Looking Back on 2020

Trying out Sonora from @Pandasaurusgame remotely with @425suzanne! We made it work by trying to match each player's board state at the end of the round. I think you can really only do that with two, though. Have you tried this one? I had a lot of fun!https://t.co/2t9iBOmofx pic.twitter.com/ZIjIpCWx3s

— What's Eric Playing? (@whatseplaying) July 5, 2020

As we begin another year, we wanted to take a moment to look back on all of the good that came out of the bumpy ride called 2020. Hardship and uncertainty were felt by many, but we appreciate just how much gaming helped us all get through the year. Your playing habits may have evolved - like Eric and Suz playing Sonora via multiple cameras - but the joy games still provide is undeniable. We’re so grateful for your support, even through this difficult year, as it lets us continue making even more great games every year!

This year started with a big change for us. We revealed the new look to Pandasaurus! This was a huge deal to us as a family-owned company. The original logo was near and dear to our hearts, but the new design has really made our games shine! Also, If you pay close attention you'll notice the Panda bits of the logo match the color of the word Panda. And the Dino bits match the color of the word Saurus. It's a fun nod, and breaking our name up also makes it a heck of a lot easier to pronounce and spell.

In the Spring, we shared a deep dive into the makings of Dinosaur Island and the inspiration behind the technicolor setting. “We knew the game was going to be compared to Jurassic Park, so we wanted to skew away from looking like a JP knock-off. We did this by leaning into the idea of this game being a tongue-in-cheek ode to the original. Like something that may have shown up in a discount bin outside of a Blockbuster.” We also announced a lower price to help even more people enjoy the amazing gameplay. Even recently, we revealed a new version that includes three different dino meeple shapes!

Gen Con Online was our first digital convention of the year and it was a great experience! Mandi and Theo helped get the word out about our new games in this fun video. We had interviews by the designers of Sonora and CTRL, plus we showed off all our unreleased games! We had a great team of demoers running events of Tammany Hall, Godspeed, and Dinosaur Island the whole weekend. It didn’t feel exactly like the in-person show (it’s impossible to capture that buzzing excitement!), but we were happy to continue our August tradition of spending time with you all! 

One moment we’ll never forget is closing out the Dinosaur World and Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write Kickstarter at over $1,000,000 and more than 10,000 backers! You made everyone involved (from us Pandasaurs, to the designers, and so many more) feel absolutely dino-rrific during the whole campaign. This project exceeded our expectations in every way. We probably sound like a broken record at this point, but THANK YOU for all of your support! The team has lived and breathed dinosaurs since September, working hard to bring the games to life exactly as you imagined. We cannot wait for you all to start playing next Summer!

We rushed straight from Kickstarter to SPIEL.Digital! Gods Love Dinosaurs was our big Essen release and all of our rockstar demoers were focused on teaching it to as many attendees as possible. Overall, we ran over 100 hours of events and created lots of wonderful memories with the game! Rachel from Semi Co-op even joined one of the events! Playthroughs of the game were streamed across the world, in German, French, Spanish, and English. All of your excitement got Gods Love Dinosaurs onto the BoardGameGeek Hotness all weekend long!

After this, we threw on our Santa-saurus hats to jump headfirst into the holidays. We transformed our entire website into a festive wonderland, featuring the talents of our graphic designer and amazing photos by Alison at Kidsplaining. The response to our first ever Black Friday Sale was bonkers! We’re already looking forward to organizing more of these seasonal sales throughout 2021. And let’s not forget the daily giveaways we ran! We thought 12 days of gifts was too few, so we did four straight weeks of fun contests! We loved bringing holiday joy to the winners and everyone who participated.

So now, we wrap up the year with gratitude and look forward to even more greatness in the coming months. We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and spent the first days of the new year playing great games with great people! Happy new year!