Amazing Heroes vs Escape from Dino Island

Compare Amazing Heroes and Escape from Dino Island side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Amazing Heroes	Escape from Dino Island
Genre	Superhero, Modern	Modern, Sci-Fi
Tags	Beginner-Friendly, Rules-Light, Family-Friendly, Superpowers, Narrative, Fiction-First, Cinematic, Theater of the Mind, One-Shot Friendly, Strong GM Support	One-Shot Friendly, Survival, Mystery, Playbook-Driven, Rules-Light, Fiction-First, Low-Prep, Strong GM Support, Cinematic, Exploration
Core Mechanic	Each hero has four traits (an occupation, a body attribute, a personality attribute, and a superpower) assigned a d6, d6, d8, and d10 at creation. When the outcome is uncertain, the player rolls the relevant trait die against a difficulty of 3 (easy), 4 (normal), or 5 (hard), adding +1 if a body or personality attribute fits. Rolls of 1 or 2 on a normal or hard test inflict a condition like 'tired' or 'hurt'; a repeated condition becomes 'really [X]' and imposes a –1 penalty, and a third hurt condition defeats the hero. Defeating a villain requires successes equal to the villain's level times the number of heroes.	Most moves call for a roll of 2d6 plus the stat or modifier the move names, usually FIT, CLEVER, or STEADY. A 10+ is a full success, a 7–9 succeeds with a drawback or hard choice, and a 6 or less is a miss that hands the Dino Master a move. When several Heroes act together, one rolls for the group: the one worst placed during Peril Moves, or the one best placed during Safety Moves.
Dice	d6–d12	2d6
Complexity	Very Low	Low
Availability	Paid	Paid
Runnability	3 of 5 book tools	3 of 5 book tools
License	Proprietary	Proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	No verified route found
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Amazing Tales	Sam Tung & Sam Roberts
Year	2021	2019
Languages	English	English, French, German
Best For	Mixed-age tables wanting a fast, narrative superhero RPG that genuinely works for kids aged 7+ alongside adults: sessions are designed to cram an hour of TV-style action into a single sitting.	Groups who want a one- or two-session survival thriller in the vein of Jurassic Park, where escaping and solving the island's mystery matter more than fighting.
Highlights	Trait dice carry transparent in-fiction meaning at each step (d6 is 'best in your country,' d12 is 'best in the world'), so players and GMs negotiate power level by description rather than parsing stat blocks. Conditions like 'tired' or 'shaken' replace HP entirely and stack into 'really [X]' with a –1 penalty before a third instance defeats the hero, keeping damage in fiction while still tracking toward a losing point. The GM receives plot points equal to the number of players each session and spends them on cinematic moves (villain ambushes, escapes with a planted clue, perfect disguises, 'missing body' recurring foes), encoding superhero-TV pacing as a budgeted resource.	Overcoming the first of two Obstacles triggers an Extinction Event that adds new Dino Master moves and gives every Hero their one advance. Peril and Safety Moves let a single Hero roll for the whole group, so the worst-placed Hero rolls in danger and the best-placed Hero rolls in quiet moments. Several moves require telling a story from the playbook's list, and each story told adds +1 to the closing roll that decides that Hero's epilogue.
Considerations	Superpowers have no defined list or mechanical effects beyond a die size, so the GM must adjudicate what each novel use of a power can do on the fly. Advancement caps at d12+1 and amounts to larger dice plus secondary powers branched from a parent power, so long-running heroes don't gain meaningfully different mechanical options from starting ones. Villain fights accumulate flat successes equal to villain level × number of heroes with no incremental damage per hit, which can grind against tougher foes when most attack rolls only mark a single tick of progress.	Fight! rolls with no stat bonus and a miss triggers the Casualty move, so combat is rarely a workable answer to a dinosaur. The fixed arc ends with the escape attempt, and each Hero gains only one advance along the way. Injuries carry no fixed penalties, so how much a wound hampers a Hero rests on the Dino Master's judgment.