Why Red Raven Games is Hands Down My Favorite Board Game Publisher

 I have been playing board and card games since I was just a wee lad. I was first introduced to them as a child at my Grandma’s house where we would play intense games of Uno, Skip-bo, Yahtzee, Go Fish, Old Maid and Dominos. While these were simple and basic, they established games as being a core part of my life from early on. I carry these memories in a special place within my heart to this day.

 By the time I was a middle schooler and then high schooler, I was playing the longer, more in depth, albeit mainstream, games like Risk and Monopoly. The Risk games were catastrophically intense, verging on ending friendships, and we had one game where our friend became so enraged that he flipped the entire table over, spilling the game pieces all over the floor. What a time. We also got so into Monopoly that we bought different versions: vanilla Monopoly, the Star Wars version, and, my personal favorite, the electronic banking version.

 When I became college-aged, I was introduced to what I call the “gateway board game,” Settlers of Catan. I lived with four other roommates during college and we had many, many nights of Catan-playing. So much so that, eventually, we had to branch out and purchase the Seafarers and Cities & Knights expansions to satiate our desire for new ways to play Catan. It was around this time that I was also introduced to the YouTube channel TableTop run by Geeks & Sundry, you can check it out here. The combined effects of playing tons of Catan and watching the TableTop cast explore the many different board games out there got me curious about playing more board games and ultimately hooked on the hobby.

 I was insane enough that the next game I purchased after Catan was Twilight Imperium which, if you know anything about Twilight Imperium, takes an entire day to play, no joke. I mention this just to show the depth to which I wanted to get into the hobby and the complexity of the games I would like to play. And, while it has been many years since those days, and it is infinitely more difficult to table Twilight Imperium now, I deeply treasure those times playing board games with my college roommates.

 This led into my young adult life where I began to work and had *disposable income*.  I mean, did I really with so much college debt and only a part-time job? I’m not sure... but I blew my money on board games anyways; it would take some time to become a responsible adult (and whether I am such is still debatable).

 I started to build out my board game collection with games such as: Betrayal at House on the Hill, Pandemic, Shadow Hunters, and Tragedy Looper (just to name a few).

 It was in this phase of my life that I was perusing a board game shop and came across a game called City of Iron. I had never seen this game before, or heard of the game studio who designed it, but I was immediately intrigued by the stunning, unique artwork, the world it was set in, and the overall game mechanics. So, I bought it, got some friends to play it, and instantly fell in love. This was the beginning of my adoration of Red Raven Games.

 So, at this point, you may be wondering, what even is Red Raven Games? Red Raven Games is a board game publishing company and studio founded by Ryan Laukat but heavily involves his wife, Malorie Laukat, their family, and, when needed, third party creators.

 Red Raven Games was founded in 2011 and has published 20+ games during their operations. You can find many of them on their main website, but this will not include any games that are no longer in print or any expansions that are not available.

 Here is a list of some of their major games:

If you really want to nerd out learning about them, you can listen to a podcast episode with Ryan and Malorie here to learn more about their story.

 Now that you know a little about them, let’s talk about what makes their games so great:

 If you look at their games catalog, you will notice that their games have a very unique art style to them. Everything from the character design to the way the art is painted has a look and feel that you can’t find elsewhere.

 The art is what immediately stuck out to me when looking through games; the colors are so vibrant and the art itself looks unlike anything else around it. Now, having played more and more Red Raven Games, this is consistent for every title they publish. While the art was what initially drew me in, it is now something I look forward to in all the new games they publish; both in seeing the pleasing art style in general and witnessing all the creative new ways the art is used for character design, world building, and storytelling throughout their various games.

 Another interesting fact about this is that Ryan does all the art for the games himself (with some small exceptions), which is a stunning feat. To think about all the work that goes into both designing a fun game and having all the art created, it is amazing that he is able to do all of the art himself. And boy, has it paid off; each of their games has that unique “Red Raven” feel with the art being beautiful and consistent every time. There isn’t much more I can say about this as I will just let the phenomenal artwork speak for itself; as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and I’m going to exploit that concept to its fullest by shortening the word count of this section (will that actually make this post any shorter, though, who knows?).

 After being reeled in and captivated by the art, the next aspect that really stood out to me was the world building present within their games. While the art is what drew me in in the first place, and I enjoy seeing the artwork evolve with each game that comes out, the world building is really what enthralls me the most and keeps me coming back to each and every one of their new games.

 Many of the Red Raven games take place in a world called Arzium that they have spent years crafting and teasing out through their various titles. Before even getting into any of the specific details of their world building, the fact that they have created a whole world in and of itself is astounding; now there is even a TTRPG you can play set in Arzium. This just highlights how much work they put into crafting their worlds.

 So, diving deeper into their world building specifics, they have made many games containing giant tomes filled with stories for the characters to follow, decision trees that need your input to make choices, and real narrative depth, but even the world building outside of those games is mesmerizing.

 As mentioned before, the first game of theirs I played was City of Iron (second edition). This game did not have any sort of direct story telling device and was mostly just a resource management and deck building game but, even within this game, I was blown away by the theme and world building that poured through the artwork itself. There were steampunk machinations and vehicles, sky islands you could explore and claim, ships that traveled by both sea and air, species of toadfolk and hogfolk you could play as, some strange resource called “bottled demons,” and so much more. 

 Again, this game did not have any way to directly tell any sort of story but, as I played this game, a well woven tapestry of a tale would always play out in my head as the game progressed: the humans creating a city to be reckoned with as they industrialized, constructing more and more buildings, the hogfolk becoming militaristic and invading the neighboring towns surrounding them, the Cresarians researching to their minds’ content, having the most diversity among their pool of equipment and people, and the frogfolk exploring all the vacant islands and claiming them for themselves to produce more resources for their inventions.

 All the Red Raven Games have this sort of world building within them, making them each a joy to play again and again. Eventually, I would buy another one of their games, Empires of the Void 2, and I was again captivated by the world building. Unlike the steampunk/fantasy world that City of Iron took place in, Empires of the Void 2 took place in a sci-fi/space setting but still had the same, unique character designs throughout and felt “fantastical” despite being set in space. This is what really sold me as it was clear that even having such drastically different settings they were still able to pull off crafting a unique, beautiful world; one that felt both strange from our own world yet, somehow, familiar. There are many board game set in these two genres yet the worlds created in these games are so utterly different and creative compared to the generic fantasy and sci-fi worlds created in most other games.

 But, as I mentioned, these games did not have any sort of narrative or storytelling device directly included yet the Laukats were gracious enough to bless us with games that had huge narrative tomes such as: Above and Below, Near and Far, and, the masterpiece, Sleeping Gods. These games came with massive books containing story segments abounding with choices the characters would have to make and skill tests they would have to complete with the necessary abilities. Based on both the choices the players made and the success or failures of the tests that came with said choices, the story within each game would dynamically shift during each play through with the use of clever state tracking mechanics. 

 I first experienced this in the game Near and Far, as I didn’t play Above and Below until after, and I was already blown away by the narrative experience in this game. When going through a campaign you could choose to go through every map in an atlas that came with the game and the stories would be associated with the location or you could choose to read stories based on the characters chosen. While this would not drastically change that many future choices you could make, although it would affect your character story if you chose to go that route, it was still majorly impressive that this game had so many different stories within it to tell that also gave a living feel to the world itself.

 Not long after this came Sleeping Gods and, if I was blown away by Near and Far, I can’t even put into words how I felt about Sleeping Gods. It is pretty much a masterpiece. This game is a cooperative, story driven game where you and up to 3 other players play as the crew of the Manticore, a ship that has been mysteriously teleported to another world and are trying to find their way back home.

 While Near and Far had interesting stories throughout, Sleeping Gods perfected this by having a full map you could explore in any way you decided and the choices you made would affect what would happen when you traveled to different places. You might find an item that would unlock a narrative choice when exploring a certain location, or you may have unleashed some unspeakable evil on an innocent town, or left a town to fend for itself while under attack, changing how the townsfolk viewed your crew, and so much more. 

 I had never experienced a game that had so well encapsulated a “video game” feel that was still a tabletop experience you could play with friends around the table. This game is such a treat and I hope everyone who enjoys narrative-driven games gets to experience it.

 I could gush on and on about the world building in Red Raven games but I’d never stop. Suffice it to say, this is by far my favorite part of their games, which is saying a lot since everything about them is great, and keeps me coming back for more every time.

 Lastly are the game mechanics. Out of the three categories, this section is the weakest but that is not at all to say they are bad. If anything, they are simply outshined by just how good the art, world building, and storytelling are and most of the negative aspects for me mostly come down to personal preference. Despite this, they still always feel fresh and you can tell they are trying to come up with something different in every game.

 While the mechanics for each of their games can be anywhere on the scale between absolutely amazing to just good enough for getting the job done, there is one consistent complaint I have and, again, it is mostly due to personal preference. In many of the Red Raven games, you will be building up your resources and character/village/empire creating a slow build-up throughout the game. The games also usually have a time limit: going for a certain amount of rounds, finishing when a deck runs out, or something similar. The problem I run into is the games are usually designed to finish just a little too early. What I mean by ‘a little too early’ is that usually I am right at the point where I have built whatever I am building to the place where it will generate what I want it to and I am about to go smack-daddy on everyone around me when the game is suddenly over.

 I do believe this is by design and, to a certain degree, it works. Since you feel like there is still more to do, psychologically you will be drawn back to playing again, and I am certainly drawn to playing these games over and over. Yet, overall, despite coming back to play multiple times, there is always just a slight feeling of being unfulfilled by not fully fleshing out my engine and using it to its maximum capacity.

 This is also not to say every single one of their games is like this. Sleeping Gods, for example, has no competitive component so you aren’t trying to out-build everyone else and certainly doesn’t feel like it ends too early, even if there is still so much to explore by the time you’re done.

 This is really the only consistent gripe I have and you may not have the same feelings when you play. Overall, though, the rest of the mechanics are typically fun and no one game they publish is like another. In one game you will be managing villagers and what tasks they can do, in another you will be building out your empire and all the resources you can collect, in another you will be managing your character and all of their equipment, and the list goes on. 

 You will also find almost every kind of game mechanic under the sun somewhere in their massive archive of games. They have deck building, engine building, resource gathering, tile placing, city building, and so much more. I think if they make a true worker placement game then they will be exceptionally close to having almost all game mechanics covered.

 To round this all out, they also have some truly unique game mechanics not present other games out there (especially when they first came out). I know I mentioned it in the world building & storytelling section, but the idea of integrating a storybook and atlas into a game is a stroke of genius! Especially for games that were not just straight dungeon crawlers and had many other game mechanics going on within them like town or empire management. While this, again, highlights that their strengths truly lie within their ability to create worlds and stories, this still showcases how they can take the board game medium and integrate their storytelling strengths into the game mechanics themselves.

 All in all, while not every single one of their games mechanics land perfectly, they are still always good enough to support the game, many times making their games loads of fun, and sometimes they are down right brilliant.

If you are a fan of beautiful artwork, compelling narrative and world building, and fun game mechanics, then I implore you, go check out their site now and purchase one of their games. And no, they haven’t sponsored me in any way, shape, or form, I just love their games and want others to enjoy them, too.

 I would love for everyone to eventually check out Sleeping Gods but, if that is too far in the deep end, starting with something like Above or Below would ease you in and still have a narrative component or Near and Far for something a litte more complex. If you don’t even want the narrative component at all and just want to have a good time, then check out Megaland. If you want something complex in game mechanics but doesn’t have direct narrative choices or storytelling, then you could look into City of Iron 2E or Empires of the Void 2.

Whether you have been into the board game hobby for years or are just dipping your toes in, whether you are already a head over heels fan of Red Raven Games or just now hearing about them, I hope this has given you a reason to either buy your first Red Raven game or inspired you to table their game for the hundredth time. Keep gaming, my friends.