mr boss' design lair: October 2024

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Introducing Diamonds & Dinosaurs!!

Diamonds & Dinosaurs has hit Kickstarter! Let's explore the origins of our newest game design!

One lazy Sunday, my 10 year old son Jack asked if we could make a game together. We gathered up items from around the house - a deck of cards, plastic dinosaurs, some pirate gems, a set of dice and we created a game about adventurers hunting dinosaurs while looting gigantic diamonds.

This was the box cover I had designed for Diamonds & Dinosaurs. That's a lot of dinosaur scales to draw!

I play tested Diamonds & Dinosaurs at several LA game events and after doing a little Photoshop magic with the cards and creating the above sell-sheet, I brought the game to San Jose ProtoSpiel in 2015. The players had a lot of fun goofing off with the dinosaurs and diamonds. I knew by their response, I had something special.

There, Diamonds & Dinosaurs caught the eye of CardLords owner Tucker Smedes and we struck a deal for him to publish the game.

Here's some of the original art drawn by yours truly used in the prototype

CardLord spent several years developing Diamonds & Dinosaurs, aiming for a 2019 Kickstarter. Then the world went to hell so we held off on the Kickstarter. I think that extra time gave the game an opportunity to really shine.

During that time, Tucker did an amazing job promoting Diamonds & Dinosaurs at conventions such as RIOTcon and San Diego Comic Con. We always had a good showing with lots of players enjoying the game.

Now, Diamonds & Dinosaurs is finally coming Kickstarter! CardLords has created two amazing boxes for the game - one is lenticular, that literally leaps off the box!! The other is an epic wooden collector's box that looks like it just was shipped straight from the lost world!! Look at those raptor-toe hinges!!

Diamonds & Dinosaurs is a great card-laying, pick up and deliver, gateway game for explorers of all ages. We hope you'll love it as much as we do!