Dinosaur Tea Party: A Game of Civilized Deduction

By Christopher Guyton | October 22nd, 2018 | Categories: Board Game Reviews, Board Games, Product Review

Don’t miss a chance to class up your next game night with Restoration Games high society pre-historic who dun it; Dinosaur Tea Party!

Dinosaur Tea Party is a 3-5 player deduction game published by Restoration Games. They are well known for taking older, dated games and giving them new life by making modern updates to the original. The game design is restored by Rob Daviau, J.R. Honeycutt, and Justin D. Jacobson.

Dinosaur Tea Party was originally a 1976 Parker Brothers game called “Whosit?”. While “Whosit?” was a very solid straightforward deduction game, it was plagued with dated terminology and un-politically correct stereotyping. So the best start with fixed that was taking all the characters and making them into dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Tea Party: $19.99

Get yours for less at Miniature Market

“You’re looking well, darling. One lump or two?”

Dinosaur Tea Party is a thorough reimagining of Whosit?, the 1967 identity-guessing game. Each player is a dinosaur with a hidden identity. Players take turns asking each other questions to figure them out. “Pardon me for asking, but are you wearing a hat?” “What lovely camouflage you’re sporting. Are those spots?” When a player thinks they’ve figured everybody out, they announce their guesses. The other players indicate whether they’re correct by dropping their sugar cubes into the dino teapot, which cleverly reveals if any of the guesses are wrong but not which ones. The first player to deduce everyone’s name wins the game and is sure to be invited back for Sunday supper.

Contents:
20 Dinosaur Tiles
20 Dinosaur Cards
3 Quirk Tokens
14 Sugar Cubes
75 Trait Tokens
5 Reference Cards

Ages: 7+
Players: 3-5
Game Length: 20-30 minutes

Dinosaur Tea Party: A Game of Civilized Deduction

The gameplay of Dinosaur Tea Party is quite simple. You first ask in a very polite manner, a basic yes or no question about one of many traits. If they answer yes you get a bonus turn, if they say no you pass to the next player. Now each question must be answered truthfully unless your character has a quirk.

The three quirks are, always says”No”, always “Lies”, and “Switches Answers”.

Beyond that, you can always guess the Dinosaur’s name of the player. These must always be answered in truth even if you have a quirk. If you guess correctly, you get a sugar cube. Get three sugar cubes and you are the winner.

Your turn ends if correctly guess a player’s name, so no chain guessing into an accidental win.

As you can probably guess Dinosaur Tea Party is a very fast, lightweight game, perfect for gatherings, and great to introduce to non-gamers and veteran gamers alike.

I love that Restoration Games takes older games that haven’t aged well and gives them love and creates fun new versions. This game was one of my instant purchases at Gencon. Restoration Games hasn’t let me down and Dinosaur Tea Party continues this streak for me. This game was a smash hit for my gaming group. Simple, social, entertaining gameplay and beautiful and amusing artwork are some of the highlights of Dinosaur Tea Party.

I hope you enjoy this game as much as I have, while not as heavy as most the games I review, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Hope you bring this great title to your game night soon.