RDTN Episode 164: Terror Below, Raccoon Tycoon and Beta Colony

Episode 164 brings together a publisher conversation and three table discussions, with the longest looks going to Raccoon Tycoon and Beta Colony. Sara Erickson from Renegade Game Studios also joins to talk about designer Mike Elliot’s Terror Below, which was live on the crowdfunding platform at the time of recording and had already reached its funding goal. The episode runs long, but each conversation has a different angle: a quick-to-teach commodities game, a shared dice pool with individual choices, and a chance to hear a publisher representative respond to questions.

Raccoon Tycoon’s appeal is in its flexible strategies

The hosts describe Raccoon Tycoon, from Forbidden Games, as an enjoyable commodities game that’s fast to teach and play. That combination gives it a practical place in a collection: the group can get into the decisions without spending a long time learning the rules, and the hosts say it’s become a regular choice when they have about an hour for a game.

Their main point is that the strategies seem to work in different ways, rather than pointing toward one obvious winning approach. That’s a useful quality in a game built around commodities: players can explore their options and make choices that feel viable without every session being reduced to repeating a single known route. The hosts don’t lay out specific tactics in the episode description, so the appeal here is the variety they’ve experienced at the table, rather than a prescribed strategy.

They also praise the art and components, and point to the price at Miniature Market as part of the game’s appeal. For listeners weighing whether it fits a regular game night, the recommendation is straightforward: it offers a commodities game the hosts enjoy returning to, with a teach and play time they find easy to fit into an hour.

Beta Colony puts the shared dice pool to work

Beta Colony, published by Rio Grande Games, takes a different route. The episode compares its dice mechanism to the one in Lorenzo, then highlights an added feature the hosts call a “rolldell” in the center of the board. All players draw from the same dice pool, but each player uses the available dice to determine their own actions.

That shared pool creates a common set of possibilities, while the individual way players use it shapes their turns. The hosts also point out that players aren’t competing for spaces. Without that direct contest over board locations, they describe the central challenge as planning a turn well. The contrast with Raccoon Tycoon gives the episode a useful pair of game discussions: one recommendation centers on a welcoming commodities experience and multiple workable strategies, while the other focuses on making decisions from a resource everyone shares.

A publisher conversation about Terror Below

Erickson joins to discuss Mike Elliot’s Terror Below. The hosts introduce the game as a current crowdfunding project and note that it had already funded when they recorded. Erickson takes questions from the hosts and later joins them for a “Rank’em” segment, a recurring style of ranking discussion they say they hadn’t done for some time.

The episode description doesn’t provide the game’s rules, player count, play time, or pledge details, so the conversation is best approached as an interview for listeners who want more context before deciding whether the project interests them. The useful takeaway is that a Renegade Game Studios representative was on hand to respond to questions directly. The discussion appears twice in the rundown: first as an introduction, then as a longer segment, followed by the ranking game.

Precious Cargo and the episode rundown

Vanessa and Marty discuss Precious Cargo from Winning Moves Games. The hosts leave open whether Marty will keep Vanessa involved in these reviews, while suggesting that the format could bring more reviews to the podcast. No detailed account of the game’s mechanisms appears in the episode notes, but the segment adds another review to an episode otherwise led by the longer looks at Raccoon Tycoon and Beta Colony.

The full running order also includes a brief opening segment called “Bubble Burst,” a discussion of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and segments on Grizzled Armistice, GMT P500 Battle Line, Chronicles of Crime, The Broken Token, and a mower discussion. The episode closes with mentions of Portal Con and Portal Games. Listeners looking for the main tabletop conversations can use these timestamps:

• 28:45 — Precious Cargo
• 36:00 — Beta Colony
• 48:09 and 55:00 — Terror Below
• 1:18:22 — Rank’em with Sara
• 1:54:51 — Raccoon Tycoon

The next episode is set to be the podcast’s annual awards show, with its lineup of presenters in place. For this installment, the clearest reason to listen is the mix: a guest discussion for Terror Below, a recurring recommendation in Raccoon Tycoon, and a closer look at how Beta Colony turns a shared pool of dice into individual plans.