Paleovet (2023)

Overview

We've brought dinosaurs back to life, but who will care for these magnificent and dangerous beasts?

In Paleovet, you take the role of a paleo-veterinarian, drafting dinosaur cards from a central river, then rolling dice and spending icons for various effects, most notably curing sick and injured dinosaurs.

At the start of each turn, you remove a sleep token from each dinosaur in your hospital, which is bad, of course, as these patients need forced rest! If you have an empty bed of the four in your hospital, draft a dino from the five available, then roll your dice.

You start with three dice that show the three treatments needed to cure dinosaurs, a tranquilizer dart, and a wild icon. Spend treatment icons to heal your dinos; each one needs 1-5 treatments as depicted on their card. Any two matching icons can be used to acquire a single-use wild token or an upgrade card that provides a permanent beneficial effect; spend three matching icons to acquire more dice. If you have tranquilizers and bed space to spare, you can take more dino cards into your hospital. However, if a dinosaur isn't fully cured and has no sleep tokens on it, it wakes up and leaves the hospital — and if it's a carnivore, it takes another dinosaur with it when it goes!

Cured dinosaurs move from the hospital to your victory pile, netting you the point value on the card. When one of the three card stacks is empty, complete the round, then see who's scored the most from their veterinary efforts.