Mesozooic.

Mesozooic seems to be flying a bit under the radar among new releases in 2018, coming in a small box from a new designer from a publisher (Z-Man, now part of Asmodee) that has many larger and higher-profile releases in the second half of 2018 … but it’s actually kind of great, a really fun, quick family-level game that has a strong mix of skill and luck, plus a timed aspect that generally leaves people laughing by the time each round is over. It’s available to preorder right now with a scheduled release date of September 30th, although it was on sale at Gen Con last month.

Players in Mesozooic try to build the most valuable dinosaur ‘zoos’ of cards that they can from hands of 11 cards that they’ll lay out randomly in a 4×3 grid and try to rearrange to maximize their point totals in the 45 seconds while the game’s little hourglass drains. Each round combines the 11-card deck from each player – they’re functionally identical but differ in artwork – with the 12 neutral cards used in every round; the complete deck is shuffled and each player is dealt 11 cards, with the remaining cards left out for the round. The game incorporates a common card drafting mechanic (think 7 Wonders), where each player chooses two cards from his/her hand and then passes the remainder to the left or right, until eventually each player is passed one final card that they keep to bring their hands back up to eleven.

At this point, each player then shuffles his/her hand and lays the cards out in a 4×3 grid, leaving the bottom right space blank. The players then have 45 seconds, measured by a little timer, to rearrange their zoos to try to align cards to maximize their points. If you remember those annoying little puzzles you had as a kid where there were tiles numbered 1 through 15 in a 4×4 grid, and you had to try to get them in order by shifting tiles around into the one empty space, then you understand the core mechanic in Mesozooic. (There are certain game states that you can’t achieve even if you had no time limit; in the classic 4×4 puzzle, for example, if the 1-13 tiles are in order, but the final two tiles are reversed so the final row reads 13-15-14, the puzzle can’t be solved.) The official rules say you can only use one hand to manipulate the cards, but we’ve dispensed with that rule as superfluous and frustrating – plus, when we’ve played with younger players, it puts them at a needless disadvantage. When the timer runs out, you take your unique Director card, which has a small truck icon on it, and put it in the empty slot in your zoo, wherever that ended up.

The basic game’s scoring is fairly simple, with four ways to earn points. If you can create enclosures across two adjacent cards – some are left-right, some are top-bottom – you score six points for each completed one. If you connect roads on adjacent cards, you earn four points per connection (not per card – that was a bit unclear in the rules). Every card with a truck on it that is adjacent to a giant blue dinosaur attraction earns you two points, and every topiary card (a large shrubbery trimmed into a dinosaur shape) is worth one point. The enclosures are generally the best path to victory, but every player is trying to grab those in the card draft, so you’ll end up having to balance out the cards you select with other ways to score. The draft is largely where the round’s winner is determined; the arrangement phase is the fun part, although obviously you can screw yourself over if you don’t get the cards in order before the time runs out. You play three rounds like this, and add up each player’s two highest scores to determine the winner.

The core game also comes with a set of ‘advanced’ cards that offer different ways to score points that blunt the power of the enclosures to dominate scoring. With the advanced cards, you ditch the neutral cards, and then shuffle in a number of advanced cards (random or selected) based on the number of players. The advanced cards include ‘double enclosures,’ cards with enclosure halves in both directions, allowing you to potentially score 12 points off 3 cards (the double plus adjacent cards in both horizontal and vertical directions). T-Rex cards score 5 points if you get one into the two central spaces in your zoo. Gift Shop cards score four points if you get one into any of the four corners. Gate cards score 3 points if you get a top gate card on the top row or a bottom gate card on the bottom row. And then there are the VR Simulator cards, which can copy the feature of any adjacent card of your choice and score for that – a clever twist but also a harder one to manage when you’re moving fast to rearrange your zoo. Z-Man has already announced another expansion with three new card types, a rules twist that allows you to flip certain cards to change how they score, and variant rules that let you play with up to 12 players at once (I have no idea how this will work, to be honest).

Mesozooic plays two to six players; we’ve played with two to four and it works well with any number, with the obvious changes in the card-drafting phase that will be familiar to anyone who’s played a game that uses that mechanic (mostly that you know you’re more or less likely to see a card again in the phase). It’s fine for ages eight and up, and I see no reason players as young as six couldn’t play along if you granted them a little more time in the arranging phase. I bought this on a whim at Gen Con, since it was only $20 and the box was so small (space in my suitcase was at a premium by this point), but it’s hit our table many times already and I’ve brought it to many friends’ houses where there are kids, since the rules are quick to learn and the bright, goofy artwork is an instant hit with younger players. The luck factor is probably too high for hardcore gamers but I think it’s perfect for family game night.