Roaring 20s

• Designer: Leo Colovini
• Publisher: Deep Print
• Players: 3-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20-30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Welcome to the Roaring 20s, when you will try to attract the trendiest dinos to your glamorous party. Each round, you bid on a dino or pass. As every dino has different preferences, you need either the right snacks to lure it or splendid gems to bribe it. If you want to jump out of the bidding, place your “Mine!” card on one of the bid cards available; the earlier you pass, the more choices you have. Whoever sticks in the bidding long enough wins the dino, then they decide whether to pay with snacks or gems, with no change if you overpay.

Your goal is to have the most points at game’s end. Each dino is worth 1-5 points on its own, with pairs and triplets being worth 3 and 6 points. That said, you can choose to discard an acquired dino if it’s a duplicate in order to transform your “Mine!” card into a joker. Why would you want to do that? Because sequences of dinos are also worth points, with six in a row being worth 15 points, for example.   If you make clever bids, occasionally pass at the right moment, and get the most valuable guests, you’ll be crowned the ultimate prehistoric party animal!

There are 25 dinosaurs, numbered 1 to 10.  Three copies of 4, 5, 6, 7 and two copies of all other ranks. There is also a Joker dino.  The stars in the upper right corner tell you the VP value – the further away from the middle, the more points they are worth.   The rest of the cards are Bid cards, each with a value from 1-5.  There are three types of snacks shown on the bid cards as well as a few gem cards.  Each dinosaur wants different sorts of snacks, but all can be bribed with gems.

Each player gets a Mine card and an Overview card. The deck of Bid cards is shuffled and each player gets a hand of five cards.  If the total value of the hand is less than 10, the player can discard the hand and get a new hand of 5 dealt to them.   The dino deck is shuffled and placed on the table as well.

In each round, the top card of the Dino deck is revealed as are N-1 Bid cards.  The starting player makes the first bid.  You can bid with snacks or gems.  If you use snacks, you must use snack type(s) that the dino wants – see the bottom of the dino card.  You do not have to show what cards you are going to use, simply state a number.  Play goes clockwise with each player either bidding a higher number or passing out of the round.  Players that pass can reserve any unchosen card from the Bid card display by placing their Mine card on top of it.  In the edge case where everyone passes on a Dino, everyone takes back their Mine card, and the unloved dino and all the cards in the Bid display are taken out of the game.  Once someone is the lone person left, they must pay their bid – paying with all snacks or all gems.  It is OK to overpay for your bid but you will not get any change back.  The Dino card goes face up in front of you in your scoring area.  Everyone else takes the Bid card that they reserved.

The next round starts with the player to the left of the previous winner making the first bid.  The game continues until the final Dino is auctioned off. Players then calculate their final score:

• Dino Cards – VP as shown in the upper right corner
• Pairs/Triplets of Dinos – 3VP for a pain and 6VP for a triplet of the same rank (you cannot use the Joker for this)
• Runs: 3/6/10/15/21/28/26/45 VP for a run of 3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 consecutive numbers. The Joker can represent any rank
• Leftover Hand cards – 1VP per 2 cards left in hand

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the highest sum value of leftover cards.

My thoughts on the game

I have liked this game since I played a prototype version back in April 2024. I must admit that I don’t necessarily understand the theme added onto the game here – I mean, dinosaurs in Flapper dresses? In the 1920s? Huh?  But, regardless of theme, the game is still solid and I have enjoyed all of my plays of it.

The game is not much more than a series of auctions, and you auction off nearly the entire deck in every game.  One of the neat features of the auction is that players who don’t win the bid end up taking new cards to give them more to bid with in later auctions.  In fact, it is the only way to do this.

So, there is a nice ebb and flow as players try to win auctions where they can and sometimes pass early on in order to get the card they want.  Of course, if everyone passes early enough, people can sometimes get a card on the super cheap.

Oftentimes, the extent to which a card is fought over comes down to luck of the draw.  You only see the card currently up for auction, and there are times when a card that is desired by multiple players comes up, but only one of them has a lot of resources…. In those cases, the winning player could end up with a steal.  On the other hand, if all the concerned players have a fistful of snacks/gems, the bidding could go sky high.  Furthermore, sometimes it just works out that a card comes out and you just spent all of the snacks it wants on an earlier card…  I’d definitely use the player aid which conveniently reminds you which snacks are wanted by which card numbers – it’ll help you save up the correct things.

In my experience so far, games are hard to win without a nice run.  The points on individual cards are nice, but nothing garners as many points as a good run.  Additionally as there are more copies of the cards in the middle of the number sequence (as well as up to two jokers), it feels like this is a reasonable thing to strive for at the start of each game. 

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Ryan P: I don’t want to jump the gun on my single play, but this might end up my filler game of the year. The simple decision of when to bail for compensation is reminiscent of the spread in properties in For Sale, which is an all time favorite for this auction lover. The tension of knowing someone needs a card for the straight and wanting to drive them up, but not wanting it yourself and not knowing how far they can go, is delicious. I’m not sure if this will work at 3 as it seems like a big group game, but I’m dying to find out since 3 is my normal game group size. All the punch of the best in auction games, in one 30 minute game – loved it!

Mark Jackson: I wasn’t very good at this game – but it’s a clever twist on auctions with delightful art.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Ryan P
• I like it. Dale Y, John P, Mark Jackson
• Neutral.
• Not for me…