Stats:
No. of players: 2-6
Amount of time to play: 120 min
Age requirements: 14+
Set-up time: 5 minutes

Triassic Terror is a dinosaur-themed area control game. You select actions to grow your herds or diminish your opponents’ herds.

Triassic Terror Rules Description:

Triassic Terror is divided into three scoring rounds and each round is made up of three turns. The board contains four environments that are each broken into three areas. You score points for controlling the most areas. You begin the game with one herd of four dinosaurs in the swamp.

On the first turn of each round you take an environment card and then an action tile. Environment cards let you place three dinosaurs in their matching environment. On turns two and three of the round you just select an action tile.

The six action tiles are placed in a random order each turn. So the actions do not resolve in the same order every turn. The six action tiles are new environment, herd growth, herd migration, hatch, t-rex and raptors.

The new environment action tile acts just like the environment cards. You may place three dinosaurs in any environment.

Herd growth allows you to add three dinosaurs to one existing herd and two to another.

Herd migration lets you move two herds one area. In doing so, you steal a dinosaur from each opponent’s herd in the area. If you move to a new environment you lose one dinosaur due to environmental shock.

The hatch tile lets you add three dinosaurs to an existing herd. It also lets you move the pterodactyl up to two areas where it may eat up to two dinosaurs there.

The t-rex tile lets you replace the t-rex figure with yours and move the t-rex up to two areas. If the t-rex moves one area he may eat up to five dinosaurs. If it moves two areas it may eat up to three dinosaurs there. The t-rex stays in that area and counts as three dinosaurs when determining who controls an area.

There are two raptor miniatures on the board. The raptors tile allows you to move one raptor one area and the other one up to two areas. The raptors then eat up to two dinosaurs in their areas and scatter up to two dinosaurs one area.

You score based on the areas you control and during special scoring. There are two types of special scoring, presence and environment domination. For presence, you score eight VPs for having at least one dinosaur in each environment. Environment Domination scores you eight VPs for having the most dinosaurs in an environment and four VPs for having the second most. Special scoring occurs on different turns depending on the number of players. At game end the player with the most VPs wins.

Quick Review of Triassic Terror:

Triassic Terror is a fun area control game with a fun theme and great components. The art, components and mechanics all add to the theme of this game.

The components for this game are excellent. The miniature plastic dinosaurs and dino-meeples look great and are fun. The rules are easy to follow with lots of examples and the box insert is fantastic. One small nitpick is the font on the action tiles is hard to read and the action tiles are fairly similar looking. This can make action selection tricky (more so in the first couple of plays). This is not a big deal after a few plays.

I like the player interaction in this game is fun and interesting. Herd Migration is a fun and thematic way to steal your opponents’ dinosaurs. And the predators will keep you worried about your herds’ safety.

Dinosaurs (and plastic dinosaur miniatures) are just fun. I am not sure there is more to this point.

The random turn order, based on action selection, is a good mechanic and can influence which action is best for your situation. You need to assess the timing as well as the actual action you want.

Lastly, I just like the sum of these parts. The game does not add anything new or innovative to the genre. But everything just comes together to create a fun game that has solid mechanics that match its theme.

There are definitely some things to be aware of. First if your group is sensitive this game may not be for them. The predators and wreak havoc on herds and if you have players that bristle at direct conflict they will not enjoy their entire herd being eaten be the t-rex. Also to win this game you might need to pick on the leader. If you don’t like games where the leader is constantly getting attacked, you have been warned.

If you are looking to add a fun area-control with a great theme, pick Triassic Terror up. If you enjoy the genre and like this theme, you should pick this one up. If you think this sounds fun try it out. I think you’ll like it.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 6 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 5 out of 6
Overall 5 out of 6