The Dinosaur Island Midgame: Building Your Lab Engine

By round three or four, every park has a few dinosaurs, a few upgrades, and a plan. The midgame is where those plans either become a machine that makes points every round or stall out for lack of workers, money, or DNA. This lesson is about building the machine.

The Worker Phase is a budget

The Worker Phase happens at the same time for everyone, and you cannot affect anyone else’s lab. That makes it pure planning. You have a fixed number of workers, a fixed amount of money, and a fixed amount of DNA. Each lab slot can be used once per round unless it says unlimited.

Your starting lab gives you:

• DNA Refinement I: turn two basic DNA into one advanced DNA.
• Dino Research I: create one dinosaur. It has two slots: one takes a single worker, the other takes 2 workers.
• Tool Bench, unlimited: upgrade a paddock’s capacity, or raise security by 1, paying the cost each time.
• Venture Capital: slots that pay $3, $2, and $1.

Plus whatever upgrades you have bought. Each one is another place a worker can go.

What a dinosaur really costs

Say you want to create a carnivore. Its recipe adds 2 threat. To keep your security level with your threat, you need two security raises. So the full bill is:

• The DNA on the recipe, and maybe a refinement action to make the advanced DNA.
• One worker on Dino Research.
• Two Tool Bench actions for security, each a worker, plus the money for each level.
• Room in the paddock, and if it is full, a paddock upgrade first.

That can be four or five workers for one carnivore. An herbivore adds only 1 threat, so it often costs one security action instead of two. This is the real reason herbivores feel easy and carnivores feel heavy, and why worker count limits how fast a park grows.

The Tool Bench is unlimited, so you can stack several security raises there in one round, as long as you have workers and money.

Money in the midgame

Money comes from three main places: $1 per patron you draw, a market pass for $2, and Venture Capital. Food attractions can also turn a patron into $2 instead of 1 VP.

Spending lines up against it: security levels from $1 to $5 each, paddock upgrades equal to the new capacity ($2, then $3, then $4), market items, and DNA purchases.

Security gets more expensive as it rises. Using the lab board’s chart, raising security from 1 all the way to 10 costs $29 in total, and every level after that costs $5. Plan dinosaurs in an order that keeps security affordable, and do not let threat run far ahead.

Balance your three tracks

Three numbers grow together in a healthy park:

• Excitement decides how many visitors you draw.
• Capacity, your attraction spaces plus one space per dinosaur, decides how many can score.
• Security decides how many survive.

If excitement runs ahead of capacity, visitors pay $1 and stand in line. If threat runs ahead of security, they get eaten. If capacity runs ahead of excitement, you built spaces nobody fills. Each round, look for the track that is falling behind and spend there.

Engines take time to pay back

A lab upgrade or specialist bought in round three works in every round after it. Bought in the final round, it does almost nothing. The same is true of extra workers. Front-load your engine: workers, Dino Research II, DNA Refinement II, and useful upgrades in the first half of the game, then shift your money into dinosaurs, exhibits, and attractions that score at the end.

How long is the game? That depends on the objectives. A short game leaves less time for engines to pay back. The objectives lesson at Level 3 shows how to read the pace.

Two dinosaurs a round

A good midgame target is a lab that can make two dinosaurs in a round when the DNA is there. Your starting Dino Research I can already do it, with 3 workers across its two slots. That means enough workers to create two dinosaurs and also raise security, and DNA flowing in from research and refinement. When you reach that, your excitement climbs fast, and your Park Phase starts to outscore everyone else’s.

Our explainer on worker placement has more on why extra actions matter so much in games where every slot needs a body.

A midgame checklist

1. How many workers do I have, and what will each one do?
2. Does my security plan cover every dinosaur I make this round?
3. Which track is falling behind: excitement, capacity, or security?