The art and facts for each card are excellent and the game is pretty easy to understand
If you play this game, I insist that you attempt to pronounce the name of each dinosaur card you play.
As a science educator and practically lifelong dinosaur fangirl, this game makes me happy! I collect STEM games and have been disappointed by some which are just "skins" (i.e. the artwork fits but the actual gameplay has nothing to do with the concepts), and too many dinosaur games are either extremely basic & made for 4-year-olds (nothing wrong with that, you need to introduce them somehow) or else focus on the epic battle between 2 species which didn't live in the same time or place. I'm happy to say that Dino Survival does a nice job of balancing facts and gameplay. The artwork is cute & reminds me of dinosaur books from my childhood. It is a very easy to learn game with just enough strategy involved to satisfy veteran gamers. (Predictably, my husband did send an Allosaurus to munch on one of my sauropods! How mean!) It's a great family game or game to play with more casual gamers. Since I am an astronomer, I also highly approve of the end game trigger. I am looking forward to seeing what the Cambrian Explosion game will bring.
The cards themselves are fantastic! The artwork, information they provide, and the gameplay are unique compared to similar games. The cards make sense, and how you play is not based on random scoring, but on an actual system that plays to the strengths of the specific dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles. I must also say that David's customer service is exceptional. He contacted me when he noticed that the postal service had not delivered my order. He then shipped another deck of cards to replace the original that is still somewhere travelling around with the USPS (at the point of writing this review). Overall, a great experience and game!
I got this game to play with my 4-year-old as a learning tool. (and also for the little girl in me who wanted to be a paleontologist) She is obviously too young to really play it right now, but we still have fun with it. I'm not familiar with card games like this, so I was a bit confused initially. I found the YouTube video explaining how to play, which really helped. I really enjoy all the dino facts.