I love dinos and couldn’t resist the tiny cute dino meeples in Tiny Epic Dinosaurs by Gamelyn Games! This is my first and only Tiny Epic game I’ve played so far, but it won’t be the last. Gamelyn Games offers so many more Tiny Epic (and tinier) games like this.

Tiny Epic Dino Features

The box art is adorable! Super colorful and inviting.

Thoughtful Design

The official Tiny Epic Dinosaurs Playmat has a place for everything, including dinos, all cards, and even solo play cards. Tiny Epic Dinos is my first Tiny Epic game I’ve played. I admire how they utilize every bit of space in their games. I like to put the dinos in little glass bowls to stay in their spot. The cards are placeholders for the smaller cards, and the back of the round card becomes an end-of-game scoring tool.

Special Purple Dinos

As a dino enthusiast, I can identify most purple dinos by shape alone. These are the unique dinosaurs you can obtain with Research cards that give you special abilities. Some dinos I try to grab whenever I see them.

Tiny Epic Dinosaurs – How to Play Solo

Here it is all set up for solo play! My magenta player setup is in the lower left. The private contract is out that I’ll try to fulfill but usually won’t in solo mode. My empty ranch card is ready for dinos. The Rival Rancher setup is in the lower right, this is the orange card and meeples.

Rival Rancher gets four cards to place on each turn. In the 4th round, they get a 5th card to place. These cards will go up in the Solo card areas above the A-D worker placement spots. For example, if no one is in the A spot, they’ll get a free Stego. If the Rival or I already have a card there, they perform the Stego action instead of getting the dino. This is the bottom-most empty Stego action on their card, so they get two plants and two meat. They automatically get the 1st player token but start with no resources. As they obtain resources, if any hits 13, they take an action which is usually stealing one of your dinos off your ranch.

Solo Strategy

Since the Rival scores points by fulfilling contracts, you have to change your strategy when playing solo. The solo mode can be brutal! I would think that the most challenging Rival Rancher would be the Breeder (who gets the contracts as their specialty). When playing solo, I don’t have the luxury to play my Private Contracts unless I know it’s safe. Instead, I grab the contracts as soon as I can.

In the above photo is the Poacher Rival Rancher, which I suspect is the easiest Rival to play against. The Poacher’s specialty is stealing your barriers! Against the Poacher, the Moschops is your best friend! This little guy creates barriers on all four sides. When the Poacher comes to poach your barriers, he cannot steal those four particular “barriers”! One of my priorities is to take the Research card action and draw 3 Research cards until I find Moschops.

Out of the six games I played against the Poacher, I won once when I prevented them from scoring contracts. I lost pretty badly in my first games, but most of the later games were quite close.

Rules I didn’t catch my first times playing

1. The Adreno-Injector research card in solo mode; you can place your rancher or lead rancher as long as it would normally be able to be placed there. So that is a very valuable card, as it gives you an extra turn!
2. You don’t have to place a rancher in solo play if there are no beneficial options left.
3. Rival Rancher can fulfill Public Contracts with Unique dinos if they have a Unique Dino card. They discard that card once used.

Did I Bling this Tiny Epic Dinosaurs?

I purchased the Deluxe Tiny Epic Dinosaurs version straight from Gamelyn Games, along with the official Playmat and Card Sleeves. The deluxe edition also includes the Laboratory Mini Expansion, which I have not played yet.

The Tiny Dinosaur Ranch Insert by the Shipshape Gamer

I had to do epic justice for TED (Tiny Epic Dinos) by organizing all the tiny pieces. You can’t have a rex mixed in with the stegos! The Shipshape Gamer makes cool wooden inserts for most of these Tiny Epic games. Everything, including sleeved cards and the Laboratory expansion, fits perfectly! There’s a place for each player’s color and “scoop-able” dino storage. The labeled acrylic lids make a nice touch. (This isn’t frosted, I think that’s paper left over from the laser etching, but I like it.)

I’ve since bought several inserts from The Shipshape Gamer and am happy with all of them!

Final Thoughts on Tiny Epic Dinosaurs

I’ve found Tiny Epic Dinos to be a delightful game that takes about 40 minutes per play. The solo mode is quite challenging. I look forward to playing against the other Rival Ranchers. I’ll also be checking out the Laboratory expansion next time I play this game. If this post seems familiar, I first posted this a year ago on BGG in the monthly Solitaire Games on your Table thread.

Have you played any Tiny Epic games? Please comment below and share YOUR favorite Tiny Epic games!