager, which allows you to discard a Park card from your hand to gain any Advanced DNA once per round, and the Chaos Theorist, which lets you roll a random die and gain coins, Basic DNA, a card, or even lose a coin if the butterfly of chance flaps its wings too hard! Some Specialists are better in the early game and some in the later game, meaning that managing your roster of Specialists is another fun aspect to the hand/resource management in Duelosaur Island.
There is a lot going on in Duelosaur Island (especially if you have never played Dinosaur Island) but the game has a wonderful flow to the phases, meaning that what at first feels like ‘a lot’ soon becomes intuitive. The game starts off relatively slow, with only a few decisions for players to make, and then really gets going after a couple of rounds. Once your engine is built and you have multiple dinosaurs and a decent coin and card income, the end of the game comes on quite quickly, sometimes out of nowhere. As such, I found the short game useful when learning the game or teaching it to new players, but usually favour the medium or long games as they give a more satisfying and substantial experience.
Huge credit and kudos go to Kwanchai Moriya, Peter Wocken and Anthony Wocken for the bold and beautiful visual design of Duelosaur Island. The bright, almost luminous, colour scheme is fabulous, transporting you back to the early 1990s (who else remembers having excessively baggy clothing in these shocking pinks and greens?) in general rather than just evoking Jurassic Park directly all the time. That being said, the font of the Excitement Level and Visitor numbers text matches the font of the film franchise perfectly. The cartoony but realistic dinosaur illustrations are very fun and endearing, and the digital CGI-style artwork of the park attractions are a bizarre but nonetheless visually appealing choice.
The component quality of Duelosaur Island is truly top notch. The card stock and board quality are very good, but two components really stood out in terms of quality: the big, chunky yellow dice adorned with the game’s lovely symbols, and the gorgeous blue and pink dice bag with the game’s logo stitched onto it. A nice thematic detail is the colour of the dice, which evokes the kind of prehistoric amber that John Hammond twirls on the end of his walking stick in Jurassic Park. The cubes used to represent the player’s various tracks (DNA, Threat, Security, Excitement, Visitors) are nice, although one player is a lovely purple colour and the other player is a fairly plain sandy colour (which sticks out like a dull sore thumb in relation to the lush colours of the game).
The play time stated on the box, 30-60 mins, is spot on. I have found that a short game can be over in 30 mins, whereas a medium game takes about 45 mins, and a long game around 60 mins. The publisher’s suggested starting age of 10+ is appropriate given the difficulty and theme of the game. Also included in Duelosaur Island is a solo variant, which involves the player competing against an AI CEO of a rival company. There are 6 different AI CEO cards to play against (2 from each of the 3 game lengths), each pursuing a very different strategy to try and beat you. Duelosaur Island’s solo mode certainly surpasses the solo mode in Dinosaur Island for me, as in Dinosaur Island you are simply trying to get as high a score as you can, whereas in Duelosaur Island you either win or you lose which is much more satisfying.
Overall, I think Duelosaur Island is a superb game. Designer Ian Moss has taken what was great about Dinosaur Island and streamlined it, resulting in a winning combination of a cool dinosaur/1990s theme and a tight, tactical, 2-player gaming experience akin to 7 Wonders Duel. When you add to this the stunning component quality and an enjoyable solo mode, you have a fabulous game that I cannot recommend enough. If you love this theme but want something more expansive, a little heavier, and tend to play at the 3 or 4 player counts, then Dinosaur Island is probably the way to go. However, if you tend to play at the 2 player count and enjoy medium weight games with plenty of strategic decisions (and, of course, if you get giddy at the thought of constructing a dinosaur park), then Duelosaur Island is the game for you!
Cthulhu Reviews: 8 out of 8 tentacles 🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙
Designers: Ian Moss
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
Players: 1-2
Age: 10+
Play Time: 30-60 mins