Cardboard Corner: Review of Raptor

Like most people who play board games I assume, I sometimes look in awe at games that large swathes of people fall in love with while ignoring games that seem better on many fronts. Agricola, for example, feels more like a forced farming experience rather than a fun, family farmsteading experience, but yet… As such, there are a number of games I feel fly under the radar. Bruno Cathala’s (2015) Raptor is certainly one.

An asymmetrical two-player game, Raptor sees one player taking control of a mama raptor and her five babies, and the other player a team of ten scientists. There are a couple win conditions, but generally the scientists want to either kidnap three babies or tranquilize mama, and the mama raptor wants to get three of her babies to safety or eat all the scientists. Gameplay takes places on a small, six-piece modular board with rocks obscuring sight in various directions. Action is driven by a simple card mechanism. Each player has a deck of nine cards, each card numbered one through nine. At the beginning of a round, each player draws up to three cards, chooses one, then players simultaneously reveal. The player with the lowest number gets to take the action depicted on the card, for example the mama raptor can scare a scientist, remove a tranquilizer dart, leave the board and re-appear elsewhere, etc. The scientists can shoot a tranquilizer dart, create a fire barrier, kidnap a baby, etc. The highest number gets to take as many actions as the number difference with the opponent's cards. If the raptor player played a 3 and the scientists played a 7, the scientists would have four actions, of which there is another selection per side. The game playing quickly (+/- 30 min), the last man (or dinosaur!) standing, wins.

In terms of production, Raptor is solid—literally and figuratively. The raptor and scientists are all unique, plastic minis (paintable, for those who desire), and while smaller than a lot of minis, fit the scale of the game nicely. The cards are sturdy—which is important given how much they will be shuffled and used, and how few there are. The tokens and board are all made of thick, sturdy cardboard, and the artistic scheme—mostly realistic, partially cartoonish—is consistent and attractive throughout; it looks like a mini-Jurassic Park graphic novel, and gameplay complements that.

The last note is regarding the initial barrier to entry. The rulebook and cheat sheets are both very well done. The players’ game boards feature a nicely condensed description of options; rather than flipping through the rulebook, players can refer to these helpful boards. All in all, nice to see designers realizing where they can help players get on board in as easy a way as possible. Nevertheless, Raptor can feel slightly overwhelming at first due to the number of options in the cards and the options available as actions. Once through that barrier (2-3 games), however, it flows, and becomes a fun game of cat and mouse. And once past the cat and mouse stage, when the players understand what is possible and what is optimal, then true, strategic fun can be had. One other note, in the cat and mouse phase I can’t help but feel a lot of players would consider the scientists overpowered. In the tried and true strategy stage, however, all bets are off, and a tense but fun duel can be had.

In the end, Raptor is a good quality, under-the-radar two player strategy game. A sweet blend of theme and mechanisms, players will need a couple of games under their belt to start to feel comfortable, but by then they will be hooked. As is seemingly Cathala's touch, he is able to put a lot into a little, all the while retaining accessibility and fun. Check it out if such games appeal to you.