As a child, my sister and I would sometimes visit my aunt and uncle. They lived about 4 hours away, so it wasn’t every weekend, but twice a year or more we’d make the trip over and spend a week there. We were about 10 years younger than my cousins, so there wasn’t much in the way of age appropriate toys and games for us to play with. By the time I was 6, all the kids toys seemed to move on from the household.

What was left behind was a smattering of board games. While I have memories of hours long games of Risk at the table, my sister and I ended played a lot of Guess Who together. It was a great toy for us, the snappy plastic tray, flipping down faces as we deduced who each other’s secret identity was, then just a quick flip of the tray to reset the game.

Dinosaur Tea Party by Rob Daviau, JR Honeycutt, and Justin D. Jacobson, published by Restoration Games in 2018 seeks to re-imagine the deductive reasoning game from my youth, but puts a charming coat of paint onto the formula. Instead of cartoonish floating heads for me to pick out the features, players are tasked with remembering the name of the dinosaurs that have come to the tea party. Every guest has a set of attributes that the players can ask about, like if they have a hat, or are currently snacking, or if they’ve brought their pet along to the party.

Players each take a card depicting one of the 20 possible dino guests, then ask questions of the other players to try and narrow down who they have on their card. The game culminates with a guess of who they think their opponents are, and the first player to guess correctly 3 times is the winner. Some dinosaurs will have quirks to throw you off, like one will always lie, while another will alternate their answers. There are plenty of little chits that you can use to keep track of who has been asked what.

Making things even more exciting, artists Matijos Gebreselassie and Jason Taylor have imagined each of these dinosaurs as the Victorian gentry. With genteel demeanour, large stuffy hats, and dainty pinkies up while sipping their tea. To add an extra layer of charm, the rulebook demands that everyone embodies the attitude and conduct of a Victorian Nobel. “Gerald, lovely of you to join us! Come hang your hat and have a spot of tea” “Gertrude, what lovely spots you have, I can’t imagine the effort it takes to maintain that complexion” “Amelia, you’re looking rather handsome these days!” “Not handsome enough if you can’t remember my name!” If you’ve been submerged in media such as Jane Austin’s novels, or Downton Abby, it’s great fun speaking in a hoity-toity manner.

Dinosaur Tea Party is a simple game, it’s not strategic, or fair by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a catalyst for imagination, it’s whimsical and hilarious with the right group. For me, the right group always includes my 6-year-old niece. With a cup of tea and cucumber sandwiches, she loves playing make believe and falls right into her role. The purpose of Dinosaur Tea Party isn’t to scratch the deductive reasoning centres of my brain, but it’s to build a relationship with my family. It excels and creating memories and bonds, and for that, I am thankful.