Posted in: Board Games, Funko Games, Games, Tabletop | Tagged: board games, funko games, jurassic park, jurassic world, Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar, Prospero Hall, Tabletop

We Tried Out Jurassic World: The Legacy Of Isla Nublar

Recently we had a cool opportunity come our way as we got to try out Funko Games' latest game, Jurassic World: The Legacy Of Isla Nublar. Funko Games was kind enough to bring us out to Los Angeles a few weeks ago where we say down and played a copy of the game. We were taken to the Funko Hollywood location where we got to hang out in a super-secret private lounge area along with a few other games journalists (Matthew Aguilar from ComicBook, Dan Casey from The Nerdist, and William Cennamo from Screen Rant) as well as developers from Prospero Hall, the team who made the game. It was here we got to hang out for several hours and play a few rounds of the game for what turned out to be a pretty in-depth demo that answered a lot of questions we had about the game.

So first and foremost, there are a lot of moving parts to this game. We don't know what the final price tag to it will be but trust me, it will be worth the cost. Aside from the board you see here, you're getting a ton of small figures for the game, a ton of reference cards, episode packets, mini-games, character cards, and a ton of other additions to the game that will make this an enriching experience. The team basically went all out to make this worth your time and money, especially when you consider the fact that it is a Legacy title where a lot of the decisions you make become permanent. This is great for the first time you play through as your progress is essentially saved so you and your friends can pick up where you left off until you get to the very end.

Speaking of the figures, finally getting a chance to see this up-close-and-in-person was pretty cool. The designs for these were taken directly from the film. The models for many of these were direct scans of the originals used in the films when they were using animatronics. So when you look at this triceratops or the tyrannosaurus rex, those are about as close to the actual movie prop as you're going to get in a game shy of Steven Spielberg coming to your home and carving you figures out of wood. I loved the little touches on some of these, such as the raptors coming out of the door together. You can tell that a lot of care was taken into making this game look and feel as close to being a love letter to the franchise as possible.

Getting into the gameplay, everything is done in an episodic format done with comic books as your instructional guide per each episode in Jurassic World: The Legacy Of Isla Nublar. We can't reveal a ton of what we played due to the fact that they want to keep it a secret for those who wish to play the game, but we can talk about the opening prologue. The prologue features a story where Jurassic Park's founder John Hammond is having a dream on his helicopter on the way to the island for the first time since they started setting up. He starts to dream about what it would be like when he got there, but of course, with little put together, he starts to have a small adventure of making sure everyone who joined him was safe. And so the adventure begins…

I and the other three were tasked with trying to get certain aspects of the park up and running while also making sure certain dinosaurs were protected and didn't die. The red dinosaurs represent the carnivores who hunt weaker prey and feat on them, whether they be you or other dinosaurs. The green dinosaurs represent the herbivores, who are simply here to eat plants and entertain guests but are also constantly at risk of being eaten by predators. Our goal at the start was to successfully make sure that we survived six rounds in this chapter without dying and also make sure we protected the herbivores.

The park provided a number of challenges along the way. The first was an action sequence in which certain cards would play each round telling us what needed to take place, such as dinosaur movement or disasters happening on the island. The second is these mini-games you see below, in which you needed to solve puzzles to make things happen or get bonuses to help protect you in some way. One of them was a resource management game while the other was a DNA sequencing game. There are actions you can take as players to help make things easier as your character. I, for example, was John Hammond himself, and my character card allowed me to move players around the board two extra spaces as needed. So I could quickly get someone to a task or out of danger. We also had items we could utilize such as emergency flairs, shotguns, and even the classic park jeep!

A lot of the fun in the game is tied to the interactions you have with the rest of the players. Anyone could pop in and play a regular board game based on the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise, but this one is extra special as it brings the people you choose to play with closer together in a long-form experience. I know it's not a possibility at the moment, but until I get a new copy of the game in my hands, I would fly across the country again to pick this game back up where we left off before we had to end for the night. This is very much a shared-experience game, and when you find the right group to play it, everything about it becomes that much more entertaining for everyone involved. (Especially when you read the comic book episodes in the voice of Mr. DNA.)

Overall, the preview game we got to play was an awesome experience, and I'm not even talking about the trip or the chance to hang out in the store after hours. Jurassic World: The Legacy Of Isla Nublar more than made the time spent there an absolute joy by itself. We went through three and a half chapters of the game over the course of roughly six hours. So this is going to be well worth the experience as you'll be able to get in long gameplay sessions over a couple of chapters as you explore all of the films and some side stories as well. For those interested in seeing what's all in the box, you can do so in the video below. And those looking to get a copy, they've launched a Kickstarter for the game.

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