SOS Dino

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SOS Dino
Game data
author Ludovic Maublanc , Théo Rivière
graphic Mathieu Leyssenne
publishing company LOKI
Publishing year 2018
Art Cooperative board game
Teammates 1 to 4
Duration approx. 25 minutes
Age from 7 years

Awards

SOS Dino is a cooperative children's game by the French game designers Ludovic Maublanc and Théo Rivière , in which the team members have to save several dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs from a storm of meteorites and the lava flows of several erupting volcanoes . The game for one to four players, ages seven and up, takes around 25 minutes per round. It was released in 2018, alongside Troll & Dragon and Farmini, as one of the first games by the French children's game brand LOKI , and in Germany it is distributed by Hutter Trade. In 2018 it was included on the recommendation list for the children's game of the year critics award .

Theme and equipment

The game is about working as a team to save several dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs from a storm of meteorites and the lava flows of several erupting volcanoes . For this purpose, the players have to place lava and meteorite tiles and drag the four dinosaur figures over the nests with the eggs to the mountains on the corners of the playing field before they get into the lava flow or are hit by a meteorite. As usual in cooperative games, the players play in a team and can only either win or lose together.

In addition to the instructions, the contents of the game box consist of:

  • a game board with a grid and the positions of the volcanoes, the starting positions of the dinosaurs, the nests and impact markers for the meteorites,
  • four three-dimensional volcanoes,
  • four three-dimensional mountains as places of refuge,
  • 5 thorn bushes,
  • 4 pointed rocks,
  • four dinosaur figures (a red tyrannosaurus , a yellow stegosaurus , a blue triceratops and a pink diplodocus )
  • six egg plates,
  • 58 hazard tiles, including 4 volcano, 48 lava and 6 meteorite tiles,
  • a cloth bag.

Style of play

At the beginning of the game, the game plan is set up according to the instructions in the game instructions. To do this, it is placed in the middle of the table and the mountains are placed on the corners of the playing field. The four volcano tiles are placed on the volcano markings and then the volcanoes according to the colors indicated. The rocks (and the somewhat more difficult variant also the thorn bushes) come as obstacles on the corresponding markings and the eggs are placed in the nests. Finally, place the four dinosaur figures on the four spaces by the lake in the middle of the game board. All lava and meteorite tiles are shuffled and put in the cloth bag.

Actions during the turn
  • Draw tiles
  • Place tiles
  • Take action

The game is played in turn, with the players always pulling a hazard tile from the cloth bag at the beginning of their turn and placing it accordingly on the game board and then performing the actions indicated on the tile.

When drawing, a player can either draw a lava or meteorite tile. The drawn lava plates must each be placed on the colored lava flow and thereby lengthen it. The tile must always be placed on a free space and cannot be placed on the lake or a space with an obstacle. If two lava flows flow into each other, they block each other. If a tile is drawn that can no longer be placed, the corresponding volcano explodes and releases three further directions of current each time; if these are also blocked, tiles of the color drawn are taken out of the game and drawn each time. If a stream of lava flows onto a field with a nest with an egg or a dinosaur on it, they are eliminated and removed from the game. The meteorite tokens are placed on the space marked accordingly. If this space is already occupied by a lava tile, the tile is removed from the game and drawn again. If a meteorite hits a position on which a dinosaur is standing, it is eliminated and is removed from the game.

On each hazard tile there is an action statement that must be carried out after the tile has been placed:

  • a single step seal means that a dinosaur is allowed to walk a square. The dinosaur with the color corresponding to the lava flow is excluded.
  • two different step seals mean that two dinosaurs can each walk one space. The dinosaur with the color corresponding to the lava flow is excluded.
  • two identical footsteps mean that a dinosaur can walk two spaces. Since this action only occurs with meteorites, no dinosaur is excluded.
  • an erupting volcano means that another tile has to be drawn.

Dinosaurs can only move to an adjacent vertical or horizontal square at a time. You are not allowed to enter any space on which there is already another dinosaur or an obstacle (thorn bush, rocks, lava flow, meteorite). If you move to a field with an egg, it is saved and is placed on a mountain. A dinosaur is saved when it reaches a mountain on a corner of the playing field.

The game can end in different ways: It ends when the last dinosaur has climbed a mountain, the last dinosaur on the field is killed by a meteorite or a lava flow or there are no more danger tiles in the bag. Then the players get 2 points for each rescued dinosaur and one point for each rescued egg. The result is evaluated according to the number of points, with success being particularly high if the number of points is high.

Expenses and reception

The SOS Dino game was developed by Ludovic Maublanc and Théo Rivière and tested and optimized primarily in collaboration with the schools in the city of Ludres . In 2018 the game was published as a multinlingual game in French, German, Italian, Spanish and English under the newly founded LOKI brand of the French game publisher IELLO .

In 2018 it was included on the list of recommendations for the children's game of the year critics award and commented as follows:

“Understanding, because it has to be carefully considered and agreed on who moves which figure how and how to place the lava tiles without creating dead ends. This, together with the lovely equipment including the funny dinosaur miniatures, results in a prehistoric adventure that no dinosaur fan can escape. "

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g SOS Dino game instructions
  2. ↑ LOKI - a new star in the gaming sky. Press release of March 7, 2018; accessed on June 24, 2018.
  3. ↑ Versions of SOS Dino in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on June 24, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b SOS Dino on the website of the Spiel des Jahres eV; accessed on June 24, 2018.

Web links