Dinosaurs belong in tabletop wargames - just put any model dinosaur side by side with a 28mm scale miniature and you'll see how perfect they are together. And there's no shortage of miniature wargames with dinosaurs in them, whether that's fantasy dinos in Warhammer, sci-fi dinos in The Drowned Earth, or real dinosaurs in various indie games going all the way back to the 70s. Now Black Site Studios is filling an evolutionary niche that has been empty until now: We Played God is a dinosaur miniature game with the vibes of a Jurassic Park-style disaster movie.
Black Site Studio makes some of the best miniature wargames for very niche interests: the Doom-coded Demonship; the horror wargames Don't Look Back and Violent Dark; and the delightfully odd Lunar, which is a skirmish wargame set in the 1960s on the moon. Compared to these idiosyncratic offerings, 'We Played God' is practically mainstream: the genetically reconstructed dinosaurs at Eden scientific park have broken loose, and your characters must somehow survive.
So it's Jurassic Park with the serial numbers filed off - nice. The game is currently raising funds on Gamefound until July 18. There are several pledge levels. At a base level, for $60 you can get the physical and PDF version of the core rulebook and 'The Seraph Directive' expansion; and for $62 you can get the PDF versions of the books plus the STLs needed to print the survivors on a home 3D printer. Just add toy dinosaurs, and you're good to go!
Black Site Studio has made a number of games that play out on very small boards, and this is no exception - it uses a two foot square battlefield. While the game is miniature agnostic, Black Site has designed some very nice survivor miniatures, and solid dinosaurs, not to mention a set of excellent terrain.
We haven't seen an early copy of the rules, so can't comment on the quality. There are some neat features - for a start this is a solo or co-op game, with a narrative campaign included in the main rulebook. Throughout the course of the campaign you'll also uncover secret codes that you can enter on the We Played God website that will unlock lore, items, or even update the scenario. This info will also be available as PDFs, so don't worry if your regular gaming venue has no internet access.
What's your favorite dinosaur? Adults don't ask one another that question as much as kids do, and I think it's a shame. We're always open to dinosaur chat in the official Wargamer Discord community - come and let us know if you're an Ornithomimus fangirl or a Baryonix stan. We also don't discriminate against non-dinosaur paleo-creatures, so Deinosuchus and Quetzlcoatlus enjoyers are equally welcome.
Want to get your dinosaur miniatures to the table even quicker? Check out Din-o'-War, a truly indie wargame all about dinosaurs with whopping great cyber weapons strapped to them. And for fans of solo wargaming, have you heard the news about the second edition of Fallout Wasteland Warfare?