Raptor Ruckus is a new indie tabletop RPG set on a (legally distinct) dinosaur amusement park where "the fences are down, the power's out, and you're back at the bottom of the food chain", currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. With rules adapted from Mörk Borg's quick playing d20 system, it promises "survival horror by way of Dinosaurs circa 1993".
It's a Jurassic Park tabletop RPG, basically, though not in any official capacity. Publisher Snapback Game Studios acknowledges a whole list of inspirations which of course features the Jurassic Park franchise, but includes great creature feature classics like Jaws, Anaconda, and Congo, and RPGs like Alien: The Roleplaying Game or Deathmatch Island.
The rules are based on Mörk Borg, but "overhauled, expanded, and re-imagined", with a survival horror focus. You'll be "scavenging supplies, counting bullets, and evading carnivores", while trying to deal with "rising panic". Sounds like Capcom's 1999 Playstation game Dino Crisis, which is a deep cut the Millennials and Gen X-ers might appreciate.
The free quickstart rules - available on the Kickstarter page - show that the graphic design is immaculate, continuing the fine Mörk Borg tradition of beautiful rulebooks. Here the vibe is 'found documents' and 'hastily scrawled notes' rather than 'Black Metal album cover'.
There are some tidy ideas in those rules, such as the Chaos Tokens, which players can spend to roll on one of three massive tables. The results are potentially game changing - you might luck into free ammo, discover a hidden hatch leading underground, bump into a party of poachers, or find that the island's T-Rexes are now hunting in packs…
I haven't tested the rules (though I'm tempted to give the quick start a go at my Friday game night) so can't speak to their quality. You can watch a playtest of a starter scenario with the team at Creature Curation, which is handling fulfilment for Raptor Ruckus.
A range of products are available in the campaign, including a 144 page core book and a 64 page campaign supplement, called 'Fragmentation'. They're available digitally or as hardcover books, with prices starting at $20 for the digital edition of the core book, $40 for the hardcover and PDF, and going up from there for various bundles. The campaign runs until 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm BST on September 25.
I'm going to call out a couple of add-ons as particularly noteworthy. First there's the dinosaur miniatures - because of course there's dinosaur miniatures. These are available as digital STLs for your home 3D printer, or resin-printed, and some of them are proper whoppers - an 11" long Spinosaurus or 7" tall T-rex, each available for $15 as an STL or $50 printed. The Spinosaurus is an existing STL by Dillon Olney of Critical Crafting, and it's cheaper in this Kickstarter than at his MyMinifactory page.
Then there are the hacking cards, a deck of numbers and symbols (and some handy combat reference cards). According to the Kickstarter, these cards let the GM swap out the Wits test when a player attempts to "override door locks, decrypt passwords, and shut down security systems" with a "logic-matrix hacking minigame".
How does it work? Is it good? No idea. This kind of minigame is great for ramping up tension, though. Starting a timer on your phone and telling your players they've got to complete a puzzle before the alarm goes off and alerts every raptor within half a mile is sure to set their pulses pounding.
The provisional fulfilment timeline for the project states that beta versions of digital rewards should be available in January 2026, with final digital files in March, and with physical books shipping in August. Snapback Game Studios has completed one other project before, an expansion for Pirate Borg.
Do you love dinosaurs? We love dinosaurs. If you want to join an online community where everyone has a really interesting answer to the question "what's your favorite dinosaur?", come and introduce yourself in the official Wargamer Discord community.
Strangely, this year has already seen one crowdfunding campaign for a miniature wargame with a dinosaur survival horror theme, called We Played God - you can learn more about it in this article.