PaleoVet: Finding the Best Cures for Ailing Dinosaurs

Aug 14, 2023 | Sessions | 2 comments

Manage a clinic with lots of available upgrades as awesome dinosaurs arrive to be treated and cured with PaleoVet.

Dinosaurs! Although there are some solo games out there that are directly related to this theme, I’ve never come across a game that gives me that sense of wonder that dinosaurs seem to create. PaleoVet just arrived, and I was so excited to get to work fixing up some patients and releasing them back into the wild. Life finds a way, indeed!

Game Overview

Game Name: PaleoVet
Publication Year:
2023
Designer:
William Thompson
Artist:
Uncredited
Publisher: Absurdist Productions
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game

A field of dinosaurs offer different options. Tranquilizers are used to safely bring them in for treatment, but they might wake up early! Dice provide symbols to use, while a lot of abilities offer some interesting choices. It’s a race against the solo opponent to be the best dinosaur doctor!

Looking at Different Dinosaurs to Treat in PaleoVet
R

First Play

August 11, 2023

Complexity

2

Latest Play

August 12, 2023

Expansions

0

Setup Time

5 Minutes

Lifetime Plays

4

Play Time

20 Minutes

:

High Score

101

1

Game Area

26" x 20"

;

Low Score

62

Dinosaur Trouble!

I purchased the deluxe upgrades, which included an absolutely gigantic first player token. Huge dinosaur!

Unfortunately, but in a rather thematic twist, the tail broke off during shipping. No worries: A replacement will be on its way soon, so I’m mostly just laughing about this!

In the solo mode, there isn’t a use for this component, yet I don’t know who wouldn’t think this looks so cool.

The other deluxe components include acrylic DNA tokens, a neoprene mat for the main area, and foldable player boards. Unfortunately, the latter don’t fit in the box. Ugh.

Waiting for a Replacement in a Thematic Moment for PaleoVet

A Colorful World

Although the neoprene mat and player boards aren’t needed, I loved the way they gave a pastel feel to this play area. The dinosaurs all looked so great, too!

Gameplay is very straightforward, with dinosaurs waking up if they run out of sleep tokens and aren’t cured in time.

Dice provide the symbols, while DNA tokens act as wilds. Partially curing a dinosaur isn’t allowed, so it comes down to figuring out the best combination of patients and dice.

I enjoyed the simplicity of the sequence, along with the many possible upgrades to pick up for the clinic.

Taking a Look Across the Play Area with the Deluxe Components for PaleoVet

Fancy Specialty Dice

Basic dice aren’t all that bad, particularly since they include the wild symbol and rarely create really poor situations. Adding on specialty dice is quite fun, though!

A maximum of 3 specialty dice may be picked up over the course of play, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be an even spread. It’s possible to truly specialize!

Matching symbols can unlock these dice, but some dinosaur abilities reward them upon completing the cure.

I wished the dinosaurs could have variable symbols and conditions. As it was, this boiled down to matching icons.

Working Towards Earning More Specialty Dice in PaleoVet

Solo Mode Trouble

Despite keeping my expectations low, I found the solo mode to be lacking. These cards randomly moved dinosaurs into the captured or escaped piles.

Effectively, there were 2 solo opponents with different final victory points. Upgrades were also discarded.

However, I found that it was pretty simple to focus on picking up the most valuable dinosaurs and forcing the solo opponents to mostly pick up low value dinosaurs.

The end game happens when a card pile is exhausted, which felt far too variable with a limited challenge.

Way Too Much Randomness with the Solo Mode in PaleoVet

The Need to Make a Solo Mode Challenging

One of the easiest ways to extend the life of a solo mode is to add difficulty levels that provide scoring tiers or restrictions to give a solo player something to work towards. The only elements here are to achieve a minor or major victory based on beating the scores of the escaped and captured piles, respectively. But the decisions weren’t there.

It would have been more interesting if these solo cards required the highest value dinosaur to be chosen from the left or right. However, the deck is overwhelmingly skewed towards 4-point dinosaurs. But this would have at least stopped me from simply leaving all of the 2-point dinosaurs out there so I was guaranteed to earn more victory points.

I like solo modes that give me the ability to affect the choices of the solo opponent. In this case, higher value dinosaurs are simply inherently better: I found their abilities to be better, and putting together the dice or DNA tokens to cure them was easier… Larger dinosaurs have more sleep tokens, too, which seems counterintuitive. They’re just better.

My first play was the only one where I didn’t achieve a major victory because I thought the lower value dinosaurs might compensate with better abilities. Perhaps this works better with opponents, though. The solo mode felt too easy for me to figure out, and with an exceptionally high score, I believe this is going extinct from my collection at some point.

Cured Dinosaurs

I found some interesting combinations early on, which was pretty neat! Even the upgrades could work with some dinosaurs, particularly for end game scoring.

But it quickly turned into an exercise where I felt like I knew all of the best strategies. I kept winning, and even pulled off a ridiculous victory with 19 cured dinosaurs.

The solo opponent felt stuck between a timer and a blocker. Such a cool premise with dinosaurs, too!

I have a feeling the multiplayer experience is much better, yet this one is too light for my gaming group to play.

A Successful Attempt at Healing Dinosaurs in PaleoVet

Beautiful Artwork

In the 50 dinosaur cards, there are probably about 30 unique illustrations. They all look so neat! The artwork style feels more old-school and vintage, which I love.

The different abilities seemed like they would add variety, yet I figured out the best ones to focus on each round.

I liked the simple gameplay sequence, though, which kept things moving along. But for how easy it was to win, there didn’t seem to be anything to draw me back in for more.

Maybe I simply solved it too soon. Am I a real dinosaur doctor? Ha ha! At least I had some fun with this one.

An Enormous Pile of Treated Dinosaurs in Another Victory in PaleoVet

Session Overview

Play Number: 1-4
Accessory: PaleoVet: Deluxe Upgrades
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Outcome: 3 Wins & 1 Loss

When I picked up the specialty dice early on and managed to pair symbols each round, I simply picked up as many final scoring upgrades as I could. Extra DNA tokens helped cure even more dinosaurs. How many dinosaurs woke up too soon and escaped? … Zero. I didn’t feel like there was a challenge here. As much as I love lightweight games, I don’t see the draw of returning to play this again, sadly.

Earning a Ton of Victory Points in Another Solo Win in PaleoVet

%

1 Play

Affordability

Price & Value

4

Functionality

Challenges & Mechanics

7

Originality

Design & Theme

5

Quality

Components & Rules

9

Reusability

Achievement & Enjoyment

4

Variability

Distinctness & Randomness

4

+ Pros (Positives)

  • All of the dinosaur artwork is awesome with a unique style that brings in a lot of colors in a sort of vintage feel.
  • Rolling dice is interesting to collect symbols, and the ability to use pairs or trios for bonuses prevents dead ends.
  • The rules are easy to learn and understand, particularly with the large reference card that includes everything.
  • Upgrades provide different bonuses that may be more useful early on or towards the end with victory points.
  • Nothing expands beyond the initial play area, which keeps everything compact and easy to locate iconography.
  • Alert abilities present unexpected surprises when some dinosaurs are revealed, adding random events of sorts.

– Cons (Negatives)

  • The solo mode feels rather random and doesn’t present much of a challenge once the best strategy is figured out.
  • Game length seems to be all over the place depending on when a pile of cards is emptied after 15 to 30 minutes.
  • It isn’t particularly difficult to treat and cure every chosen dinosaur before their sleep tokens run out.
  • Focusing on choosing dinosaurs with the highest victory points is the typical path to victory with minimal choices.

More PaleoVet

Explore related posts about PaleoVet!

Victory Conditions

Score the Most Points

  • Overall Goal Progress 100% 100%

Goals and Milestones

R

Score at least 90 points.

R

Score at least 100 points.

R

Win at least 1 game with a major victory.

R

Win at least 1 game with a minor victory.

Continue the Conversation

Have you had a chance to play PaleoVet? Are there other dinosaur-themed solo games you enjoy? I can certainly see the fun in playing this one multiplayer with the right group, yet the solo mode just didn’t work for me. Such a shame: I was so excited to heal some dinosaurs in this setting! There were some fun moments, though, which counts for something!

2 Comments

  1. Thank you for the very fair review. PaleoVet was designed as a multiplayer game first and foremost, and the solo mode was our first attempt at designing for a single-player. It is functional and tested well with casual gamers, but based on your comments it’s not robust enough for a person with more experience playing games solo. We will definitely be taking your comments to heart as we look at both future versions of the solo mode for PaleoVet and for other games we design in the future.

    Reply
    • I do love a lot of aspects of the game, and can see it doing very well with the right audience! It has a lot going for it and I hope it does well. The solo mode may not be for me, although I’m just one opinion over here and appreciate the work that went into this one. Thanks for stopping by, and all the best with your future projects!

      Reply

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