Raptor Review

Mother Raptor: Oh it was terrible! All those humans rushing about the island with their machines and their fire and their sleep guns. They almost put me to sleep.

Neighbour: No!

Mother Raptor: Yes! It was a close thing I can tell you. And they burnt down the whole flower display.

Neighbour: The monsters! What did you do!?

Mother Raptor: Oh, I ate them all, of course. More tea?

 

Players: 2

 

Play time: 25 min

 

Age: 9+

 

 

Still reeling from the shock of our discovery, this otherwise indistinguishable island in the pacific, home still to dinosaurs! After all this time! We must bring some back for scientific study. A family group has been trapped in one of the island’s many valleys and we’re sending in a team…

            Final entry from the journal of Expedition Leader, Henry Moses

Raptor! There’s a Ra-aaaaargh!-ptor

Clearly these scientists have not seen Jurassic Park, or they’d know not to mess with Raptors! That said, they certainly come prepared with a whole deck of lovingly illustrated, powerful actions. But the mother raptor has her own tricks up her… er… sleeves? Hmmm…

Raptor is a game for only 2 Players and takes the combative jostling of such games and runs with it. As you’ll soon discover, a full-grown raptor moves damned fast! Each player has their own objectives, their own sets of unique action cards, and their own strategies. The scientists are trying to put to sleep and then capture the baby raptors, or fill the mother raptor with enough tranquilisers that even she nods off. The raptor player needs either for the babies to escape from the short edges to the board, or you know, just eat all the scientists! What is the same is the distribution of cards in their deck, and it’s these decks that are the focus of the gameplay.

Each player has cards numbered from 1 to 9, but will only ever have 3 of these in their hand. You’ll each choose one to play, and then together reveal your selection with the appropriate cries of success or frustration. The player with the lower valued card does whatever action is pictured on the card, generally sowing chaos and scuppering the other’s plans, while the player with the higher card gets a number of action points equal to the difference in the two card values. These action points are what you’ll need to actually complete your objectives, so while the card actions can help you out, you’ll need to get those high cards out.

But, of course, you need to get them out at the right time! Ideally you’ll be playing your high valued cards when your opponent has gone for a low card, giving you a huge pile of actions with which to make rapid gains. There’s nothing worse than being just one point higher than your opponent, leaving you feeling like you’ve wasted that card. Especially if you actually wanted the card’s ability…

Must go faster… Must go faster!

The scientists will be racing around in jeeps, or dousing the island in fire to try and block off the raptor’s movement. They can also put nearby babies to sleep with their cards and, perhaps most importantly, bring in reinforcements. The scientists only start out with 4 people on the board, and the raptor player need only clear the map to win. This fresh meat also gets to come in on the long edges, letting them cut off and surround babies and really piling the pressure on the raptors.

Not to be outdone, the raptors have a collection of abilities that can only be described as f*** you humans. Getting close to one of the babies? Mothers Call! Brings that baby running to mummy, even across the entire board. Troublesome scientist? Prepare to be terrified and unable to act for a whole turn! Managed to get off a few too many shots? Oh look, everyone’s waking up again! It ironically makes the scientist player feel like the long-suffering mother: I just got them off to sleep!

But those abilities, while certainly frustrating, do nothing to prepare you for just how terrifying it is to face a fully armed and operational mother raptor… with one single action point she can move any distance in an unobstructed straight line, putting her within killing distance of just about anyone within 2 or 3 moves. Seeing that beast coming running towards you is horrifying! And worse yet, her final card action sees her disappear from the board, and reappear wherever she wants!

Anywhere! Strangely never in an empty corner… But that’s not all; in the next turn the scientist must show their card before the raptor player chooses theirs! When one of those cards gets played, you, as the scientist, know you’re screwed! Yet it never feels unfair: that ambush card effectively costs a whole turn to set up and probably offers up a good amount of actions to the scientist player in the turn it is played. And boy is it ever thematic.

Components? We spared no expense

This game does a tremendous job on its theme. Not just because of the phenomenal artwork and components (those lovely little miniatures, the 3D terrain)! The scientists feel like a prepared and organised force, working together to trap and capture the babies, but still completely in over their heads once the mother shows herself. The raptor is utterly terrifying and completely brutal. The actions and abilities of both sides feel like the kind of things that you’d expect from this situation. But they all fit neatly into the mechanics of the game as well, never bogging it down with rules. It’s a wonderfully intelligent design.

The card play, too, gives you that sense of the unknown, unpredictable nature of combat. Not in a military sense, but in how you’ll be surprised by your opponent even while you try desperately to guess what they are going to do. Choosing your card each turn is a hugely tense moment, because the prize for getting it right is so great… and the cost for getting it wrong is so huge! But it is also pretty random.

Even though you know what cards your opponent has available, you can’t ever be certain what 3 are in their hands. So even if there is an ability you think they desperately want to play, you can’t know that they have it. Going in to this game I was expecting to have more control, more ability to deduce what my opponent wanted, even degrees of double guessing one another. Once you’ve played most of your deck, that deduction starts to come to the fore, but for the most part it’s much more random.

I enjoyed the thrill of getting the ‘right’ card, and the agony when my opponent does. It tends to balance out over the course of a game and each game is super quick! Furthermore, that randomness in the card play does not turn into randomness of result. Good tactical and strategic play with the actions you get is going to be the determining factor in the game. That spatial element, of figuring out where and how each side can move is a great puzzle. A puzzle that changes with each play as a different layout of movement blocking scenery elements is set up.

I loved my time with Raptor! It’s a fantastic game, with fantastic production values, art by the legendary Vincent Dutrait, incredible tension, the perfect degree of asymmetric play and variability, and a wonderfully well integrated theme. Now, if you feel uncomfortable with a game about separating a mother from her babies, you might find this game a bit much, although feel free to play as the dinosaur! If you’re not so sensitive though, prepare to be wowed by a fantastically well put together game! Love it.

 

Rating: Clever Girl

 

Our copy of Raptor was provided for review by Esdevium Games. Raptor has an RRP of £22.99 and is available from your local hobby store!