Skillmatics Card Game - Dino Trio, A Smart Swapping Dinosaur Themed Strategy Game for Kids, Teens & Adults

Played the game with a 8 and 6 year old! Great fun!

My almost 5 year old grandson LOVES Dino’s and this is rated for ages 5-99, so I thought I would give it a go. It took me at least 5 times reading the directions to even get a beginning grasp of this game. So I dealt out the cards to 3 imaginary players and got to playing, just to test it out. It was still confusing and I had to keep going back to read the directions.I will be playing this in a different way with my little guy. We will deal out the cards and just talk about the Dino’s. He knows so much already as he wants to be a Paleontologist when he grows up :). Maybe when he gets older this will seem like a fun game.The other thing about younger players is usually they absolutely hate to loose and have to learn the concept of fair play and being happy for the winner even if it isn’t you. I cant imagine that this game would be any different in that respect and it just feels to me to be overwhelming to learn this game and to learn fair play at the same time. We are new to board and card games so maybe this is just my experience. This game is way more about strategy than it is about the dinosaurs.I’ll take a pass on this game….except he will love learning more about the actual dinosaurs.

The 6 year old did well though didn't quite get the concept of the earth quake card.

I got this as a birthday present for my dinosaur loving kid, and in the meantime tested it with just my husband. It’s a really fun game. The kids will enjoy it, and I’d be happy to play with them. It’s easy to learn and teach, and took us maybe 20 minutes to play as a two player game.The object of the game is to collect at least one dinosaur from each era (Jurassic, Lower Cretaceous, and Upper Cretaceous) to win. Each player has three game cards in their hand, which could describe a dinosaur’s era, size, or diet, or any variation of those categories; and there are also three game cards face up on the table for swapping. Three dinosaur cards are also face up on the table. On each turn, you see if you can collect (buy) a dinosaur card by playing the three game cards that match the dinosaur’s attributes as listed at the top of the card. If you have the correct identifiers you can collect the dinosaur, discard the used game cards, and draw a new hand of three. Or you can swap one card, then collect the dinosaur. Or maybe you want to swap, but can’t collect anything yet. Or possibly you can’t do anything and will skip your turn. If everyone skips a turn, the three game cards are discarded and replaced. Some competitiveness occurs if a player collects two or three dinosaurs of the same era, and forces another player to lose a dinosaur (either to the discard pile, or to that player's hand!). I was winning by a lot in the beginning (five collected dinosaurs to one), then there was a sudden turn and my husband won the game. We enjoyed ourselves, and I appreciate the educational aspect of learning names and a few brief facts about dinosaurs.

As an adult boardgame enthusiast, I can say that this is not a good game. The whole appeal is the dinosaur theme, and if you have dino loving kids, this may be for them.But for me, there are a couple of glaringly obvious design flaws. The first is that there are no rules prohibiting one from swapping a game card for a different copy of that card, both can have the exact same trait.The bigger deal is that at lower player counts it is very common to get to a game state where no amount of swapping cards in players' hands can even possibly lead to any player claiming a dinosaur from the center. And yet this state persists until all players choose to pass their turn. This not only means that the game stalls out, it also means that there is a strategic incentive to avoid being the last one to pass your turn, as other players will get a crack at the new cards first. Thus you are encouraged to leave the game in a stalled state. This would be easy to fix by using a standard drawing mechanic or by having the central trait or dino cards automatically swap in and out every so often, but that would have required a competent game designer or meaningful playtesting.But this does have a 24 unique dinosaurs and you kids will learn their size, time periods, and diets playing this. So while I think it's t lousy game, it's at least a reasonable dinosaur educational experience

Dino trio it’s a cute little game and perfect for young children and adults.The instructions were well written, and the set up is incredibly easy. The game is pretty fast paced and doesn’t last too long per round.The cards were wonderfully designed as well as well-made and easy to handle. The storage box is also well done, compact, and sturdy.We noticed that almost all cards had symbols on them, if the time period cards had individualized symbols the player wouldn’t need to be able to read as the game could easily be played using just the symbols.We would have liked more information about the dinosaurs on each card but we really did appreciate that the phonetic pronunciation of the dinosaurs was printed on each card.It was a fun, quick play, game and we’ve all agreed that we’d like to add it to our regular rotation.

I got this because my 4 yr old is a dino fan. We've played the game with him a few times and he's asked to play the game afterwards - he hasn't really grasped how to play but he likes collecting the dinos. I know the game isn't "rated" for 4yr olds.The cards are of expected quality for cards. As long as we keep up with them, I'm sure they will hold up like any card game.I had a hard time winning, but that's just the way the cards were delt. My wife beat be every time.I would recommend this game for dino enthusiasts from 5 and up. Not necessarily for a 4 yr old. The illustrations on the cards are nicely done, the game is easy to understand from an adult point of view.