Raptor

Mamma Raptor has escaped from her run and laid her eggs in the park. A team of scientists must neutralize her and capture the baby raptors before they run wild into the forest. Raptor is a card-driven board game with tactical play and some double guessing. Players use their cards to move their pawns — with the scientists on one side, Mother and baby raptors on the other — on the board. Every round, the player who played the lowest ranked card can use the corresponding action, while their opponent has movement or attack points equal to the difference between the values of the two cards. The scientists can use fire, can move by jeep on the tracks, and can even call for reinforcements, while the mamma raptor can hide in the bushes, yell to frighten the scientists, and call for her babies.

{
  "game_id": 177639,
  "name": "Raptor",
  "core_verb": "play number, lower wins",
  "decision_shape": "mixed:social+combinatorial",
  "reward_schedule": "immediate",
  "aesthetics": [
    "Challenge",
    "Fellowship"
  ],
  "core_loop_pitch": "Both players reveal a card; lower number triggers its action, higher gets points equal to the difference.",
  "mobile_translation_difficulty": "Easy",
  "translation_difficulty_reason": "Two-player simultaneous-card-reveal is a clean digital fit, but no official port exists, only a fan web version.",
  "direct_digital_port": "Raptor (community web implementation)",
  "direct_digital_port_kind": "unofficial",
  "closest_loop_translation": "none yet",
  "primitive_tags": [
    "dual_use_card_value",
    "simultaneous_reveal_compare",
    "asymmetric_two_player",
    "movement_or_action_tradeoff",
    "delta_as_action_points"
  ],
  "confidence": 0.7
}

{
  "game_id": 177639,
  "name": "Raptor",
  "mechanics": {
    "core_verb_long": "Each round, you and your opponent simultaneously play one card face-down from a hand of 3 (drawn from your asymmetric 9-card deck — raptor or scientist). Reveal: the lower-numbered card's player executes that card's special action; the higher-numbered card's player gets action points equal to the difference between the two values, spent on a fixed menu (move, attack, sleep tokens, fire). The cadence is read-your-opponent, commit-blind, watch-the-spread — a tense psychological rhythm closer to Stratego or Battle Line than to a card game.",
    "core_loop_long": "Setup: scientists deploy on tile edges; mother raptor and 5 babies start central. Each round: (1) both players choose one card from their hand and play face-down; (2) simultaneous reveal; (3) lower-card player resolves their card's special ability text; (4) higher-card player spends (high - low) action points on standard movement/attack actions; (5) discard played cards; (6) if a hand is empty, retrieve discards into hand. Raptor wins by killing all visible scientists OR escorting 3 babies off the board edge. Scientists win by capturing 3 babies (via sleep+adjacency) OR knocking out the mother raptor with combined damage. Game ends when one win condition triggers — typically 8-15 rounds.",
    "decision_space": "The core decision is which card to commit — a low card guarantees you trigger its action but cedes initiative points; a high card guarantees you get lots of action points but only if your opponent didn't also play high. You're double-guessing: 'they need their fire-card, so they'll play it low; I'll play just below.' Hand size of 3 means you can map the opponent's remaining cards once a few rounds pass, adding deduction to mind-reading. Action-point spend has tactical depth — splitting points across two scientists, choosing fire over movement, herding babies through chokepoints. ~3 reasonable cards to pick per round, but the meta-game makes the choice feel knife-edge.",
    "skill_expression": "Dominant skill is opponent reading and bluff modeling — predicting what your opponent must commit given board state and remaining cards. Second is asymmetric-side mastery: the raptor and scientist sides play radically differently, and reaching strong play requires learning each side's cards and tempo separately. Third is spatial/tactical positioning on the modular board — chokepoints, fire-line denial, baby-escape lanes. Memory is meaningful (tracking opponent's discard pile to deduce their remaining hand). Math is trivial. Weak players spam high cards for action points; strong players play sub-optimal numbers to weaponize information.",
    "tactile_dependency": "low",
    "tactile_dependency_reason": "Cards are numbered with text actions; the modular board and tokens are pure information. The simultaneous-reveal moment is the dramatic high point but ports cleanly to digital with a synchronized flip. No dexterity or hidden physical state."
  },
  "theme": {
    "promise": "Two-player Jurassic Park standoff: one of you is a velociraptor mother sneaking five babies off the board, the other is a team of scientists with jeeps, fire, and tranquilizer guns. 30 minutes, knife-edge tension, every round a stare-down.",
    "setting": "science fiction, prehistoric, action-adventure, dinosaurs",
    "narrative": "none — pasted-on theme but committed: the cards, art, and asymmetric powers all sell the cinematic raptor-vs-scientist fantasy even though mechanically it's an abstract bluff-and-spread game",
    "audience": "gateway, hobbyist",
    "art_direction": "Vincent Dutrait illustrated, deliberately styled as a 1960s B-movie poster — saturated cover art, pulpy 'Jurassic Park meets Predator' framing. The two card decks use slightly different templates: the raptor side has wild jungle energy, the scientist side a cleaner mid-century-modern adventure-magazine feel. High visual identity, a key shelf-recognition asset."
  },
  "translation": {
    "digital_meta_layer_ideas": [
      "Async 1v1 PvP ladder with separate raptor and scientist MMR — players must climb both sides to reach apex rank, ensuring asymmetric mastery",
      "Rotating campaign of 'park scenarios': fixed map seeds + custom card pools (extra fire cards, fewer scientists) as a 20-mission unlock track",
      "Daily duel: fixed seed + AI opponent with three difficulty personalities (aggressive, defensive, deceptive), score by rounds-to-win",
      "Tournament weekend: bracketed best-of-3 with mandatory side-swap, seasonal cosmetics for top finishers"
    ],
    "closest_mobile_genre": "async PvP card battler",
    "live_service_potential": "medium"
  },
  "confidence": 0.8,
  "extraction_version": "v3"
}