Lizard Wizard

The title carries some wild symbolism: from the terrible deck of the same name that scared people for a season in OG L5R, to that familiar song by a gigantic rock-and-roll band. Beneath the lizardly beards and hats, though, LizWiz is the spiritual successor to Racoon Tycoon—and, in my humble opinion, perhaps the most convincing reason to pass the raccoon along.

Instead of cat railway entrepreneurs, we are lizard-like wizards gambling on the spell-components market. At its core sits Racoon Tycoon’s familiar mechanism: I play a little card to gain raw materials while also affecting the market, or I liquidate to lower prices and collect mana. What matters is that these choices are not merely two ways of doing the same thing; market movement and the need for mana force me to consider when materials are worth holding and when they should become fuel for the next steps.

From there, the structure remains in RT’s set-collection family, but mana has a clearer role: we use it to bid on wizards or acquire spells, the equivalents of Racoon Tycoon’s buildings. The mechanisms here feel distinctly more polished to me, without losing the system’s honest randomness. One major scoring axis is hard push-your-luck, so your market position and collections are never entirely safe, while interaction mainly comes from how everyone’s moves shift prices and from competition for wizards and spells.

At five, it plays quickly in the important sense that there is no downtime, although it probably lasts half an hour longer than I would like overall. It gets a little wordy near the end, and I am practically unable to keep track of what the others are doing, but it remains fresh and very fun. If Racoon Tycoon did not work for you because you found it too laid-back and repetitive, I do not expect this one to thrill you either. If, on the other hand, that game gave you a good time, Lizard Wizard is absolutely worth a look.

The second serving was supposed to be green beans, but it turned out to be okra.