Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Do-you-think-he-saurus Rex
If we’ve learned anything from the Jurassic Park movies, it’s that humans can’t control dinosaurs, let alone nature. Luckily, we’ve found a way to complete John Hammond’s vision of a dinosaur theme park with no visitor deaths.
I feel like dinosaurs will always speak to the inner child in us. When I was a kid, I remember KeyBank having a youth savings program that offered detailed dinosaur figures as rewards. I can’t say that the saved money still exists today, but I remember enjoying my ever-growing collection of dinosaurs with each milestone deposit.
So it’s no surprise that when walking by a table at Origins Game Fair this year, the slew of brightly colored dinosaurs caught my eye. Cretaceous Rails is a showstopper that will make you turn your head without even realizing it.
Dinosaurs! Trains! Adventure! That was the pitch given to me, and it worked effortlessly. Cretaceous Rails comes from designer Ann Journey and a small (but mighty) publisher, Spielcraft Games.
Combining some of my favorite game mechanics—route/tableau building, worker placement, and huge, chunky plastic dinosaurs- it feels like a game that was crafted specifically for me.
The aesthetic reminds me of Dinosaur Island or Dinosaur World, with its flashy ’90s neon. That was almost a deterrent, since I didn’t particularly find Dinosaur Island all that fun. I was humbly proven wrong here, and it shows the truth found in the “never judge a book by its cover” trope.
Welcome to Jurr-Cretaceous Rails!
Cretaceous Rails plays over four rounds, where players take actions to establish their dinosaur park as the greatest in all the land. Even before starting the game, players are presented with a massive map, each tile filled with one of four dinosaur types or tourists eagerly awaiting their dino-tour. Each player also has a personal board complete with their cargo train, starting resources (a dino, jungle, and tourist), and rating tracks, with each row indicating the point value of each dinosaur type at the end of the game.
Each round, sixteen action tiles are randomly placed, and players position their action marker between two tiles, allowing both actions to be carried out in whichever order they choose.
The actions are fairly straightforward, but each is important in its own right. Players can build rails through the park, cut down jungle, capture dinosaurs, or draw/build cards. Since players start with only two train cars to hold cargo, they can optionally forgo one of their two actions to unload their train into their inventory.
Cards act as the engine-building component, and each card costs some combination of tourists, jungle, and dinosaurs, along with a stackable end-game scoring condition (tracks, tourists, trains, etc.). As tours are given, personal dinosaur ratings increase, acting as multipliers for dinosaur points. However, dinosaurs must be played onto cards for full value; unplayed dinosaurs are worth only half points.
Prehistoric Promise
Cretaceous Rails was a delightful surprise for my group. There’s always the fear that if something looks really cool, it’ll probably disappoint in the fun department. This game defied that expectation—it both looks cool and is fun. A prehistoric unicorn, if you will.
Normally, I take photos of review games toward the end, when the board is filled with pretty colors and pieces. Funny enough, for the first time, it felt reversed since the board starts out plentiful and becomes barren by the end. I had to remind myself to take photos at the beginning of my second playthrough!
Don’t let the neon toy vibe fool you—there’s a Euro game hidden beneath the flash and pizzazz. There’s always more you’d like to do in the short number of turns, but it walks a nice balance between strategy and accessibility. The actions themselves aren’t difficult, but the planning and setup create an immense decision space. I found it generous to have two actions each turn, creating opportunities to “set up” and “cash in” on the same turn, depending on how things were teed up.
Early in the game, everything is wide open to take in whatever direction you choose. But as the game progresses, options become limited, and poor planning can lead to stalling out in the final rounds. It reminded me of the same consequential feel in Food Chain Magnate but without the unforgiving brutality. You’ve boosted the purple dinosaur’s (brontosaurus) rating—but wait, there aren’t any left to capture? And you don’t have matching cards to play the dinosaur for full points? And there are only two turns left? Yep, you’re in trouble, friend.
The choices are meaningful, and the tightening decision space becomes a puzzle to squeeze out every point you can. I found that diversifying into different dinosaurs and scoring systems often yielded just as many points as specializing in one or two paths. Because of the constricting grip, singular focuses often produce diminishing returns.
The real fun comes from the tableau building, the main engine at the heart of it all. Cards make actions stronger, building more efficiency over time. The game also has placement rules that keep things interesting: cards must follow a “pyramid,” where upper rows can’t have more cards than the rows below. The higher the card, the stronger its power—and some even require losing ratings to activate.
It becomes this beautiful chain of “I need to do this to get that to play this, so I can do that more easily.” But while you’re in the middle of this sequencing dance, another player might snipe the crucial card to set it all up. There are no friends in the dino-park industry!
The action economy flows nicely, and fans of strategic games will have a great time with this one. It leans heavily on resource scarcity—you’ll never have exactly what you need. Some players might expect more of a “sandbox” experience and be caught off guard, but precise planning is key here, and deviation can be costly. At its core, this is a flashy Euro.
I’m impressed that this is a first-time published designer, and I’m excited to see what else Ann Journey creates. There’s enough variability in the cards, map tile placements, and random action tile setups to keep things fresh after multiple plays. The tension feels just right at four players, and even then, we finished in under two hours, which felt perfect. Like many modern Euros, there’s also a solo automa mode for those solitary treks through the park. I’m delighted to hear expansions are already in the works, as there’s plenty of room to add more complexity and depth to an already solid title.
This wacky hodgepodge of mechanics and chunky dinosaurs has flown beneath the radar, but if you get the chance, it’s absolutely worth checking out. Don’t worry: no tourists were harmed in the making of this game.
