Dino Party is a party brawler from Studio Nachtwerk — Flo and Phil, two developers in Berlin, and this is their first game. It launched in August at $11.99 and sits at Very Positive on Steam, both overall and on recent reviews.
Our verdict: This chaotic party brawler delivers pure couch-gaming fun with its punchy combat and minigame mayhem that’ll keep you and friends laughing for hours. There’s more design intelligence under the hood than the dinosaurs suggest.
The Moveset Never Changes, and That’s the Smart Bit
Score goals while actively brawling. Team play and sabotage in the same breath.
Dodge collapsing floors — and shove everyone else onto the bits that are going.
Frantic, short, and exactly the kind of round that generates shouting.
Strong winds, meteor rain, super speed. Modifiers that reshape a mode mid-match.
The variety maths is the other strength. Fifteen minigames across thirty-five maps, and the maps genuinely change how a mode plays — one player noted that the same game type can feel “super chaotic” on one map and “more methodical and tactical” on another. Layer the random modifiers on top and you get what they described as “virtually infinite game modes,” which is hyperbole they immediately admitted to and then defended anyway.
Don’t Buy This to Play With Strangers
Build a Dinosaur
The customisation is deeper than the genre norm, and players single it out constantly. It isn’t a character-select screen with alternate skins — you’re mixing dino types, colours, patterns and accessories into something that’s actually yours. One reviewer described it as a more in-depth version of what Fall Guys does.
It matters more than cosmetics usually do in a party game, because everyone at the table wants to be visibly distinct, and Studio Nachtwerk understood that well enough to hand you starting currency so you can differentiate yourself immediately rather than after three hours of grinding. One family reported buying rainbow eyes and back spikes in their first session and being delighted about it.
There is one piece of friction worth flagging: the outfit menu isn’t accessible from the lobby. If someone wants to tinker with their dinosaur, they have to leave to a separate menu and save. A player put it memorably — they have a significant other for whom that’s “too high friction.” Small thing, obvious fix, and exactly the kind of note the developers seem receptive to.
Things to Know Going In
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| One Copy Covers Four PlayersRemote Play Together means a single $11.99 purchase gets four people playing, in the room or across the internet. That removes the hardest part of buying any party game — convincing three other people to spend money simultaneously. | The Outfit Menu Isn’t in the LobbyCustomising means leaving to a separate menu and saving. Minor, but in a game about everyone looking distinct it’s friction in exactly the wrong place, and one reviewer’s partner wouldn’t bother because of it. | Online Matchmaking Is EmptyPublic lobbies rarely find anyone. One player barely matched a single opponent and left a thumbs down over it. If you were hoping to play this solo against strangers, that isn’t going to work. |
| The Moveset Never ChangesPunch, shield, ground-pound, identical across all fifteen minigames — so skill accumulates instead of resetting every round. Players report genuine mindgames and “quite high level actions.” Rare thoughtfulness for a cartoon brawler. | Three Players Works, Four Is BetterReviewers playing at three had a good time and said so, while noting a full lobby is clearly the intended experience. Worth knowing if your group is usually one short. | It Hasn’t Found Its AudienceVery Positive reviews, active development, no microtransactions — and a small player base a month after launch. Nothing here is a flaw in the game, but it’s the reality the game is living in. |
| Zero MicrotransactionsCosmetics come from currency you earn playing, and they hand you enough at the start to buy something immediately. In a genre where storefronts are standard, players keep mentioning the absence unprompted. | Deliberately Shallow SoloThere’s no single-player content to speak of, and none is promised. It’s a party game doing party game things — but that does mean it sits idle unless you’ve organised something. | —Genuinely nothing else qualifies. The complaints in the reviews are a menu placement and a player count, which is a remarkably short list for a first game. |
| 15 Minigames, 35 Maps, Random ModifiersMaps meaningfully change how a mode plays — chaotic on one, tactical on another — and modifiers like strong winds and meteor rain reshape rounds mid-match. The combinatorial variety is doing real work. | —The remaining criticisms are genuinely that thin. Sixteen languages with full audio in five, Steam Deck Verified, dual-brand controller support and 38 achievements at twelve dollars is a generous package. | — |
The Verdict
Dino Party is a first game from two people in Berlin, and it’s considerably smarter than it needed to be. The decision to keep one moveset across every minigame is the sort of thing that sounds like a limitation and turns out to be the whole reason the game has depth — skill transfers, mastery accumulates, and by the third round everyone at the table is reading each other rather than mashing. Layer fifteen modes over thirty-five maps with random modifiers on top and you have a party game that keeps producing new situations long after you’ve seen everything in it.
It’s also unusually generous. Twelve dollars, no microtransactions, cosmetics you earn by playing, sixteen languages, Steam Deck Verified, both controller brands supported, and Remote Play Together so three of your friends don’t need to spend anything at all. That last one matters enormously — the hardest part of any party game purchase is coordinating four wallets, and Studio Nachtwerk simply removed the problem.
The population is thin, and that’s real. But it’s also the wrong thing to judge this on. Nobody organises a four-player brawler evening by queuing with strangers — you invite people. And because you can invite them for free, the empty matchmaking is a footnote rather than a dealbreaker for most buyers.
The honest read: if you have three friends and an evening, buy it today. At $11.99 for the whole group it’s the cheapest game night on Steam, and it’s a genuinely good one. If you’re buying this to play alone against strangers, don’t — that’s not what it is, and no patch will change that.
A player reckoned Dino Party might be the game that stops Party Animals having a monopoly on this genre. It deserves the shot.
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