Jurassic Park Danger! board game review

When Jurassic Park first his movie theaters in 1993 I was blown away!

I was transported to Isla Nublar and caught up in a world with dinosaurs that exploded my imagination. And it’s remained a favorite movie of mine ever since.

Fast forward to now – 25 years later – where the Jurassic Park experience has been aptly transferred into a fun and challenging board game.

Over the years there have been a number of attempts at creating a Jurassic Park board game. But none of those have come close to recreating the feel of being on Isla Nublar with dinosaurs like Jurassic Park Danger does!

It’s been a long time since we’ve done a video review. So I’m happy to report that we’re back in action with a full video review of Jurassic Park Danger so you can get a real feel at exactly how the game plays and if it’s one you want for your family game night.

I’ll also warn you that it’s the longest video review we’ve done. Since it’s a them I love so much, I couldn’t help but dive into detail about all aspect of the game. This also means you’ll benefit from seeing examples of game play situations.

And of course, I wrap it up with my overall impressions of the game.

Can the whole family enjoy playing Jurassic Park Danger?

The recommended age by the publisher is 10+. And we guess that’s about the age Timmy was in the movie. So if he can take the taxing demands of being chased by dinosaurs around the island, so can 10 year olds in your family.

And kids even younger than 10 may enjoy playing Jurassic Park Danger since it’s a semi-cooperative game. That means they can team up with other family members as one of the human characters in the game trying to escape from the dinosaurs and leave the island.

As I mentioned in the video, in our family we all like playing the role of the dinosaurs. Hopefully that doesn’t divulge an inner evil nature but rather just the fun of being able to control so many different dinosaurs at once. It’s definitely fun to find ways to thwart the human characters’ plans of escape.

Even though our video review is longer than our normal reviews, it doesn’t mean the rules are complicated for players to understand and remember.

The flow of a Round is easy to recall: Dinosaur player picks a card, Human characters pick their cards, Dinosaur player moves dinosaurs (and attacks when possible), Human characters take the action on their played card. In doing so, players just need to pay attention to the cliffs and fences that must be climbed between some sections.

The challenge of the game for the players playing as the human characters comes in figuring a way to use the actions on the cards to maneuver around the island, activate the locations, achieve their personal goal, and get to the helicopter pad.

And that may be a challenge for younger players without a bit of help.

 

Is the challenge impossible?

If you watched even a small part of our video review, you most likely heard me mention how hard the game is for the human characters to win.

With 3 dinosaurs running wild, it’s close to impossible for any of the human characters to go unscathed. It’s inevitable that every character will be attacked by a dinosaur during the game. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to win.

We’ve played a number of times and are still looking for the elusive human victory. The first time we played the game, we weren’t clear on a few points during specific situations that ultimately did have an impact on the outcome. Once we cleared up those points, the human characters fared much better – although they still didn’t escape.

That’s when we landed on our house rule to always play with 4 human characters in the game – no matter the number of players. This may mean that one or more players will need to control 2 human characters, but that also makes the game more fun for them as well. First of all, they have a better chance to success. And secondly, the dinosaur player controls multiple pawns on the board, so why not have other players control multiple pawns as well?

Even with more human than dinosaur pawns on the board, it’s still a challenge. Because once the humans activate the locations, they still need to have enough cards remaining to make their way to the helicopter pad to get away and win. So card management is a big factor in the game as well.

Another element that makes the game a big challenge is that the players don’t have any way to harm the dinosaurs. The best defensive move the have is to activate the Control Center to secure the 4 locations to keep the dinosaurs at bay. But there’s really no fighting back. Of course, that’s also true to keeping with the movie. The only damage the dinosaurs took was from other dinosaurs.

One more ‘house rule’ we’ve thought of, but not tried yet, is to limit the number of dinosaurs in play. Just like those controlling the humans randomly select their character (and thus get random special abilities and goals), the dinosaur player must randomly select just 2 of the 3 possible dinosaurs to play with. So some games that player might not have the ability to attack adjacent spaces for example.

 

How does Jurassic Park Danger score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Jurassic Park Danger definitely scores high on my “let’s play again” game meter. But that’s not the same for everyone in our family.

Personally I really like the difficult challenge of playing the struggling humans trying to escape. Failing in this game gives me the drive to go at it again.

And with the variable tile layout, random character selection, and dice rolling, every game will play out a bit differently. It’s fun to play different characters each time because of how closely aligned their personal goals and special actions are with the original movie.

Plus it doesn’t take me long to convince other members of our family to play again when I tell them they can control the dinosaurs. 🙂

Pick up a copy for $25 at Target or at Target.com.