DinoBlits

I beat the game on my second day of playing it. And let me tell you, (and no, this isn’t faked) this is probably the best game I’ve ever played. I love the art style too! There are a couple things I would like, though. Some stuff is that I would like something to do after I beat the game. Perhaps a daily challenge? Also, a bestiary. That’s all. And finally, a setting that lets you turn off the tutorial. I just thought of that actually. Otherwise, definitely worth the 3 bucks. Game of the year!

Overall, it was a decent experience, but not worth the price due to lack of balance, unclear progression, and lack of help information. Positives: The game looks great; colorful with a unique art style. Controls are okay, and it’s easy to clean up a mistake. Gameplay loop is really fun (until it isn’t). Negatives: The game timing ruins the entire experience. There is some mechanic which makes the game go from building to fighting. Triggering that mechanic is based on ‘sound’, but the game doesn’t define what increases sound. Additionally, there are character types to add to help your village, like a chef, but adding in these units excessively increases the trigger. Adding even 1 reduces your time to breed new settlers. If you add more than 2 special units, the trigger goes off and the fight starts. Since these units are your fighters, you can never actually have enough plus they abandon their primary job to fight. Each battle just becomes a hope that your settlers can kill the enemy before it kills them. Additionally, progression is non-existent. There are upgrades you can get, but these are randomly unlocked each run. Your goal is to get settlers to support upgrades and defeat the enemy on each island to then repair your boat. You go to a new island and start over. After a few islands, the credits role. If you lose all your settlers, you just go to a new island with no consequences & hope you win the ‘base race’. There seems to be a lot of variety in the game, but due to the lack of balance and unclear progression, there becomes 1 single build pathway you must take to have a chance. Lots of promise fumbled by unrefined execution.

It’s a fun little 4X game where you play as the dinosaurs trying to outlive the asteroid while building a new home; a nice unique twist on the genre, and it’s a good build for mobile. What’s not to like? :)