First Giants is a wonderfully straightforward tableau-building card game about excavating dinosaur fossils and assembling museum displays to score victory points. Mechanically, it’s about as simple as modern Euro games come. You’ll acquire cards, convert them into points, improve your efficiency, and repeat. It’s a gameplay loop that has been explored countless times over the past two decades, to the point where releasing a game in 2026 that relies almost entirely on this formula feels, at first glance, a little old-fashioned.

And yet… That’s exactly why I think First Giants succeeds.

The elegant rules, gorgeous illustrations, exceptional rulebook, and effortless teachability combine to create something that’s becoming surprisingly rare in today’s hobby: a genuinely approachable strategy game. One that doesn’t require an hour-long rules explanation, twenty different icon references, or a veteran gamer sitting beside you translating every symbol on the table.

Looking through other reviews, I couldn’t help but notice a common theme. Most approach First Giants from the perspective of experienced hobby gamers, asking whether it offers enough mechanical innovation and depth to compete with other games in this genre. Often comparing it to much more involved and complex games like Elysium. Let me save you the agony here: it does not, not even a little bit.

That makes a lot of sense on the surface, but I think that’s an approach that answers the wrong question.

First Giants isn’t trying to reinvent tableau building quite intentionally. It’s trying to introduce it, more specifically, it’s trying to introduce it with a theme beloved by kids, in a way that kids can get their heads around it. I have been board gaming now for over 40 years, and I can tell you that in all that time, if any kids between the ages of 8-15 come into my office to pick a game, they will grab one with dinosaurs on it 100% of the time. It’s just how it is, kids love dinosaurs! Hence, a game about Dinosaurs has to be for kids.

If you’re looking for the next Ark Nova, Terraforming Mars, or Earth, this probably isn’t the game that’s going to blow your socks off. But if you’re looking for a game you can comfortably put in front of your children, your parents, or friends who think UNO represents the pinnacle of modern board game design, First Giants suddenly becomes a much more interesting proposition.

Wrap that universal appeal around a genuinely solid gateway game, and you’ve got something that’s arguably far more valuable than yet another mechanically brilliant Euro destined to be played exclusively by people who already own fifty mechanically brilliant Euros.

Sometimes a game doesn’t need to innovate. Sometimes it just needs to be exactly the game someone is ready to discover. That is the target audience for First Giants, people taking their first steps, and most importantly, kids.

Overview

Final Score: (4.05) Great Family Game 

First Giants takes one of the hobby’s most familiar mechanisms, card-based tableau building, and strips it down to its absolute essentials. There are no elaborate engine-building chains, no sprawling technology trees, and no half-dozen subsystems all competing for your attention. You buy cards, build a collection of dinosaur fossils, use their abilities as efficiently as possible, and eventually convert those collections into museum displays worth victory points.

And……that’s pretty much the entire game.

Normally, that might sound like criticism, in most reviews I read for First Giants, that was in fact the criticism levied against it. The game doesn’t innovate established mechanics, it lacks depth, and it’s, in a word, too simple. I see an issue with that approach to First Giants, this is a game that does those things very intentionally.

At no point did I get the impression that the designers lacked the ability to make the game more complex with greater strategic depth. Quite the opposite. There are countless directions they could have taken the design, additional resources, more player interaction, asymmetric powers, multi-stage fossil excavations, set collection bonuses, evolving museums, the possibilities are practically endless.

They simply chose not to. That restraint says far more about the designer’s intentions than their ability.

First Giants knows exactly what it wants to be.

This isn’t a game designed for hobby veterans looking for their next heavy Euro obsession. It’s a game about dinosaurs aimed at families and younger players, officially recommended for ages 10 and up, although I wouldn’t hesitate to play it with children in the 6-8 age range.

And that’s where everything suddenly clicks.

The fun isn’t found in optimizing an economic engine or calculating the perfect scoring combo. The fun is discovering dinosaurs.

When I played First Giants with kids, the strategy quickly became secondary. They weren’t excited because they had found the most efficient card. They were excited because they had found their favorite dinosaur. Every new fossil sparked questions, conversations, and enthusiastic declarations about which prehistoric giant was the coolest.

That tells me the game succeeded.

The artwork deserves enormous credit here. Every card is beautifully illustrated in a soft watercolor style that feels more like the pages of a children’s natural history book than a traditional board game. Combined with the thick, oversized components, everything about First Giants feels welcoming, tactile, and wonderfully inviting.

The production continues that philosophy with one of my favorite inclusions in the entire box: the dinosaur appendix.

On paper, it’s simply a reference booklet explaining each card, organized by dinosaur types.

In reality, it feels like the kind of guide you’d pick up at the entrance to a natural history museum at that exciting moment right before you get to see all those wonderful giant monsters on display.

When I introduced First Giants to younger players, that booklet quickly became the most popular component in the box. They passed it around, argued over who got to read it next, and spent far more time asking me questions about dinosaurs than they did asking about the rules of the game.

That’s the moment where First Giants reveals what it’s really trying to accomplish.

It’s not simply teaching children how tableau building works. It’s encouraging curiosity.

I suspect that’s exactly what the designers were hoping would happen. In fact, as I read the bios of Bret Gilbert and Mathew Dunstan, the two designers behind First Giants, I could almost imagine the conversations they had as they made this game.

As someone with a large extended family, where “Uncle Chris’s house” has slowly become synonymous with board games, I have absolutely no doubt First Giants will see plenty of table time over the coming years. It occupies a space in my collection that very few games do, a genuinely engaging gateway game that children actually want to play because the theme captures their imagination before the mechanics ever have a chance to, and strictly speaking, need to.

I don’t think First Giants will become the next great strategy classic. I don’t think it was ever trying to.

What it is is a beautifully produced, thoughtfully designed family game that understands its audience perfectly.

Components

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: Great chunky components that feel and look fantastic on the table.  Great rules reference.

Cons: As a family game, a bigger, more deluxe production would have been worth the investment.

First Giants comes in a surprisingly compact box packed primarily with cards, alongside a handful of chunky cardboard components used to track your expeditions and construct your museum displays and various tokens.

Everything that is in the box is exceptionally well-made.

The cards are beautifully illustrated, the cardboard is thick and durable, and everything is uniformly designed with purpose. Throughout the production, there’s a consistent feeling that the designers expected this game to spend most of its life on family tables rather than sitting shrink-wrapped on a collector’s shelf.

One detail I particularly appreciated is that almost everything is just a little larger than it strictly needs to be. The components are easy to pick up, easy to read across the table, and sturdy enough to survive the sort of enthusiastic handling children are famous for. Anyone who has introduced board games to younger players knows exactly what I’m talking about. Components aren’t just played with, they’re squeezed, bent, stacked into towers, and occasionally inspected with fingers orange from cheese snacks.

First Giants feels built for that reality.

If I have one criticism, it’s almost an odd one. Part of me wishes there were a deluxe edition.

Not because the game needs more components mechanically, but because kids are naturally drawn to spectacle. A giant box filled with oversized dinosaur meeples, plastic fossils, excavation trays, or elaborate museum pieces would have absolutely no impact on the gameplay… but it would have an enormous impact on getting younglings excited before the first card is even dealt.

Sometimes, presentation is a key part of the experience, and in the case of First Giants, I think it’s doubly so.

Even without that hypothetical deluxe treatment, though, First Giants is an excellent production. The artwork is gorgeous, the components feel fantastic in the hand, and everything has clearly been designed with durability in mind.

Given its target audience, I honestly can’t think of much more I could ask for.

Theme

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros:  As a family game, the dinosaur theme is a homerun.  Beautiful art, appealing aesthetic, sells the entire thing long before any rules come out.

Cons: I have never met anyone who doesn’t like dinosaurs.

The choice of theme for First Giants is about as close to perfect as you could hope for. In fact, I’m not convinced the game would have had anywhere near the same appeal had the designers chosen almost anything else.

Dinosaurs sell.

Kids are fascinated by them, adults are fascinated by them, and there’s something universally appealing about uncovering creatures that ruled the Earth millions of years ago. The theme immediately sparks curiosity before a single rule has been explained, and that’s a tremendous advantage for a family game.

Better still, the mechanics support that theme remarkably well.

Your little wooden explorers travel to excavation sites, uncover fossils, add those discoveries to your collection, and eventually transform them into museum displays. Every step of the gameplay reinforces the narrative of building your own natural history museum, and because the actions are so intuitive, teaching the game becomes surprisingly effortless.

That last point is more important than it might sound.

When introducing kids to board games, explaining mechanics in purely mechanical terms is often a losing battle. Telling a child they need to “optimize their tableau” or “manage their engine” is a great way to watch their eyes glaze over.

Tell them they’re archaeologists searching for dinosaur fossils to display in their very own museum, and everything falls into place for them.

Everything on the table has an obvious purpose. There are excavation sites to explore, fossils to discover, a museum to fill, and prehistoric giants waiting to become the centerpiece of the next exhibit. The rules almost explain themselves because every action naturally follows the story the game is telling.

The artwork deserves special recognition here. Quite simply, it’s gorgeous.

The soft watercolor illustrations give every dinosaur an almost storybook quality that immediately captures attention. Before long, players stop asking which card is worth the most points and start asking, “Can I have the Triceratops?” or “Look at this one!”

That’s exactly what you want.

The artwork transforms the cards from game pieces into discoveries, and for younger players, that’s an important distinction. They’re no longer collecting points.

They’re collecting dinosaurs.

That’s a subtle difference, but it’s one that First Giants understands perfectly.

For a family game, I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better thematic execution. The theme is engaging, the mechanics reinforce it at every opportunity, and the artwork does the rest. It’s a wonderful example of a game where every design decision pulls in the same direction, making the whole experience feel natural, intuitive, and just a little bit magical.

I can imagine, however, that for more serious gamers looking for a strategic experience, this probably won’t quite do the trick. Sure, dinosaurs are cool, but for most seasoned gamers, collecting dinosaurs because dinosaurs are cool is going to be insufficient for a sales pitch.

Gameplay

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: Simple rules that are easy to teach and learn make it ideal as a casual, kid-friendly family game.

Cons: There is just insufficient strategic depth or variability to hold your typical board game enthusiast’s interest.

When it comes to playing First Giants with children, I’ll say it plainly. This is a wonderful game.

Collecting dinosaur fossils, building museum exhibits, and scoring points is already more than enough to keep younger players engaged. Better yet, the game is simple enough that the rules disappear into the background, allowing children to focus on what they’re actually doing rather than how they’re doing it. Judged as a family game, First Giants delivers exactly what it promises.

Viewed through that lens, I’d happily give the gameplay five stars.

Let’s put on the seasoned gamer’s hat for a minute.

While I genuinely love the presentation, the production, and the overall concept, mechanically First Giants never really develops beyond its opening act.

That isn’t because the game is simple.

Simple games can still possess incredible strategic depth. Ticket to Ride, Small World, and Wingspan are all relatively accessible games, yet they reward repeated plays because players gradually discover richer decision spaces, stronger combinations, and increasingly subtle strategies.

First Giants never really gets there.

Most dinosaur cards either provide an immediate one-time effect or a passive ability that only rarely and mostly unreliably triggers while the card remains in your tableau. The problem is that there’s very little incentive to keep those cards around. Once they’ve provided their play value, you’re almost always better off converting them into museum displays and scoring the points at the first opportunity.

There simply isn’t enough engine building, if there is any at all, to create interesting long-term decisions.

Likewise, the museum objectives remain extremely straightforward and the same each game. You’re either collecting dinosaurs of the same species across multiple colors, or assembling sequential dinosaurs within a single color. On top of that, players receive bonus points for constructing the largest museum exhibit in each color.

That’s the puzzle. And unfortunately, it doesn’t evolve beyond that.

Because the objectives never change from game to game, the decision space quickly becomes fairly obvious. You draft the cards that best fit your current collection, trigger any useful abilities along the way, and convert them into points as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

There are certainly decisions to make.

Some cards work better together than others, timing matters, and paying attention to what your opponents are collecting is worthwhile.

But the strategy rarely feels particularly surprising or interesting.

There aren’t many moments where a clever engine suddenly comes online, an unusual strategy emerges, or a risky long-term investment pays off spectacularly. Most of the “correct” plays reveal themselves fairly quickly, and once you’ve understood the scoring system, subsequent games tend to follow the same patterns.

Perhaps the biggest limiting factor is how dependent the game becomes on the card market. Since you have very little control over which dinosaurs appear and player order determines who gets first choice, success often comes down to whether the right fossils become available at the right moment. You can certainly make mistakes, but the optimal decisions are usually quite obvious once the available cards are revealed.

For experienced gamers, that means repeated plays don’t uncover much hidden depth. The puzzle remains largely the same.

That’s perfectly acceptable for the audience First Giants is trying to reach. In fact, constantly introducing new systems or complicated strategies would probably work against its greatest strength as an approachable family game.

For hobby gamers, however, I think the experience is a different story.

Even as a filler, First Giants is probably too lightweight to keep seasoned players engaged for very long. It’s enjoyable, charming, and beautifully presented, but mechanically it never asks enough of its audience to remain interesting over repeated plays.

And that’s perfectly okay. Not every game needs to be designed for veteran gamers.

Sometimes the best family games are the ones that know exactly where to stop before complexity begins getting in the way of fun. First Giants understands that balance exceptionally well, even if it means veteran gamers will likely move on after a play or two.

Replayability and Longevity

Score: 
Tilt: 

Pros: As a family game, the theme will keep this one alive for a lot longer than the mechanics.

Cons:  Once you have played this game once, you have seen all there is to meaningfully see in this mechanic.

Replayability is one of those categories where the target audience matters more than almost any other.

When it comes to younger players, replayability is rarely driven by mechanical depth. It’s driven by emotional attachment. Children don’t ask whether the decision matrix has enough strategic variance or whether the scoring objectives are sufficiently dynamic. They ask whether they get to collect dinosaurs again.

First Giants absolutely delivers on that front.

The theme, artwork, and tactile components are engaging enough that I can easily see families returning to this game again and again. Children love repetition, particularly when they’re still discovering the world the game presents. I certainly don’t imagine many complaints from the younger audience this game was designed for.

Veteran gamers, however, are a different story.

For experienced players, I think First Giants probably has one or two really enjoyable plays before most of what it has to offer has been explored.

The first reason is that the game’s objectives never change. Every play uses the same museum collections, the same scoring conditions, and ultimately asks players to solve the same puzzle. Once you’ve identified the optimal ways to pursue those objectives, subsequent games feel very familiar.

The second issue is the card deck itself.

Every card is included in every game, and because cards are never permanently removed from play, it’s relatively easy to keep track of what remains in the deck. You may not see every dinosaur every game, but you quickly learn which collections are still viable and which ones can safely be abandoned. The uncertainty gradually disappears, taking some of the excitement with it.

For seasoned gamers, that’s probably the game’s greatest weakness.

There simply aren’t enough moving parts to make repeated plays feel substantially different. There are no variable objectives, no modular setup, no alternative strategies waiting to be discovered after your fifth or sixth play. Once you’ve experienced the game once or twice, you’ve largely experienced everything it has to offer mechanically.

That sounds harsher than I actually intend. Because I don’t think First Giants was ever designed to become someone’s forever game.

It was designed to be a family’s dinosaur game. Those are two very different goals.

As a gateway game for children and casual families, I think it will enjoy a long life simply because the theme continues to capture imaginations long after the mechanics have become familiar. For hobby gamers chasing the next endlessly replayable strategy game, however, I suspect First Giants will quickly become a pleasant memory rather than a permanent fixture on the shelf.

Conclusion

First Giants fills a very specific role in my collection, and it’s a role that comes up far more often than you might expect.

At my house, it’s perfectly normal for nieces, nephews, and the neighborhood to come over and ask, “Can we play a board game?” When that happens, I don’t want to spend twenty minutes explaining rules or worrying that the game will be too complicated. I want something that’s easy to teach, immediately engaging, and capable of capturing their imagination.

A game about collecting dinosaurs does exactly that.

I also think First Giants makes an excellent gateway into modern board gaming. It introduces players to tableau building, resource conversion, and light engine-building concepts without ever overwhelming them. Those are mechanics they’ll encounter throughout the hobby, and First Giants teaches them in perhaps the gentlest way possible.

Those two qualities alone are enough to justify its place on my shelf.

If you’re a seasoned hobby gamer looking for your next strategic obsession, I suspect you’ll bounce off this one fairly quickly. The puzzle simply doesn’t evolve enough over repeated plays to keep veteran players engaged for the long haul.

I think that’s judging the game by the wrong standard, but it is a far more common standard in the hobby today.

If your collection already has plenty of heavy strategy games but lacks something you can confidently teach to children, families, or complete newcomers to the hobby, First Giants is an easy recommendation.