REVIEW: Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 Re-Raptored skewers the industry once again with match-3 action

It's not even been half a year since the highly anticipated Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 was canceled, proving that their rumored changes to the famous horror franchise's formula may have been a bit too much for executives and fans alike. Fans unearthed builds of the game and found plenty to love, but the developers chose instead to use what they learned from that experience to... go back to the beginning.

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 Re-Raptored takes us back to famed hero Jack Briar's roots, showcasing his first showdown with redneck scientist Henry Bayliss and his drove of scientifically enhanced dinos. It's shorter than we remember and it's not as tooth-y as the rumored CRDM3 would have been, but it's just as mechanically sound as ever.

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion fans can rejoice, because the franchise is definitely headed in the right direction, and we hope this is a sign we'll get even more from it before too long.

​Just the Facts

Developer: Pedalboard Games

Publisher: Pedalboard Games

​Platform(s): PC

​Price: $9.99, $8.99 launch discount, $6.49 for CRDM3 owners with launch discount

Release Date: September 23, 2025

Review key provided by developer.

Okay. I feel like I have to be clear that Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion isn't a series that exists in the way my intro makes it sound — so, a bit of setup is in order.

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 released in April 2025 as the "sequel to a game series that doesn't exist." Except, now it does.

CRDM3 was developed by Strange Scaffold as a silent and silly raging against the state of the games industry. In it, the characters of a canceled third game in a famous franchise become self-aware enough to fight back against the desperate situation they're trapped in, and players were treated to an adventure that was entirely match-3 driven.

Now, as part of a new initiative Strange Scaffold is spearheading where they lend out a project's codebase and assets, which they call Project Share, we're getting to see that world fleshed out even more with Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 Re-Raptored. And it's not like the team for this new installment is unfamiliar: Pedalboard Games is led by CRDM3's Project Co-Lead and Writer, Colin McInerney. The crossover in DNA makes this feel like a seamless narrative sequel.

Re-Raptored takes us back to the start, placing us in the shoes of himbo action star hero Jack Briar, a man whose vibes are cinched from the very start. Instead of CRDM3's J.J. Hardwell, who hesitates at a locked gate and clumsily clambers over it, top agent Jack wastes no time in smashing his way through. Jack's a man of action and he takes any obstacle in stride. So when he wanders into the mansion expecting to find reckless scientist Henry Bayliss waiting, and instead discovers a man named Huncan at a bar who says Jack's in a video game, he gets to work trying to bypass its odd invisible barriers and poking at its dark corners.

Worlds are colliding. J.J. Hardwell is missing. Jack Briar suddenly appears. And the rules of their world are shifting right in front of them. This once inactive game is suddenly active, and Jack and Huncan have to work quickly to figure out what's happening before something shifts for good. All the while, they piece together the story of the developers in the real world who are behind these changes and witness the aches of the industry.

Compared to CRDM3, the painful games industry reflections feel a little less sharp-toothed, mainly because it trims the fat and gets straight to the point and into the action. That meta-narrative is still present, and I certainly winced at some of the stories it told about how the modern industry operates. But the storytelling this time has shifted its focus more onto the world within the game that was set up in CRDM3. It scrutinizes these characters, trapped and tossed about willy-nilly for someone else's pleasure, and how they cope on the inside.

It plays with the format in fun ways — hell, I'd even go as far as to say this game's a bit of a slow burn yaoi story — and sacrifices some of those big-swing satire pieces for great character moments.

With Colin coming back to lead the project this time, the writing is just as hilarious as ever and the characters just as charming. You finally see Jack Briar and realize he's exactly the himbo you believed he'd be; you finally confront Henry Bayliss and witness his spineless villainy on full display. They even manage to snipe the baby stock market concept out from under Strange Scaffold, beating them to the punch in a hilarious segment that sees a familiar Huncan from CRDM3 rushing to chase a new get-rich-quick scheme to fame and fortune.

And shoutout to the game's final line for being so groan-inducing it rolls right around to being brilliant.

The writing is just as hilarious as ever and the characters just as charming.

At just around 3-4 hours to beat, Re-Raptored is a shorter and more linear experience. The ending came a bit quicker than I was expecting, with so many questions left unanswered. It felt like the story had much more to say by the time it finished, but it accomplished what it set out to do: continue the CRDM franchise. Even if it feels more like an addendum to the last game rather than its own proper standalone experience.

On the gameplay side, Re-Raptored is almost exactly what you'd expect (more CRDM3). You wander through a mansion by making choices about which path to go down in choose your own adventure-style dialogue trees. Any obstacle you face is presented to you as a match-3 challenge, and through both the match-3 and choice-driven narrative, you unlock new perks for Jack that'll give you new paths to explore and new abilities to use.

Because the game is more straightforward and linear, it removes some of the fun process of exhausting paths and choices that made the first game more of a "matchroidvania," leaving the match-3 systems as your main source of enjoyment.

For a quick reminder on how the match-3 combat in this series works: You are presented with a grid of gems, randomly arranged, and look for matches of 3 or more on the grid, then make them and bank the gems you matched. Using your banked gems, you can unleash special moves that might do more damage, stun your opponent, or even end the challenge immediately. Try to withstand damage or avoid matching specific types of gems to win, and you'll continue the story.

CRDM3 was already such a fun and clever distillation of the match-3 experience in how it used a Puzzle Quest style formula to build out compelling match-3 battles, where players faced off against dinos, existential concepts, and locked doors in match-3 combat. But I'd argue it's within the match-3 that Re-Raptored actually takes a step up over its predecessor.

In the first game, J.J. Hardwell was a bit of an everyman, meaning that players could kind of play however they'd like to succeed. Jack Briar, on the other hand, has a very specific build, and his opponents are, on the whole, much tougher than J.J.'s. So there's a lot more nuance in approaching each match-3 challenge this time out.

I'd argue it's within the match-3 that CRDM1RR actually takes a step up over its predecessor.

Jack's whole build is based around constructing heavy-hitting turns by using his abilities to add extra turns and double his damage to really take it to your opponent. Similarly, his opponents rely less on gems in their banks and will relentlessly pile on their best powers if you aren't careful. Patience was key this time around. I also had to be infinitely more aware of the board as a whole, so as to not leave clear advantages open for my opponent. But I still found myself barely scraping by the game's toughest challenges.

If you enjoyed the challenge of late-game CRDM3, you'll thrive from beginning to end, as Re-Raptored is certainly tuned to those sensibilities. Newcomers will definitely have to earn their keep in CRDM3 before hopping into this one.

Another thing I was thrilled to enjoy as much as I did was Re-Raptored's soundtrack. Pedalboard's Aidan Myers builds off of the polka-bluegrass roots of David Mason's work on the first game, but injects their own personal flair with a bit more upbeat action that is almost reminiscent of JRPG classics. A good soundtrack is key to fill out the limited soundscape for a game like this, and Myers' work here simply elevates the experience even more than the silly banjo-filled tracks of the first game did.

And there may or may not be a guest composer who drops a track on this that will blow your socks off, too, but I'll leave that for you to find.

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 Re-Raptored is a stunning proof of concept for Strange Scaffold's Project Share initiative, showcasing how indies may be able to keep franchises alive and uplift smaller teams while going out to build new things. It's the kind of sequel that offers more of what you loved the first time — even if it's shorter than you'd hope and doesn't delve as deep. And it's a brilliant debut from a team I can't wait to see more from.

If how quickly this game came about is any sign, we might just be playing Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 2 The Dinofinitive Edition in just a few weeks. So stay eatin' good, CRDM fans: a franchise is building.

Video Games Are Good and Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 1 Re-Raptored is . . . GOOD. (7.5/10)

+ same brilliant match-3 adventuring, an even more eclectic polka-bluegrass-electronica soundtrack, technically slow burn yaoi

- so short that its ending was genuinely surprising to me, match-3 challenges are bit harder than expected from the jump, more linear than i'd hoped

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