First Giants

• Designer: Matthew Dunstan, Brett J. Gilbert
• Publisher: Space Cowboys
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/42Ziqac
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Dive into First Giants, a race to create the most prestigious prehistorical animal exhibit! Build your engine by collecting cards with powerful effects OR score points by playing your cards in the exhibit area. But beware! Once displayed, you’ll lose their beneficial effects. Timing is crucial to win!  First Giants is a game of set collecting and combinations in which players recruit cards representing dinosaurs, flying reptiles, giant mammals… of various size. These cards have many different powers and you can create powerful combination to earn amber, victory points and the ability to exhibit your fossils.

The deck of cards is shuffled to form the deck.  Each card has a picture of a dinosaur on it, a size value (1 to 3) and a colored icon describing which of the 5 families it belongs to. Put the 4 Dig Sites on the table, and put 2 random face up cards on each. Each player gets their own museum board and 2 Amber tokens to start.   Based on player count, count out a number of set tokens and place them on the table. Also place the News bonus tokens on the table. 

On a turn, the active player has two options: Play one of their markers to claim a card OR Reclaim their played markers.

If the player wants to play their marker, they place one at a Dig Site that does not already have one of their markers. They then take one of the 2 face up cards at that site and place it above their player board in their Study area.  Cards have effects that could be one-time, recurring or each time a condition is met.  Resolve the action of your cards in your study to complete the turn.

If the player wants to reclaim markers (and there must be at least one marker in play to be reclaimed), the previously played markers are returned to the player area, and for each marker taken back, the player gains 1 Amber or displays one fossil.  To display a fossil, the player must spend Amber equal to its size, and then places it face down in the area below the player board.  Cards in this area are scored based on the sets you are able to collect there.

When you display a fossil, you either start a new set or add the card to an existing set. Once a card is placed, you cannot move it.  Sets can either be based on the family type or the size value.   Each time that you expand a set, take a Set token and place it at the overlap of the newly added card.  If you have completed the set (all 3 sizes or all 5 family types), flip over all the Set tokens.  Also, if you are the first player to expand a particular type of set, you can take the News token for that type for more bonus points.  You keep this token until someone has a larger set of that type, at which point they take the News token from you. 

The game ends when either the last Set token is taken from the supply or the Deck is exhausted.  Finish the current round so that all players have the same number of turns and then calculate your final score:

• Set tokens: 3 points each for finished sets, 2 points for unfinished sets
• News tokens: worth 3 or 5 points each as written on the token
• Point tokens earned from card actions during the game

The player with the most points wins. There is no tiebreaker.

My thoughts on the game

So, I’m a big fan of Dunstan/Gilbert games, so I was immediately attracted to this one based on the designers alone.  My level of anticipation was such that I didn’t even read much about the game – I knew it was one that I would want to play and review.  Well, it arrived, and as I was reading it, it really sounded familiar.  Before I was done with the short rulebook, I figured out the connection – this is a simplified re-skin of Elysium, a game that I had really liked 11 years ago.  (Wow, hard to believe that I can remember that far back!)

My review from back then: https://opinionatedgamers.com/2015/07/15/dale-yu-review-of-elysium/

The theme is now changed – we have fossils and dinosaurs now instead of ancient gods… While many of the general themes are similar between the games, the buying system is a big change, and one that makes the game a bit easier to grok.  No longer do you have to manage your columns to figure out what card you can buy – here you just buy what you want so long as you can access that particular dig site. This change really makes the game way more accessible and easier to play. 

There is a nice ebb and flow of action – taking turns to go out and bring cards back to your area, and then deciding when to retract your markers – both allowing you to revisit certain areas as well as taking a chance to place some of your cards on exhibit.

Of course, as you are making the exhibition decision, you’ll have to also decide on the timing – because you’ll lose any ongoing benefits from your cards once you flip them over on exhibition… 

You can’t wait too long to do this, however, as the game runs along quite rapidly.  As you can only exhibit one card per marker you pull back, if you wait too long, you might not ever get the cards into scoring position.  Further, if you are trying to vie for the bonus cards, ties for those always go to the player who exhibited first….

When I teach the game, I do try to make sure that players realize that the bulk of the points come from the set tokens and the “longest road” cards.  And that’s why you don’t want to get caught out sandbagging too much on the exhibition – the game can definitely end abruptly; especially if someone can trigger a card event that allows multiple cards to be exhibited a card turn.

Games play out nice and fast here.  Individual turns often do not take long, and the limited number of set tokens keeps the overall length short as well. I do really like the experience here, with kudos going to the physical components as well.  The wood player markers are nice, and while the glass beads aren’t a super expensive or rare component; these pieces definitely seem to be a bit against the grain of 2026 non-kickstarter-bling components.  The game also provides you with three nice boxes to store everything without the need for plastic.

If you’ve played Elysium before, this is a nicely done, more streamlined followup effort.  If you’ve never played it, this card drafting/semi-tableau managment/set collection game is definitely worth a try.  

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y
• I like it. Steph 
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/42Ziqac