Looking for a solid opener for your next board game night? Look no further than Draftosaurus to get things moving along!
Draftosaurus is a 2-5 player game designed by several awesome designers. Antoine Bauza, Corentin Lebrat, Ludovic Maublanc, and Théo Rivière. The design team alone piqued my interest in this particular game. Of course, being a huge dinosaur fan didn’t hurt. Published by Ankama, Draftosaurus only takes a cool fifteen minutes to play! Definitely, something you can use as an opener for game night to get things going.
Draftosaurus: $24.99
Get yours for less at Miniature Market!
You’re running a dinosaur zoo! How will you set it up? Will you put certain dinosaurs together or split them up? Based on the species you have available and the day’s obligations, decide what will bring the most visitors.
1. Roll the die to determine the placement condition.
2. Choose a dinosaur from your hand and place it in your zoo.
3. Pass the dinosaurs to the player on your left and start over!
Ages: 8+
Players: 2-5
Game Length: 15 minutes
Gameplay
Gameplay in Draftosaurus is very straightforward. Each player secretly pulls six dinosaur meeples out of the bag. Then the active player rolls the die. This die sets restrictions for all the other players. Then each player chooses one of their dinosaurs to place in a pen. The player who rolled the die gets to pick any pen they want not just what the die dictates. Then the remaining five dinosaurs are passed to the player to everyone’s right. So instead of drafting a hand of cards, you are drafting dinosaurs. I really love this spin on drafting.
Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
Scoring methods
Each pen has certain rules and ways of scoring points. Some pens require all the same species or maybe all different types. One pen scores points for each dinosaur couple. Another wants you to have the most of a species compared to all opponents. There is also a river space that counts as a pen which is a last resort spot for anything you are unable to place. Every pen or space within has a scoring table listed.
Each player board in Draftosaurus is double-sided. This allows for an alternative scoring system. The pens have the same basic concept on this side, just different scoring mechanisms.
There are six different species of dinosaurs you can draft into your park. The types all function the same except one. The Tyrannosaurus will cause each pen that contains at least one to score one additional point. While that is very strong, the tiebreaker in the game balances this fact. The end game tiebreaker is the player who has the fewest Tyrannosaur in their park.
My final thoughts
Draftosaurus is a fun, cute, little game. I really enjoy how lightweight and accessible it is. I definitely use this one now to introduce new players to modern board games just because it plays so incredibly fast. Although I definitely wouldn’t mind a longer gameplay variant. The game as it is, however, works perfectly fine for me.
If you want a fantastic family game or even a quick filler for game night. Draftosaurus is definitely high on my recommendation list. Give this one a try; if you find a copy you won’t regret it.
