Raccoon Tycoon

Sunday began with a triumph of domestic diplomacy: the amendment reading “I’ll be gone for an hour to have coffee with the Swiss immigrant” was successfully changed to “we’re getting together with the gang for eight hours of games, then going to the cinema.” With a potential new member of the group included among the civilian population, we set up a raccoon that is also a tycoon while waiting for everyone to arrive. I still have not forgiven Mr Drover for the cash-grab nonsense of Rebellion, but this title won me over enough to ignore even the negative recommendation of a well-known hipster/influencer from the Greek gaming scene.

At its core, Raccoon Tycoon is quite simple: resource production and market manipulation. Players operate within that economic framework, trying to make production and market shifts work in their favour. It does not pretend to be anything tremendously heavy or complicated, and that makes it very easy to get to the table.

Where it gains genuine interest is in the auctions for the main scoring cards. Without them, we would be talking about a thoroughly average market game. With them, though, players have to watch each other’s choices and decide when it is worth applying pressure, while the fairly clever set collection in the scoring gives substance to what they are competing over.

The result is not some hidden masterpiece, but a damn good light/gateway game that rises a clear notch above mediocrity. Non-gamers can play it easily too, and its auctions provide precisely the interaction it needs to avoid being merely a cute game with raccoons.