Jurassic World: Legacy of Isla Nublar. Adventure 1

 With much anticipation, we've begun playing Jurassic World: Legacy of Isla Nublar by Funko Games.
This is a 12 episode (including tutorial) legacy adventure game. 

If you're new to legacy games - the game includes new rules that are unlocked as you go, bonuses and consequences dependent on your choices, all of which are permanently added or removed from the game by means of stickers, writing on components, scratching off secret panels or just ripping cards up!

I'm a big fan of the Jurassic Park franchise, dinosaurs in general, and thematic board games. So this was always going to be a must for me.

I'm going to write up the stories we create through these adventure packs here for anyone that wants to read them. But beware that this is pure spoiler territory below. So only read on if you've either already played or don't intend to play but would like to enjoy from here.

Here be spoilers

The story starts with John Hammond arriving on the Island as the Park is freshly constructed. After multiple fever dreams (the turtorial) in which everything went wrong over and over until the last dream where it all worked out nicely, he's decided this is a good idea after all.

Our first decision sets the stage for how the game will be played - we must choose where the main gate, visitor centre and genetics lab are located on the map - by placing stickers! Which areas they're in grant different bonuses. This took nearly half an hour to place three stickers.

A few other minor additions of components and rules and we're ready to start the game - John Hammond is preparing for the topping out ceremony and wants everything to be set up ready... but a helicopter bringing in park employees crashes, apparently scattering the poor employees into the jungle! Oh no!

According to the Adventure Objectives:
1. We must find the missing park employees and bring them to safety before it's too late!
(Have at least two Park Employees inside the Visitor Center at the end of Round 5)

2. Organize the press gifts for the topping out ceremony at the Visitor Center.
(Make a row or column of merchandise)

3. We can will the gaps in the donosaur genes with DNA from West African Frogs.
(Make the described DNA sequence)

Ok so we have a philosophy from the start of keeping an acceptable minimum number of people alive, while ensuring the park is pretty and the science is marginal. We can work with that.

We have 5 rounds to rescue the Park Employees following the unknown adventure cards:

Round 1 begins with looking for the chopper itself. We know it went down in the vague area of Sector 3-5... There are 6 sectors on the map so this is literally half the island it could have landed.
John Hammond prioritises by going to the Visitor Centre to check on the merchandise display, and also see if there was an helicopter remains there... and there was! He helps the one Park Employee there in to the safety (maybe) of the Visitor Center. It seems the other employees all jumped out of the chopper before it crashed conveniently next to the Visitor Center. They'll know better next time.

Round 2 suggests we go looking further into the jungle. This time it takes us a couple of searches. We have veterinarian Gerry Harding and hunter Rober Muldoon searching the jungle, with Hammond staying at the Visitor Center barking orders across the walkie talkies like a true leader. Eventually we found another employee out there, as the dinosaurs start roaming apparently loose in the jungle, we guide the employee back toward the Visitor Center. We have the minimum acceptable survivors, this is going well!

Round 3 presents a distraction. The tall Brachiosaurs have wandered in to the helipad area and decided to make this their new home, causing havoc for travel in and out of the island. We are instructed to move them out of the way before the end of round 5. But at this point we have the Tyrannosaur and Velociraptors converging on the Visitor Center... Maybe this won't be a walk in the park after all, more like running and screaming in the park.

In Round 4 our priority was certainly the fact that the Tyrannosaur and Velociraptor had both arrived at the Visitor Center, had eaten our goat, and were looking to see what else was inside. Then we're told there's more employees out there maybe? Maybe at the volcano, maybe at the lagoon? That's a lot of maybe when we're trying to survive deadly carnivores, clear away pesky Sauropods, and arrange the merchandise nicely!
Harding checked the volcano, no one there, and came back to help Hammond who was working on the merchandise while Muldoon, armed with all the weapons and survival gear, finishes gene sequencing and then goes on a one man mission to distract the monsters outside.
We realise now that the worst that could happen is that the dinosaurs could kill each other, loosing us valuable attractions for the future park. They must be separated at once! 

Round 5 - "Help! I'm still alive!" and she's deep in the jungle, but safer than the rest of us... she can stay there.

Robert Muldoon, with his arsenal of items, manages to tranquilize the Tyrannosaur and shock prod the Velociraptors away saving the assets, I mean animals, from grievously harming each other.

Hammond and harding weigh up finding the remaining employees in the jungle and by the lagoon, or clearing away the Brachiosaurs from the helipad. But we realise there is hardly enough time to do any one of these things, however we did unlock a sweet cache of new items by finishing the gene sequencing, so it's probably worth getting the merchandise all nice and tidy. And it was, lots of new items now unlocked including an ATV!

And so the adventure concludes by teaching us about research and Park budget... which we get bonus buget for all the employees we rescued... which was the bare minimum 2... but still we got some cool items for next time!

As you can see the game really did feel like a Jurassic Park story. It was nice, some things went wrong, then they really went wrong, and then we prioritised assets over employees. 

Spared no expense. Spared only minimum acceptable employees.