Duelosaur Island Review

I don’t know about you, but half the battle when choosing what game to play all comes down to the player count. Lots of games say that they can be played with 2-4 players, but sometimes the 2-player gameplay is lacking. So when I came across Duelosaur Island, a 2-player adaptation of the wildly successful Dinosaur Island, I was excited to try it. Does it hit that sweet spot for 2-player gameplay, or is it better to just play the OG Dinosaur Island at 2 players? Keep reading to find out!

Duelosaur Island is a game of hand management, drafting, and set collection in which players are attempting to build the best dinosaur park they can. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns drafting cards and dice, building attractions, creating dinosaurs, and attracting visitors to their park. To begin, setup the main and draft boards as described in the rulebook. Each player will take a company board and player cubes in their chosen color, as well as their hand of 3 starter cards. From that hand, one card will be used as your starting dinosaur, another as your starting attraction, and the third will remain in hand. Randomly select a first player, and the game is ready to begin!

The game is played in rounds and ends once the pre-determined visitor threshold has been reached. Final points will then be tallied, and the player with the highest score wins! Each round is broken down into 4 phases: Income, Draft, Build, and Visitors. To start each round is the Income phase, and both players will collect a base income of 3 coins, plus additional coins for food attractions they have built and for having passed certain thresholds on the Excitement track. Players will also draw/draft 1 new Park card, plus extras for any merch attractions in their park. Next comes the Draft phase, and begins with one player setting up the draft. Each round, this job alternates between players. The first player will draw 3 Specialist cards and choose 2 to keep and be placed on the Draft board. They will then also draw and roll 5 of the dice and place them in the slots of the Draft board, above and corresponding with the Plot Twist tokens in play. Once the Draft is setup, it properly begins, starting with the second player. So when you set up the Draft, you don’t get first dibs! Players will alternated drafting dice (and collecting Plot Twist rewards) and hiring Specialists until both players have drafted a total of 3 items. Move the un-drafted item with the highest Threat level to the Threat area on the board – this will come into play in the Visitor phase.

The third phase of the round is to Build, and players will take their turns simultaneously here. Players will spend DNA to create dinosaurs (increasing you place on the Excitement track), spend coins to build attractions, pay to increase their park security, or convert DNA to other DNA. Players may take as many of these actions as they can/want to. When both players are done building, we continue to the Visitor phase. The first step is to compare your Threat level versus your Security level. Adding the Threat icon from the undrafted item in phase 2, see if your Security level matches, exceeds, or is below the total Threat level. If it matches or exceeds, you are safe and no Visitors are eaten! If your Security level is below that of the Threat level, you lose Visitors equal to twice the difference between your Security and Threat levels. So if the difference is 2, you lose 4 Visitors! Keep an eye on that Security, because Visitors are end-game points! Once the Threat level has been assessed, both players will gain a number of Visitors equal to their placement on the Excitement track.

The last step is to gain PR bonuses, which give players DNA, money, Park cards, or combinations of those three. Once complete, check to see if the end-game Visitor threshold has been reached. If not, all players discard down to 3 cards, all items are cleared from the Draft board, the PR token is advanced, and turn order switches to begin the next round. If the threshold has been reached, then the game moves to final scoring. Players will now gain Visitors earned from dinosaurs/attractions built in their park, sets of attractions they have collected, and any Specialists (if applicable). Whichever player has managed to attract the highest number of Visitors is declared the winner!

As you can tell, this may be a 2-player adaptation of Dinosaur Island, but it is by no means a lighter/easier version. There is still a lot going on in the gameplay, and you have to be constantly engaged and strategizing. Admittedly, the gameplay is a little slow to get going, as at first you have no money and no DNA. So you’ve got to use a couple of rounds to collect enough resources to finally be able to really implement your strategy. And when it comes to that strategy, you need a good balance between Dinosaurs and Attractions. Food and Merch give you additional coins and cards each round, so it really is important to make sure you build several of those. And then Dinosaurs are what will give you massive end-game Visitor points, so you can’t completely ignore those either. The tricky thing is that each card is divided in half – a Dinosaur on top and an Attraction on bottom. So deciding how to use each card comes into play as well.

Another neat element of the gameplay is that the player who sets up the Draft each round does not get to go first when it comes to actual drafting. That means that when you’re setting it up, you might not want to put a die in a certain slot because it would be a powerful grab for your opponent. If you’re careful and considerate, you could create a situation with a few difficult choices, in hopes that your opponent may leave what you really want alone. I think it’s a neat aspect and helps to keep the gameplay a little more balanced between both players. That being said, I find that this game can be AP-inducing as you have so many different options. Do you play a card as an Attraction to get you more cards, or do you play it as a Dinosaur for end-game points? Do you build the easy Dinosaurs quickly or hoard your DNA to create one big and high-valued Dino? There’s a lot going on, and with only 2 players, one player may be left sitting for a bit while the other makes decisions. Not a knock on the game necessarily, just be ready for possibly some downtime.

As with OG Dinosaur Island, the production quality of Duelosaur Island is off the charts. The dual-layered player boards are nice and effective, the dice and cardboard coins are chunky and funky, the artwork and symbolism is clear and unique, and the cards themselves are nice and sturdy. The two player colors for the game are purple (yay!) and I guess gold? A sort of matte yellow? Not sure. My first thoughts on seeing them were peanut butter and jelly. Nothing wrong with it, just an interesting choice. My biggest qualm is probably that there are two different types of DNA that are essentially pink in color, and it can be easy to confuse them if you’re not paying careful attention. Also, this one is a table hog, just like the original. So make sure you’ve got a big open space on which to play, otherwise you’ll be cramped.

So all in all, Duelosaur Island is a pretty solid game. It is balanced well for 2 players and offers an engaging and strategic gameplay. It can kind of be a brain burner, as it is a heavier game, and it is a good 2-player adaptation of the big brother Dinosaur Island. That being said, I think I like Dinosaur Island a bit more than this one. Something about the additional components makes it feel more immersive, and you get starting DNA/money which makes it take less time to start implementing your plans. Not that Duelosaur Island is bad, by any means, just a personal preference of mine. Overall, I am happy to have Duelosaur Island in my collection, and look forward to busting it out on lots of 2-player game nights. Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a dino-tastic 4 / 6.