Review Summary: A star-shaped dice tray for the ages.
Blurb from the publisher: 'e-Raptor's Cthulhu Dice Tray is our new product for gamers, a great looking alternative to our Dice Towers. Designed to improve gameplay of any dice-using board game, it is made of high quality HDF and has a beautiful overprint on the bottom and at the sides. For those who consider the sound of rolling dice too noisy, it is available with a matched piece of black felt which can be attached to the tray. It can be assembled without glue. The tray can hold dice, reduces the mess on the table and, most importantly, makes dice-rolling more fun.'
What you get: Your EUR 10 or equivalent will buy you the e-Raptor Cthulhu Dice Tray.
It's engineering is identical to that behind e-Raptor Red Explosion Dice Tray in that it is made from nine HDF pieces forming an eight-point star with half of its corners being half-rounded. It has a width of 23, a length of 23, and a height of 3 cm. Its base depicts Cthulhu seated, in a misty background of greens, greys, and straight, star-forming geometrical lines which extend to its sides. The base depicts the design on both sides. The mechanical novelty that the HDF pieces use in order to bend further add to the piece's aesthetics. The felt, should you decide to use it and cover the image of Cthulhu, is black.
The strong points: E-Raptor had a winning design with the bendable HDF pieces of the Red Explosion Dice Tray, and lo and behold, it gets used again. This isn't a paste up of probably the most overused Mythos on the planet as we speak. Cthulhu and polygons go hand in hand since time immemorial, and the aesthetics of this tray take it firmly into account. The lines appear to spill over the base, encompassing the whole item both internally and externally. I can't stress how much I like that.
The tray can easily accommodate rolls of up to 20 dice, provided you pay a bit of attention so that they don't roll out of it. I don't even know of games that use dice pools that big, so here you go. In contrast to the Red Explosion Dice Tray, I did not stick the felt to the base. The felt can still be used without being stuck, and allows me to alternate between showcasing the imagery and toning down the volume, even though, admittedly, sticking it to the base provides better insulation. The tray allows for almost silent dice rolling, seeing how the dice don't fall down from one level to another, as is the case in even insulated dice towers. The felt's added value is that dice can be read more easily without the greys and greens of Cthulhu interferring.
The tray can also be used as a collection point. You can use it for chips, markers, tokens etc, so that your table remains tidy no matter which other game you play.
When it comes to aesthetics, the tray has found an eerie balance. When I hold it and look at it, it is as if Cthulhu was meant to be depicted in such a polygon, with additional polygons surrounding him. I will not lie; colour-wise I prefer the exotic red and black of the Red Explosion Dice Tray. Yet, seeing how such geometrical shapes and stars are engrained in the Cthulhu Mythos, this is an awesome design that doesn't sacrifice a square centimetre of functionality in order to look as right as the stars it depicts. Depending on whether you cover Cthulhu or not, you can use it for any game featuring the great old one, or any other game whatsoever. That alone is an incredible feat.
Assembly is extremely easy and shouldn't take more than five minutes. E-Raptor's laser cutting is perfect; there is zero wood residue or sawdust when separating the pieces from their panels. You need to separate the tray's walls by shape since there are two types of them, that's however it. Click them in and you are done. The tray is ultra sturdy, mind you. None of its parts will ever move after you install them, unless you decide to disassemble it.
The Red Explosion tray cost EUR 12,90. This one costs only EUR 10. That's a bargain even at MSRP. Wow!
The weak points: The tray's bendable HDF parts should be taken off their panels with the utmost caution. Be attentive and you will have no issues.
To stick (the felt) or not to stick? If you stick it you will forever cover a very evocative rendition of Cthulhu, something rather counterintuitive. One can always try to disassemble and reassemble the tray in order to alternate between the felt and the original design, yet I would strongly recommend against that, lest you break some of the moving pieces. You can always do like me and keep the felt in but unattached. In such a case, the disadvantage of not using the felt is that you get more noise out of each roll, while the image gets slowly worn out. Using the felt on the other hand means that great Cthulhu, a major aspect of why one would buy this tray, is kept hidden from your co-players, and the tray comes out as rather generic. The next step in this tray design would be for the felt to show exactly what the base does, so that the buyer faces no dilemma about using the felt.
Conclusion: E-Raptor's Cthulhu Dice Tray is exemplary of engineering, form, and function going hand in hand with theme. Cthulhu loves polygons and in this one he has found his seat of power.
To find out more about e-Raptor and its Chtulhu Dice Tray take a look at http://e-raptor.pl.
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