Raccoon Sky Pirates returns to harrow the suburbs
Pay no attention to the rolling dumpster fire
What if Blackbeard had a ringed tail? And his ship flew through the sky? And he kept making bad decisions?
In Raccoon Sky Pirates, you get to find out—playing raccoons, possums, and other trash animals at the edge of their ambition and well past their ability.
You live in the junkyard, where you build an unlikely flying ship out of a wrecked car, a home appliance and an old carnival ride. One fateful night, you sail it across town to a suburban house, get in, steal everything you can before the lights come on, and try to make it back home without exploding.
But things keep going wrong.
Because you're raccoons.
In 2021, the mailer-box game launched an indie beer-and-pretzels hit, becoming many people's first TTRPG. Although it's been out of print for the last year, Hectic Electron Games hopes to bring it back through the Kickstarter set to launch in October.
Among the 18 trash-loving characters you can play: Brisket Jack the swashbuckler, Rabies Eddie the untameable beast, Zort the clever possum, Spitfire the intrepid pigeon, Ratcliffe the debonaire rat, and Rad the indestructible roach.
It takes zero prep and can play in just two hours start to finish—a perfect choice on game on nights when not everyone can make it.
Unlike most games, you don't roll to succeed but to see what you do. That's because a raccoon never knows what they're doing before you do it. But while your raccoon—or possum, pigeon, rat or indestructible roach—can't choose their actions, you the player have free rein in how you narrate them.
Each action may be helpful—or not. Unhelpful actions ratchet up the Problem Tracks. When the Track in the house tops out, the residents wake up and chase you out. But when the Track on the ship reaches its limit, the ship explodes and the crew loses all its loot.
Raccoon Sky Pirates' form factor is deliberately simple: a 24-page booklet, 18 play sheets on Letter-size paper, a custom deck of 60 cards in a tuck box, and one 12-sided raccoon die. It's black and white, packed into a tough mailer box that fits in your cargo-shorts pockket.
It all adds up to a low price point, a no-brainer in stores and at cons.
Raccoon Sky Pirates is a riotous slapstick misadventure, ready to play at the drop of a hat.
The Kickstarter launches in early October. In honor of spooky seasons, first-day backers get a haunted house map for the raccoons to raid.
