We were asked to review Dinosaur Race by Orchard Toys for izziwizzikids.co.uk.
With Miss M being quite young we have only just started playing board games but when I was offered the opportunity to try out the new Dinosaur Race game from Orchard Toys for ages 3+, I knew she would love it. She is an avid dinosaur fan having watched the Jurassic Park films over and over again and has a number of dinosaur books on her bookshelf.
An exciting aspect of this game that jumped out at me was the race track and medal podium – with the 2012 London Olympics this year, what a fabulous way of introducing children to sport and helping them to engage with the largest event to be held in the country this summer.
Having already experienced a number of Orchard Toys games, I knew the quality of the pieces would be made to their usual high standard especially considering they are made of 75% recycled cardboard. The pictures on both the box and the game are highly colourful, bright and eye catching – perfect for the suggested 3 to 10 years age range of this game.
Miss M couldn’t wait to get the pieces out of the box when she saw it and was very excited with the various contents. The first little novelty was that the game board was like a mini jigsaw and mummy was ordered not to touch it while Miss M carefully put the pieces together. I liked the fact that the dinosaur playing pieces had little plastic stands to create a three dimensional effect to the game. And the ultimate finishing touch has to be the medal podium complete with medals enabling you to hold a medal ceremony at the end of each race – London Olympics 2012 here we come!!!
We played the game with the maximum 4 players and this definitely produced a fun, exciting atmosphere that created tension and competitiveness as the dinosaurs approached the finish line.
We all had great fun playing this game and definitely felt it was different and unique to other games we had seen before. It retails at £11.75 which I feel is a reasonable price for the game and is available to purchase from Orchard Toys.
Here is our video review of Dinosaur Race by Orchard Toys for izziwizzikids:
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.
Lovely review thanks to you all, you certainly seemed to have had a lot of fun.
What we had in mind when inventing the game play was to make the game as exciting as possible. There are two elements that we have built into the game to achieve this goal. The first is that when the cards are returned to the table they are replaced opposite side down. As the total number of each coloured dinosaur is different on each set of sides, turning them over after each turn makes the game far less predictable, and thus more exciting!
The second element to make the game more exciting is that when it’s a player’s turn, and they spin the spinner, all the players move their dinosaurs at the same time, not just the player whose turn it is. This makes it exciting at the end, as you say, because the dinosaurs can all be neck and neck approaching the finishing line and the race won’t necessarily be won by the player whose turn it is. This is because when they spin the spinner, somebody else’s dinosaur may be able to move more spaces forward than their’s, to win the game!