Review: Raccoon Tycoon

Forbidden Games

7.1

What is Raccoon Tycoon?

Raccoon Tycoon is a stock market game designed by Glenn Drover and published by Forbidden Games. This game involves collecting various goods and selling them when the price is right in order to gain the most profit, which can then be used to purchase railroads. The aim of the game is to earn the most points. This is a fun, strategy filled game aimed at ages 8 and up and can be played by 2 to 5 players.

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What’s in the box?

• 1 Game Board
• 27 Buidling Tiles
• 24 Railroad Cards
• 16 Town Cards
• 120 Money Notes (Split into 1, 5, 10, 20 and 100 denominations)
• 1 First Player Token
• 54 Price & Production Cards
• 150 Commodity Tokens (Split into Wheat, Wood, Coal, Iron, Goods and Luxury

The quality of Raccoon Tycoon’s components is really great. The cardboard resources are thick and have a great weight making them tactile to hold. The money used in Raccoon Tycoon is much better than the paper money used in other games and we especially love the ‘In Dog We Trust’ detail. The artwork used throughout the game - barring the building tiles - has a wonderful life to it from the town cards to the animal characters, right down to the resource tokens it all ties together really well. We find ourselves fighting over Fat Cats and Top Dogs.

The artwork on the building tiles lets down the overall look of the game which is for the most part very well put together, the cartoonish look works for the commodity tokens but the more prominent building tiles could have benefitted from using the more elegant art style used on the Railroad/Town Cards. The animal tycoon theme is very fun though the game doesn’t lean into it all that much barring the railroad cards and the currency.

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How to Play Raccoon Tycoon

Raccoon Tycoon is played over a series of quick turns, with players choosing just one action each time. While the rules are easy to grasp, the game quickly opens up into a mix of market manipulation, auctions, and tactical decisions as you compete to build the most profitable empire. Each action directly affects the shared market, meaning every decision can have an impact on your opponents as well as your own plans.

Setup

First, shuffle the Price & Production cards, and deal three to each player, leaving the rest near the board. Place one of each commodity token on the lowest price space of their corresponding column, have the rest nearby as a supply. Each player will receive $10 as their starting money.

Depending on player count, remove certain railroad cards:

5 players - none

4 players - remove Skunkworks

3 players - remove Skunkworks and Tycoon

2 players - remove Skunkworks, Sly Fox and Tycoon

Once removed, shuffle the remaining railroad cards to form the deck. Then turn the top two face up into the respective railroad slots on the main board.

Then create the town deck, by placing all the towns in order based on their victory point value, starting with the lowest Once in order, place the deck on the main board and flip the top card face up into the available space.

At two players remove one town from each victory point value.

Next create the building tile stack. First take the basic building tiles (those that are double sided) with the +1 side face up and randomly select four of them, placing them in the spaces available on the board. Shuffle the remaining tiles and place them face down in a single stack on the relevant space.

Finally select the start player and give them the start player raccoon token. The first player gains one free commodity, with each subsequent player in clockwise order getting one more resource than the player before. If you get multiple commodities, these must all be different.

Gameplay

On your turn, you may take one of five actions:

Produce, Sell, Auction, Purchase Building, Purchase Town.

Produce

To take this action, you play one of your three available Price & Production cards.

Take three of the commodity tokens shown in the production area of the card and add them to your supply. Some buildings may give you a bonus depending on the resources chosen.

After producing, increase the market prices of each of the commodities shown in the price section of the card, going up $1 for each icon. The card is then discarded and you draw a new one.

Sell

You may sell any number of a single type of commodity. All the sold tokens are returned to the supply and the player is paid the current market value for each unit of that commodity sold. The price for that commodity then drops by the number of units sold.

Auction

Select one of the two railroad cards on offer and begin an auction. The minimum bid is shown on the card.

Bidding begins with the player who started the auction, and then moves clockwise round the table. Each player either bids, or passes, ending their involvement in the auction. The highest bid wins the railroad, and the player takes the card. The empty spot is then filled from the top of the railroad deck.

If the player who started the auction does not win, they immediately take another turn, either taking another action, or starting a new auction. If the player who started the auction wins, their turn ends.

Purchace Building

Select one of the four building tiles on offer, and pay the cost shown on the tile. The player takes that building and places it in front of them. A new building is then taken from the top of the stack to replace the one bought.

If you own a double sided building tile, you may use the purchase building action to upgrade the tile to its opposite side.

Purchase Town

Purchase the face up town card by either paying the number of a specified commodity shown on the card, or the number of any commodity tokens shown at the bottom right. The tokens used for purchase are returned to the supply, and the top card is drawn and placed in the available slot.

Scoring

The game ends when one of two conditions is met:

• The last town card is purchased, or,
• The last railroad is auctioned

When either of these occurs, players will finish the current round, the last player being the one to the right of the starting player, so everyone gets an equal number of turns. The game then ends and you move to final scoring.

Players then score points for:

• Town cards - just the number on the card
• Railroad cards - having more than one of a type increases the number of points
• Buildings - one point per building
• Town and railroad pairs - 2 points for each pair

After final scoring, the player with the most points is declared the winner.

Our Thoughts on Raccoon Tycoon

Raccoon Tycoon is a light-to-medium strategy game with strong player interaction that shines as an introduction to modern board gaming.

The setup for Raccoon Tycoon can feel a little messy as there are a lot of tokens to split up and no way to do this is provided with the game itself. That being said the actual set up time is minimal. Once you’ve separated the tokens and sorted the cards - removing any necessary for your player count - the game is good to go. We don’t think it would ever take more than a few minutes to set up.

The rulebook is laid out in an easy-to-follow way, with clear instructions for each action that leave little up to interpretation. The inclusion of examples is a big plus, especially for players who find visual explanations easier to understand.

We do think the price range of £30 - £35 is a bit steep. Whilst the attention to detail is wonderful and the game is really fun to play, we’re all in solid agreement that it would be better at the £25 mark. There are plenty of other games out there at its current price point that offer a lot more board for your buck and it simply doesn’t compete.

Raccoon Tycoon is a super easy to play game and its gameplay is its core strength. With five options of actions to choose from but the ability to only use one, you are left with an easy to learn yet strategy filled game that opens up so much room for tactical thinking skills. Do you buy that railroad now because you know your opponent wants it or do you bump up the sale price of wheat for a big return in the next round?

There isn’t so much going on that you find yourself lost but if you aren’t paying attention the game can shift abruptly before you’ve even noticed.

We have played Raccoon Tycoon with two players and four players and the game does have a different feel at each player count. A two player game felt like a tight battle with a lot of back and forth and it felt over rather quickly. At four players it drags a little more but the auction feature feels much more intense. It also has a lot more player interaction with some good natured cursing and jibes.

We’re all in agreement that the stock market aspect of the game is fun and can make or break your game if your strategy relies on making a big cash payout, especially if you’re the player in last position as everyone before you can seriously tank your profit if they all choose to do so. Buildings, however, bring very little to the game. They aren’t worth enough points to justify their cost, and while they can generate money or resources, those gains don’t translate directly into victory points. As a result, we found our money was almost always better spent on railroads, and after the first few rounds, buildings were largely ignored.

Whilst each game of Raccoon Tycoon is fundamentally the same, you’re all competing to buy railroads and earn points, the layers of strategy help to keep the game fresh. This is not a game that would come out every game night but it does have its charm and is fun enough to pull off the shelf every now and then.

We like Raccoon Tycoon. It’s not a game that's making any top ten lists but it is perfect if you’re looking for a friendly, interactive game to ease new players into the board gaming hobby. Its simplicity and similarity to other, more mainstream games make it easy to understand but it remains complex enough to keep players interested.

We highly recommend Raccoon Tycoon to new board gamers and game nights that are looking for something easy with good player interaction but feel that seasoned players may want something with a bit more bite.

Rob: 6.6   |   Jess B: 7.0   |   Carmen: 7.5   |   Jess F: 7.2

💡 Looking for modern games that have that classic feel? Check out Rob's list of modern counterparts for classic games as he looks Beyond Monopoly.