Funko Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar

My sister in law bought this game via Kickstarter and we played through the campaign together. I bought my own copy because I wanted to play it again.It's a fun, strategic co-op game with really cute minis. Also, Jurassic Park. What's not to love?

Have played this game for months with my 13yo we just recently wrapped it up with the finale and we both feel like they need to make a expansion for it will be hard to find something to replace it on game night.

I love is game. Me and my sister are playing it, and it's hard, but this our first time I playing a Legacy game. So I recommend to play the tutorial like a whole lot of times, to get gif of it. It's hard but fun. I love the figurines you and how adventure is like a comic book.But do remember this is LEGACY GAME,meaning there are permanent changes for the game.Quality is good

What a blast!! It captures the spirit of the series beautifully and creates memories with friends or family.

If you’re a fan of Jurassic Park… get this! It’s so much fun and has many hours of gameplay!

I’m giving it two stars, one star for the concept of the overall game, it’s honestly pretty creative and I enjoyed the idea of what they were going for, but only two stars because the rest was completely awful. Way to complicated and hard to understand and way to many different needed mechanics even just for the set up. Sadly I would not recommend this game.

These are my super biased initial impressions of my first five plays of Legacy of Isla Nublar and then some.In short, I loved the experience, my husband did not like it at first and was ready to quit by game 2, but he stayed in because I made him and it became more enjoyable and tolerable for us. My 15-year-old cousin joined in toward the end and he thought it was good, but prefers other board games. All three of us enjoyed Pandemic Legacy more. But besides some issues, the experience was a lot of fun for me.I would add that we play a lot of board games. The rules can be overwhelming and it takes preparation - I read the rules beforehand and it would take about 30 minutes to set up and closer to an hour to tear down and prep for the next game. Most people probably prep their games before playing so their time estimates might be reversed. There aren't a lot of videos for help and frankly they take up more time than you think. The rulebook is clear, easy to understand, but there are some rules that are not explicitly stated because of the nature of the game. But 90% of what you need is there.What is Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar?This is a legacy game comprised of a prologue, 10 adventures, and a finale. A legacy game is a game comprised of multiple sessions, in which each session modifies the game state in some way, i.e. modified the game board, rules, components, etc. This is a game based off the Jurassic Park intellectual property for the movies 1-5. The game was developed before the release of the last movie, Jurassic World: Dominion. Players play as characters from the movie franchise.Retail Vs. Kickstarter Vs. My Modified Retail copyI was able to purchase a dent-and-ding retail copy of the game for less than $80. Both the retail and Kickstarter versions of the game start with 4 dinosaurs: velociraptors, brachiosaurs, triceratops, and t-rex, though the Kickstarter version comes with "additional" amber versions. While considering the Kickstarter I expected that the amber minis would hinder rather than promote gameplay. After playing the campaign, I think the amber dinosaurs would have been O.K. to use during the gameplay since players become familiar with those starting dinosaurs, but the green and red color help to quickly differentiate which dinosaurs to activate first and decreases confusion and game time. The amber miniatures were added because backers wanted more from the project which originally did not have any stretch goals or Kickstarter exclusives.Other exclusives included upgraded tokens. Initially while considering the Kickstarter I did not think it was worthwhile having upgraded plastic components for a legacy game which is usually designed to be played only once and afterwards thrown away/recycled. This game does have a Replayable Adventure, so it might be worth having but that's assuming you would actually want to play this game again and again when there are many other games out in the world you can enjoy instead. The retail version has cardboard tokens. They are thin compared to other board games but adequate. I used Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to upgrade my amber research tokens. I found that we handled the action tokens a lot so I also upgraded those tokens. The Dimensional Magic was applied to both sides which made the tokens easier to flip. I used coin capsules for the damage tokens to make picking up the tokens easier and to add to the tactile experience.Finally included in the Kickstarter was a box sleeve which is superfluous as well as an additional character: Blue. Of the Kickstarter exclusives, this would be the one I would be most interested in. I don't know how it was implemented so I can't comment on it.My modified copy also included stands for all the dino cards and the followers. This helped minimize required table space and improve visibility of the dinosaur cards. It also helped when we had a lot of characters/dinos/followers/tokens in one zone, though it was hard to tell the followers apart because the backings are similar. If the tokens were double sided that would have improved gameplay a lot for me. Despite this, I would recommend plastic stands for the followers, dinosaur cards, and other tokens.In addition, I used a draw bag for the consequence tokens to minimize set up time. Also because the board was so long it was physically difficult to get to the top part of the board the way our table is set up. I expect that the upgrades I did to my game improved the gameplay and minimized frustration, both of which are factors that affect our overall enjoyment and score of the game.Player and Character CountI had watched or read reviews and decided based on other people's experiences that I would only play this game with one other person. The issue is that there is a total of 9 actions for 2-4 characters, so in a 4 player game, each player would have 2-3 actions per round.What do I think of the Gameplay?The gameplay can be simplified to a) moving around b) herding dinosaurs c) doing mini games. I personally enjoyed moving around and herding dinosaurs. None of us liked the mini games. Unfortunately there are mini games in all the adventures. In our 2-player games, I managed the tokens and round cards while my husband managed the mini games. The game board takes up so much space it was physically hard to see all the rooms from where I sat. I did feel bad for my husband so I took on the later mini games since it would just be unfair for him to do all the work. The mini games are not difficult but they are tedious to work out solutions. I would recommend getting a piece of paper and a pen and work out the genetics tasks before starting the game. The genetics mini game in my opinion is not thematic - I do not think it gives a feel of gene manipulation from a biology perspective. They are essentially busy work that eats up actions so the game is "action economy" - figuring out how to minimize actions spent. At least for us, the mini games were not fun or thematic. Other legacy games have mini games which are more thematic and not as tedious. Having those experiences dampened our enjoyment of this game. If the mini games were modified or removed from the game then we would have rated the game so much higher. It's sad because I felt as if the mini games were more detrimental rather than something to enhance the game.The components for the game were helpful - we did not use reminder tokens to mark which dinos had been activated though by game 9 and 10 it got more difficult. The herd tokens were functional. The stickers worked well - I don't know why some are clear and others are opaque. The dice work well and are easy to read. The graphic design is well done and is clear and easy to understand. A lot of work was done to minimize frustration and improve the flow of the game.What do I think of the rulebooks and production?I thought the rule cards were cool at first. Then, I decided I don't like them. The rule cards are not comprehensive and it's hard for me to remember the headers of topics to look up. We never separated out the cards since that would increase the chances of them getting lost and takes up time. I wish that the rulebook was comprehensive; some rules were in the cards that weren't in the general rulebook. We ended up checking both the rule cards and rulebook anyway which added time to the gameplay. The rule cards are a nice idea and it would be interesting to see it implemented in other board games.The Adventure guides and rulebooks were very good. I was able to learn from the rulebook and play the game. For a legacy game, this is especially important because players will have limited access to instruction videos on how to play. I hardly ever watch How to Play Videos and my ratings of games are influenced by how easy it is to learn from the rulebook without any additional help. I did use the forums to ask some questions and other users have been very helpful. Each adventure guide is disguised as a comic book and the story is told in comic form. Mr. DNA shares helpful hints from time-to-time. The organization, graphic design, illustrations, diagrams, fonts, etc. are all top-notch: I LOVE the production and I really appreciate all the work that went into making the experience an EXPERIENCE for players: This is clearly a project done by fans for fans.The Characters and DinosaursThe characters each have powers and most of them are thematic. There are some characters that I am not aware existed in the movies but they added to the experience and did not intrude too much into the lore. The dinosaurs were not as thematic compared to the characters, but they were fine. Some dinosaurs I was hoping would appear did not. The dinosaur figures themselves were fine. The character movers are cardboard and illustrated on both sides and matched their character cards so were easy to differentiate.Time and costEach session was about 2 hours including reading aloud the rules, looking up rules, working out the genetics puzzle, and gameplay. There are 12 games: 1 prologue, 10 adventures, 1 finale, for a minimum of 24 hours.There is a lot of time for set up and even more for tear down. I used components boxes and bags to help quickly set up the game. I set up and tore down every game except the one time when we lost, because we have limited space in our small apartment. After finishing an adventure, I read the NEXT adventure guides (up until the stop) and reviewed the set up for the next game so it would not be a cold start when we played the next game, especially in the beginning when there were a lot of rules that was unfamiliar. So while the previous game was fresh in my mind, I would do a partial set up of the game, basically the prologue, and do the bonuses, etc. so that by the time we got to the next game, I just had to set up the board and components, review the rules quickly, and pick a character and go. This means I spent more time considering and contemplating the best locations for buildings and reviewing rules. I might have also just been excited about playing the next game and tried to continue playing for as long as I could without starting the next game. Upgrading the park is one of the fun parts of the game - I enjoyed looking through fan blogs of the Jurassic Park IP and reviewing maps to decide how to best lay out our game board. I also wrote down our plans for future sessions based on what we felt we needed during the previous game. This helped us in making decisions during budget spending.Experience by Game 5 and beyondI thought the prologue was O.K. Games 1 - 5 I enjoyed, but I felt that luck was a huge factor and we could have easily lost games that we won early on. However, as we gained character abilities and upgraded the park, luck became more manageable. We won all the games except for game 8, which was actually the second game we played in one day and it was in the evening after a busy day going to the airport and such. But we enjoyed the game enough that we wanted to spend one Sunday playing TWO games. Some of the adventures, the ending fell a little flat, but overall I enjoyed the adventures, some more than others. There were clear stories in each adventure. I went in knowing the mini games were tedious so that may have alleviated any frustrations I may have had without foreknowledge. I also expected to be disappointed towards the end and I kept waiting, but I enjoyed it mostly to the end. For me the finale was not as exciting as some of the other adventures but it was balanced by some other interesting aspects.Youtube Reviews?There were some negative reviews on Youtube. I listened to those reviews and YES, I put this game on my DO NOT BUY list. But I really wanted to play this game. I have Jurassic Park Monopoly, Unmatched: Ingen vs Raptors, Unmatched: Dr. Sattler vs. T-rex, and I even have Jurassic Park: Danger! and Dinosaur World. The theme song is my childhood in music form.Usually from video reviews or overviews I can accurately predict if I would enjoy a game or not. I could not figure out this game though from the previews/reviews. One review was positive and I decided to throw caution to the wind and buy this game. And I'm glad I did. I think that if players are pushing to finish the game instead of enjoying it, and reviewers have the pressure to play a lot of games in a short period because that's their main source of income, then they might not enjoy the experience. There are a lot of rules and even though I played leisurely, I still made errors. But we spent a good amount of time and care to decide how to spend our budget and how to organize the island. I also do not play games to the same extent as reviewers so maybe I'm less jaded?One comment, if an event card is not accomplished, then players have to draw a consequence token. (If ever there are 5 consequences, then the game is over). You might start with thinking that you HAVE to do something. And you do to win, but you don't HAVE to RIGHT NOW. Players can choose to take their chances and accept that consequence in exchange for investing time in doing something else that may have worse outcome in the future. This is a strategic decision that players have to consider for most if not all games. The game might provide solutions for problems that are created by the game...but that doesn't mean it's the ONLY solution. It may be possible that some reviews were subject to group thinking - maybe person A had perspective A and person B and C now only have perspective A. But maybe if person E jumped in, then there would have been a fresh perspective E.Another complaint was that things were destroyed...and yes it happens and yes we were disappointed, but at least for us we had laid out our game in such a way that it was fine. It was not ideal, but it was manageable — so we did not experience the same frustration. I will add that there is some help given to players who do not win, but I think winning still has the better outcome. So I would not sabotage a game.Overall opinion?Other than the mini games, I thought the game was thematic - I enjoyed the references to the movies and I thought the game sort of followed the movies, but there is some freedom in the game that things might not work out like it did in the movie. For example one dinosaur that you know is in the first movie might show up at the end. That's not unexpected. But it is fun when the game plays out like the movie! The game isn't on rails - we aren't sitting in a ride; it needs flexibility to be a game and not a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book/game.After playing this game, I want MORE. I want an expansion to take us to Jurassic World: Dominion, I want to explore the Camp Cretaceous world. I want Bumpy! I had a great time and I enjoyed the EXPERIENCE. Caveat: I did not do most of the mini games and left that to my husband who had a lower opinion of the game, but he also cares more about winning and is willing to put in the work ahead of time. Personally, I would have randomly moved things around and lost many times, because one of my joys in life is running around as Muldoon with a shot gun and a knife gripped by my teeth of steel. I have other joys, but spoilers!Our ratings are 9, 7, and 7 or an average of 7.67. My husband enjoyed the game more as it went on, but he was willing to quit and never play ever again after the first adventure. My cousin who is 15 was only able to play the last 3 games. He did not have to worry about any upkeep and mostly enjoyed the idea of one of the characters and some of the items. Compared to another game, Pandemic Legacy, he felt this game had less agency. However, the only REAL rating is mine of course, because Jurassic Park is awesome and dinosaurs are awesome. End of story.Do you like Jurassic Park? Do you have money? Do you enjoy board games? If you said YES to any or all these questions, you should play this game. I offer absolutely no guarantees.

This is not a good legacy type game. You can't really effect what happens, and more than half the game doesn't even happen on the board itself, it's about moving pieces around on mini side boards like a slide puzzle. Very disappointed, and my SO won't even play it ... And she's obsessed with dinosaurs.