Dinosaur Island FAQ
277 questions players ask · Updated Nov 10, 2026 · Full rulebook
GeneralExpansion
- What happens to an incubated egg that reaches the end of its track with no paddock space or matching recipe, and can several eggs share one track?
- What do the marine creatures (water dinosaurs) add in Totally Liquid?
- Is the Totally Liquid X-treme edition compatible with the retail base game?
- Can a player own two copies of the same lab upgrade type?
- Does the order you spend DNA in when creating a dinosaur change the result?
- Are there placement restrictions on park tiles, such as adjacency or rotation?
- What does it cost to raise security above level 10?
- Can an enclosure hold more than one dinosaur type, or can one dinosaur span two enclosures?
- Does the Ride Improvement lab upgrade double the VP from patrons at an attraction?
- How does the Totally Liquid turn order bidding plot twist work?
- Can Duelosaur Island components be used in Dinosaur Island?
- Are there known errors in the Dinosaur Island rulebook?
- Can you increase excitement without adding dinosaurs?
- Does the cold storage plot twist's excitement bonus stay permanently, and does it use up one of your allotted increases?
Game Components
- What are the punch-board pogs for?
- Can any dinosaur meeple represent a dinosaur you create?
- What do the pips and numbers on dinosaur recipe tiles mean?
- Can you run out of workers or visitors, since they are limited by components?
- What are the purple and pink meeples in the Deluxe edition?
- What are the slang double-sided tokens for, and how many come with the game?
- What does the meeple multiplier symbol on paddock tiles mean?
- Do VIP visitors pay double admission, or are they worth double victory points?
Main Game SetupExpansion
- Do plot twist cards become the new base rules for the game?
- How are the first attraction tiles set out in the market during setup?
- How many patrons and hooligans go in the visitor bag at setup, and does player count change it?
- How many objective cards are there, and how many do you reveal at setup?
- Are the attraction and lab upgrade stacks placed face down during setup?
- In the reverse-order draft of Park Facilities and Executives, is the order based on seating or on turn order?
- Does Executive Archipelago give you the executives left after the draft?
- Does the Technical Advisor executive add 5 cold storage when placed in cold storage?
- Are the five hooligans placed on the Short Game hooligan objective extra, or taken from the bag?
- Do you keep the same DNA dice for the whole game, or choose new dice each round?
- What do the player-count numbers and +X icons on attractions and lab tiles mean?
Individual Player Setup
- Does the built-in Hats attraction start on every player board at no cost?
- Can your starting dinosaur make visitors get eaten before you build any others?
- What DNA does the starting dinosaur on a player board cost, and can both DNA be the same type?
- How many goats can the Goat Pen hold, and how many start in it?
How to Play
1. Research PhaseExpansion
- Does Jack of All Trades give you a fourth action in Phase 1, and can its worker also work in Phase 3?
- How does the Chaos Theorist work with your #1 scientist and the round-end die?
- With a wild DNA die, can one scientist take a mix of different DNA types?
- What happens to your scientist if you pass in the Research Phase, and can you pass with several?
- Do Research Phase actions take effect immediately when you place a scientist?
- Does the Computer Programmer copy exactly the DNA the other player took from a wild die?
- Is the worker face on a DNA die a permanent extra worker, and can you claim it more than once in a game?
- What does the paddock-upgrade face on a DNA die cost, and which scientist can claim it?
- Do you multiply the DNA on a claimed die by the scientist's research level?
- When can the Lab Manager's once-per-round cold storage increase be used?
- Can a player use the cold storage action more than once in a round?
- What does a cold storage limit cube stop you from storing, and what is the most you can hold?
- What happens to the leftover DNA die with the most threat pips at the end of the Research Phase?
- Can you take a DNA die with a scientist when your cold storage for that DNA is already full?
- If all your workers are already hired, does the worker face on a DNA die give anything?
- Does it matter which cold storage slot a scientist uses?
- Can one player draft more than one DNA die in the Research Phase?
- Must scientists in the Research Phase be placed in number order?
- Do scientist executives give a fourth research action in Phase 1?
- Does the Lab Manager's cold storage bonus raise the limit for one colour of DNA only?
- Does DNA Dice Dash give you the reward of the die you rolled?
- What do you do when there are more dice than Phase 1 slots, such as in a five-player game?
- Which scientist claims the Totally Liquid $4 money die, and does its money multiply?
- With the marine creatures module, where does a scientist go when you take a marine dino recipe in Phase 1?
2. Market Phase
- How much does an attraction tile cost to buy from the market?
- Does the Better Tool Bench replace the Tool Bench, or can it go on an under-construction space?
- Can a regular lab tile be placed on an upgraded lab space (the brown spaces)?
- Can you build over or move an attraction or dinosaur recipe tile once it is in your park?
- What does the Break Room lab tile allow, and can it give you a second specialist under a one-specialist plot twist?
- Can the Merchandiser add a patron to a full merchandise attraction?
- Can the Merchandiser specialist's ability be used on the starting Hats attraction?
- Can the Intern specialist hold a patron when your park has no free patron spaces?
- When can the Insider specialist search the marketplace, and is the searched deck reshuffled?
- What counts as a marketplace item for the Insider, and what does it cost to use?
- Can every player take the Take $2 and discard a card market action in the same Market Phase?
- Can you pass twice in the Market Phase to collect $4?
- When is the market refilled after players buy items?
- If a discount exceeds an attraction's price, do you pay a minimum of $1?
- Can you buy DNA from a market row that has no items left to discard?
- Besides the worker face on a DNA die, how do you get extra workers?
- What do the two worker icons on the HR Manager specialist do?
- Can a specialist with a once-per-round effect be used in the round you hire it?
- If you cover a lab tile with a green effect, does that green effect still work?
3. Worker Phase
- Can an unlimited-use lab slot be used many times in one round?
- How do the green-background passive lab upgrade abilities work?
- What does a security upgrade cost once security is above level 10?
- Does a worker slot marked x2 need two workers to activate?
- Can you build more than one Mega Rex?
- What does Duplication Chamber copy?
- How does Duplication Chamber interact with Ride Improvement when scoring?
- With the Better Tool Bench, does Duplication Chamber copy the discount or the number of upgrades?
- Does Ride Improvement double the VP of any attraction, or only ride attractions?
- If a lab upgrade is built over another, do the covered upgrade's green passive abilities still apply?
- Can a lab security upgrade be paid with workers instead of coins?
- Does the Tool Bench still charge the normal cost for security and paddock upgrades?
- Do you resolve each worker's action as you place it, or place all workers before resolving any?
- Can players react to other players' worker placements during the Worker Phase?
- How do you get more workers, and is there a limit?
- Does the order you use the Better Tool Bench spaces matter?
- How does the Better Tool Bench discount apply when raising security or upgrading a paddock?
- How does the Transmogrifier swap DNA, and can you trade one basic and one advanced in one use?
- Does the Builder specialist work at the Better Tool Bench as well as the Tool Bench?
- How does the Builder specialist's paddock upgrade work at the Tool Bench?
- When a Dino Incubator egg reaches the end of its herbivore track, can you claim the dinosaur on the same turn?
- Can the Dino Incubator incubate marine creatures as well as land dinosaurs?
- If you upgrade the Tool Bench to the Better Tool Bench, can you still use the original's unlimited space?
- How does the Venture Capital lab tile pay out?
- Is there a required order for placing workers in the Worker Phase?
- Must you place all your workers in the Worker Phase, and what happens to unused workers?
- In the Worker Phase, can you build a paddock and create a dinosaur in the same round?
- Can a lab upgrade be moved to another space after it is built?
- Can a paddock be upgraded from 2 to 4 spaces in one step?
- How does the Union Boss ability apply when you hire specialists?
- What do you lose when you fire a specialist?
- How much excitement and threat does each dinosaur add?
- How many workers does it take to create dinosaurs in one round with the Dino Research II upgrade?
- How does the Security Office lab upgrade work, and when are hooligans returned?
- Can Chaos Theorist use the die in the holding area, and does taking it change the threat?
- Can Security Guard 3 be used by more than one worker per round?
- Can a lab tile be built over another lab, including the top brown labs?
- Do you need a lab upgrade tile to upgrade a paddock?
- Can you use the Tool Bench for two different upgrades in one round with multiple workers?
4. Park Phase
- Do VIPs count as patrons for money and for patron-based objectives, and do they pay double or score double?
- Are VIP visitors placed before or after hooligans, and are they eaten before or after regular patrons?
- When dinosaurs get loose, which visitors are eaten first, and what does each eaten visitor cost?
- Can the Merchandiser specialist add a patron to an attraction that is already full?
- How does the PR Guy specialist's put-back of two visitors work?
- Does turn order change your odds of drawing a hooligan from the visitor bag?
- Do players return drawn park visitors to the bag before the next player draws during Attract Visitors?
- If the visitor bag runs out, does the last player still draw their full number of visitors?
- Do you get $1 for patrons waiting in the entrance line, even if they cannot enter the park?
- Are food attraction payouts optional, and does a patron who paid $2 at a food stall still score VP?
- When dinosaurs get loose, do eaten visitors leave the game?
- How many visitors does each player draw in the Park Phase, and does excitement above 20 draw more?
- Does building attractions raise park excitement?
- How does the threat die set aside in the Research Phase count in the Park Phase?
- Does threat level ever go back down, and is threat counted per dinosaur?
- What do the temporary threat and temporary security markers track?
- Is there an upper limit of 11 on threat or security?
- Can dinosaurs be removed from a park once placed?
- Can your VP go below zero, and is there a lawsuit penalty?
- How many victory points does an attraction with visitor spots, like the First Aid Station, score?
- In what order do two players' food attractions resolve their money and VP gains?
- What color are hooligans?
- Where can you place drawn visitors, and can you put hooligans and patrons anywhere?
- Can visitors go to merchandise attractions that have no visitor spaces?
- Does a patron placed on the Intern specialist card count as in the park when dinosaurs eat visitors?
- Does Security Guard 1 let you return hooligans and redraw more than once in the same round?
- Can dinosaurs eat visitors waiting in the entrance line?
- After dinosaurs eat visitors, do you refill the empty park spaces from the queue before scoring?
5. Cleanup Phase
Completing Objectives
- If two players complete the same objective in the same phase, do both claim it?
- Must you claim an objective as soon as you meet its requirement?
- Must the DNA still be in cold storage at the end of the phase to claim a DNA cold storage objective?
- If two players tie on a most-money objective card, who claims it?
- Can you claim two objectives in the same round if you complete two different ones?
- Does money from a food stall or food attraction count toward an objective that asks for money from patrons?
- Does money from hooligans count toward an objective that asks for money from patrons?
- Do temporary bonuses count toward security-level or Reach X Security objectives?
- Does 'fill all but 4 zones in your park' require exactly 4 empty zones, and does a recipe fill its zone right away?
- For objectives that ask you to create dinosaurs of several species or types, what counts as a different species?
- What does the objective to exchange 1 or 2 DNA of the same rarity mean?
- What counts as a modifier for objectives that say to earn VP from patrons without modifiers?
- Does the Earn 6 VP without modifiers from attractions objective count patrons who paid money at a food attraction?
- If you score 10 VP and then add modifier VP in the same round, does the Earn 8 VP without modifiers objective still count?
- Do VP lost to eaten visitors count against an Earn X VP from patrons objective?
- Does the solo objective to earn or score X in a single round mean exactly X?
- Does the Hats attraction count toward end-game objectives?
- Do dinosaur exhibits count as attractions for end-game objectives?
- How does the secret money objective work?
- Is a medium objective card scored if the game ends before anyone claims it?
- Does the 'have 5 lab upgrades' objective count the pre-printed lab upgrade tiles?
- What is the Short Game Hooligan objective, and how does it affect game end?
- On the cover-the-most-squares objective, what counts as a square?
- Do scientists used as workers count toward a seven-workers objective?
- Does the short objective to earn 6 VP from attractions count VP printed on attraction tiles?
Game End
- Does the game end immediately when you complete the required objectives?
- Do dinosaurs and attractions score their VP when built, or only at game end?
- Do you lose VP at game end if a paddock has fewer dinosaurs than its capacity?
- Can your score go below zero in Dinosaur Island?
- How is leftover money used to break a tie at game end?
- What happens when a player's score passes 50 on the victory point track?
- Do you need to complete every objective to end the game?
- How are dinosaur exhibits and attractions scored at game end?
Solo Rules
- How do you win the solo game of Dinosaur Island?
- In solo play, what happens to the recipes, attractions and lab upgrades the AI buys?
- In solo play, can you try to complete the AI's objective card?
- In solo play, when are attraction and built dinosaur victory points scored?
- In solo play, is the die in spot 6 ever removed by the AI card?
- In solo play, do you roll and place the DNA dice before revealing the AI card for the round?
- In solo play, how do ties on the AI draft flowchart resolve, and how far does the company cube move?
- How do you set up a solo game: do you remove the 3 and 4 player tokens?
- Where does the ninth worker go in solo setup?
- In solo play, what happens to patrons that get eaten?
- What do the numbers under the dinosaurs on a solo objective card mean?
- In the solo game, must you hire three specialists in one round to complete the hire objective?
- In the solo game, does the objective to earn $8 from patrons in a single round count if you earn more than $8?
- Does the solo objective to upgrade and fill 2 paddocks completely require level 4 paddocks?
- Does the solo objective to score 8 VPs in a single round count points scored in the Cleanup Phase?
- In solo play, does the 10 VP bonus require exactly one objective each round?
- In solo play, what happens if you score no objective in a round?
- In solo play, if you assign only one scientist in the Research Phase, what happens to the other two?
Variants
Easily Missed Rules
Dinosaur Island: Totally LiquidExpansion
- Where does a dinosaur created with the Fantasy Island recipe go, and how many can the recipe make?
- Does a dinosaur made through Fantasy Island add excitement and threat, and score end-game VP?
- Do facility dinosaurs, such as baby dinos, Mega Rex and Fantasy Island dinosaurs, count toward dinosaur objectives?
- Does a built Fantasy Island attraction with no dinosaur on it cost the -10 VP penalty at game end?
- Where does a wild fantasy attraction tile go, and do you choose which attraction type it is?
- Do Fantasy Island attraction tiles count as dinosaur exhibits, for example for the PR card?
- Do the Mosasaurus and Kronosaurus recipe tiles have any threat?
- Do executives that work as scientists give you extra actions in Phase 1?
- Can you have more than one MegaRex in your park?
- Does the Security Chief executive give two no-cost upgrades when using Tool Bench II?
- How many patrons and hooligans go in the bag for a five-player Totally Liquid game?
- In the Solo AI campaign, which Totally Liquid modules are used in each scenario?
- What happens when you draft the red Threat Die?
- How does the Reptile Resort hotel work?
- Can the Reptile Resort hotel take patrons waiting in line?
- Can hooligans or VIPs be stored in the Reptile Resort hotel?
- Why do the Totally Liquid short, medium and long games use the same number of objectives?
- Does the Totally Liquid Corporate Spy block an opponent from using that lab slot?
- How often do you roll the extra DNA die for the Parks and Rex facility?
- How many park zones does a dinosaur exhibit cover in the Blueprints module?
- Can marine creatures be incubated, and as what?
- Which lab spaces can a normal lab upgrade cover in Totally Liquid?
- Can you build Tool Bench II after covering Tool Bench with another upgrade?
- How do marine creatures count for Blueprints?
- Do executives act as an extra worker or scientist, or do they replace one?
- Does Money Bags give you a third purchase in the Market Phase?
- Can you send your own worker to the Casino?
- Do all water dinosaurs add threat?
- In Totally Liquid solo mode, are all visitors put in the bag at setup?
- How much money does the solo player start with?
- What does 'smallest dinosaur' mean when the AI CEO takes the smallest recipe?
- How many Basic and Difficult AI action cards make up the Totally Liquid solo deck?
- Does the AI player's paddock need upgrades to hold dinosaurs?
- Does the AI score its Blueprint?
- Does the AI keep collecting recipes for its Blueprint until it has them all?
- Does the solo AI get full excitement when it creates a dinosaur?
- What does 'Basic' mean on the solo AI card, and when does the AI make a basic dinosaur?
- In Totally Liquid solo mode, does the AI add only one dinosaur in Phase 3?
- How does the Totally Liquid solo AI break ties when two options meet its criteria?
- Which objective length does the Totally Liquid solo AI use?
- Can the solo AI build an attraction over an existing attraction in its park?
- Does the solo AI use blueprints to choose attractions when the blueprint module is not in play?
- In Totally Liquid solo mode, does the AI take three actions per phase, and what happens when it cannot take an action?
- Does the solo AI's Action card with >Adv pick a die with more than one advanced DNA?
- Are goats discarded from the Goat Pen to reduce threat removed from the game?
- Does the permanent player order plot twist keep the same first player each round, or pass turn order clockwise each round?
- Does a Totally Liquid plot-twist die that adds to the game count as an extra die beyond the player-count DNA dice?
- With Totally Liquid, do 4- and 5-player games add two DNA dice for the plot twist, or only one?
- Do two plot twists that both give hooligans benefits conflict, so the second is discarded and redrawn?
- What happens when a newly revealed plot twist cancels or changes one already in play?
- Does Social Media Manager count the hooligans you drew if you then return or redraw them?
- Do you capture hooligans with Rent-a-Cop before or after placing them in your park?
- Does the Technical Advisor executive add to the scientist's cold storage DNA limit increase?
- Does the Cretaceous Casino's DNA Dice Dash II roll two dice, and do visitors take whatever the die shows?
- Does the Casino Hooligan Havoc count the initial draw or the final tally of hooligans?
- Does Hooligan Havoc require guessing how many hooligans you will draw?
- Can the lab create both a baby and an adult dinosaur, and how does the Dino Incubator egg work?
- Does Mega Rex score patrons for seats when no Mega Rex dinosaur is built?
- Can executives be used without the park expansions (Facilities)?
- Does Boss Hog take up both slots when he activates two single slots?
- Is the Chief Dino Officer's excitement bonus permanent, and is it given per dinosaur built?
- Can you take only one upgrade with Tool Bench II, or must you do both?
- Are the Totally Liquid components usable with the base game's solo mode?
- Is Totally Liquid a standalone game or an expansion?
- Is the fifth player included in the Totally Liquid expansion or only in the Kickstarter edition?
- How do you set up a five-player Totally Liquid game?
- Do the pink dinosaurs in Totally Liquid mix into the base game dinosaur supply?
- Can any dinosaur go in any paddock, or are water and land paddocks restricted?
- Which meeples do you add for the VIP plot twist in Totally Liquid?
- Are campaign bonuses, such as an executive, kept for all later games?
- Can marine dinosaur recipe stacks be cycled, and are blueprint layouts fixed?
- Who can claim the $4 DNA die face and the money die, and is the money die's cash multiplied?
- With the Totally Liquid objective counts and game-length chart, when does the game end?
- Does the Blueprints PR card make a completed blueprint score 10 VP or the next level value?