Let’s look at another new to me game this year. This was part of a bigger crowdfunding campaign that Allplay did. I find it interesting how they do campaigns of three or four games and you can get them all at a discount. The risk, of course, is that not all of the games are good. I’ve played Mind Space over on Malts and Meeples, so you can check that one out from the group there. But is Chomp, a game about dinosaurs, going to be a good fit for a small box?

How to Play Chomp

Chomp is an open drafting, tableau building, feed your dinosaurs game. And that should explain what’s going on, not really. Let’s start out with the goal. In Chomp you are trying to score the most points for having fed dinosaurs and points from goal scoring cards that you draft.

The game has a Point Salad style drafting mechanism. You have an open group of cards. Three of them are on the dinosaurs and the land. The other three are on scoring mechanisms. On your turn you take one of those cards. And the cards need to stay on the side that they are on.

The ones with the dinosaurs you play out into your grid or tableau of dinosaurs. You are trying to place it so that groups of like dinosaurs are together and fed. The carnivores need to be near watering holes where there is meat or herbivores that are the same size or smaller than them. And herbivores need to be near plants. Neither of them want to be near the tarpits, because even if they are fed, if they are adjacent to tarpits, in they go. But if you get a tarpit or something that won’t score for you, you can always layer your next dinosaur card over it in your tableau.

Then scoring cards will give you your own unique end game scoring. So you might get points for the big carnivores or the most dinosaurs at the edge of your tableau. Whatever it is, they add in additional end game scoring bonuses. And most points at the end of the game wins.

Dinosaurs vs Scoring

That, like in Point Salad, is the crux of the game. The difference is that Chomp is a much faster game. It is built to be a filler as you only draft nine total cards. So how many scoring cards do you want to take versus how many dinosaur cards.

The one difference between Chomp and Point Salad is that in Chomp you can still score points from the dinosaurs. It might be that you get most of your points from the dinosaurs if you can set it up so that your herds of dinosaurs are fed. I’ll talk about how that’s interesting soon. So it isn’t as much a cut and dry that you need to push for three to four scoring cards. That is about half your cards. Instead, you might build towards a couple of scoring cards and snag them when they score you good points.

Feeding the Herd

Another element of Chomp that I enjoy is how feeding the herd works. It makes knowing if a dinosaur is fed or not fairly easy. There is a hierarchy where if there is a tarpits, doesn’t matter if they are fed, they are dead. But otherwise if any dinosaur in a group of like dinosaurs is adjacent to the food source, the whole group is.

You might play a group of medium herbivores across five tiles or spaces, but as long as one is adjacent to food and they are all adjacent to each other, that whole group is fed. So it makes for a simple system. At the same time, if a carnivore is adjacent to a herd of herbivores and those are it’s food, it will make that whole herd extinct. So it makes for some good tableau building.

Game Speed

This is an area that I want to say is a bit more of a mixed bag for me. I like how quickly the game plays. When we sat down and learned it, we immediately shuffled up and played again. The game doesn’t take more than 15 minutes as a two player game. Longer with more players, but not long because while each player has options, they are limited and you don’t make decisions that many times.

That said, you also don’t make decisions that many times. Sometimes it is very obvious as to what the decision is that you should make. That isn’t to say that the game doesn’t offer decisions, but because it’s only nine cards and one of them is given to you at the start of the game, it moves quickly. And I like that about the game.

Who Is Chomp For?

Chomp is for people who are looking for a simple but fun filler game. It is fast, the decision making space is pretty light. But there is enough that it won’t be boring for someone who is looking for some decisions. I think it’s a good balancing act for that. And it’s a small box, as I’ve said before, if it’s a small box light, few decisions filler, it can stick around my collection.

Final Thoughts on Chomp

Firstly, I haven’t played it yet at all player counts. I want to play it solo and I want to play it at four. This isn’t a game, though, that I look at it and I think I must play it solo. Instead I look at it is a very fun filler experience which is honestly what I was hoping for from the game. The box is small, I didn’t expect something big and heavy. I expected something fun as I got to play out dinosaurs and have a good time with that.

And for me, the decision making space is just enough to keep the game interesting. You don’t know which scoring objectives are going to come up. But you might try and set-up some scoring objectives for yourself. There are decisions to be made in the game that it’s fun and it’s fast. And I don’t think I’d want much more to think about. I think the combination of the two things, feeding your dinosaurs and scoring cards, is enough to make it a unique puzzle every time.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

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