Triassic Terror is by the designer of Francis Drake as well as the very good War of the Roses.  It is an area control game with some interesting game mechanics.

During the game, players place dinosaurs (meeple) of their colour in different areas on the board.  A group of dinos of one colour is called a ‘herd’.  Players with the largest (and second largest) herds in each of the 12 areas during the 2 or 3 scoring rounds score points, and the player with the most points at the end of a fixed number of rounds wins.

Each area contains 3 spaces called ‘habitats’.  The biggest herd in an area occupies the primary habitat (scoring the most points), the next largest herd occupies the secondary habitat (scoring fewer points than the primary), and the next largest herd occupies the tertiary habitat (which scores no points but, hey, it’s better than being any smaller as herds not in the 3 largest instantly die).  Whenever herds grow or shrink, the habitats are re-assessed; for example, if there’s a herd of 3 blue dinosaurs in the primary habitat and a herd of 2 red in the secondary habitat grows to 4, then the red herd would move into the primary habitat and the blue herd would move down to the secondary. Read the rest of this entry »