I Found Bigfoot (Saturday Review)

I Found Bigfoot is going to be on Kickstarter soon.
Sign up to be notified now!

I had my camera ready. The tripod was weighed down to ensure I got a clear picture and the telescopic lens was attached to get me as close to the action as possible. It wasn’t going to be easy because this creature was hard to find and very camera-shy. I was sure I was in the right spot though. There had been footprints in the ground, so there was no doubt. I stood to make good money from my photos. Then, almost out of nowhere, there it was. I almost couldn’t believe it, but it was true – I Found Bigfoot by John David Wood from Thing 12 Games.

Cryptid Galore

Thing 12 Games always come up with imaginative settings for their games and I Found Bigfoot is no different. Imagine being a cryptid hunter and trying to take photos of Bigfoot, the Yeti, Mothman and maybe even the highly elusive Loch Ness Monster. There is good money in that in real life and it’s no different in this set collection card game.

The rules are really simple, the setup is quick and you’re playing within minutes. On your turn, you either draw a card from one of the decks that are laid out in a three-by-three grid. Cards show one of the five different creatures and they each also have one of the five different colours. So there will be a Bigfoot with a red background, as well as one with a green background and so on. Your task is to collect sets of either the same creature or the same animal.

In fact, you don’t even have to collect sets, because when you play sets, you always have to include at least one of the cards in the grid. Even better, if there are two or even three cards with matching criteria horizontally or vertically side by side, you can take them all and put them along with your card in your score pile.

So a single Bigfoot with two that are next to each other in the grid give you a set of three cards that you get points for at the end of the game. Similarly, a single red card from your hand can be combined with two or three red cards that are orthogonally adjacent in the grid to be added to your victory stash.

Increasing Difficulty

Now, that is all quite simple, but of course, the game gets more challenging as it goes along. Every time someone scores a set, the next set of the same type needs to be larger. So if I score three red cards, any future red sets need to consist of at least four cards. Once someone has scored a set of five, nobody is able to score the same set again.

That’s where it gets tricky. You might be eagerly collecting lots of Bigfeet, when someone else gets there before you, plays two from their hand and combines them with three from the grid. Not only will they score them all, but from now on nobody can score Bigfoot again. However, don’t despair quite yet. After all, you can still score Bigfoot cards via their colours. For example, if you have two green Bigfoot cards, you can use them to score with green cards from the grid, thereby scoring the Bigfeet and any other creatures part of the set of green cards. So all hope isn’t lost, but of course, the longer you wait, the harder it gets to sell your photos for profit. Also, anything that’s still in your hand at the end of the game scores you negative points, depending on the creature shown.

So that’s where the difficulty lies. The longer the game goes on, the harder it is to score. However, you also don’t necessarily want to play your cards too early, because you could be better off scoring a large set and blocking others out in the process.

Player Interaction

That’s where the player interaction comes in. It is possible for players to take a card that someone else desperately needs. At the same time, there is also plenty of luck in I Found Bigfoot. So even when you do decide to hate draft, it is very likely that the next card is just as good, maybe even better, than the card you took.

There isn’t a lot more to say. I have to make clear that I played a prototype of the game. So while the rules are 99.99% complete, there may still be small tweaks. However, from what I’ve seen, I know that I Found Bigfoot is going to be the perfect pick-up or wind-down game for all the family. It’s really quick to teach and quite fast to play. The illustrations are wonderfully colourful and draw you in. It will appeal to people who like set collection games. While the fact that you can collect sets of the same colour can seem a bit confusing at first, it will quickly become clear that that’s what makes the game so interesting.

I think it’s a fantastic twist on your usual fare of set collection games. You don’t just try to get sequences or multiples. Instead, every card is a combination of colour and creature and you need to pay attention to both to score big. In fact, sometimes going for a colour will help you score high-value creatures that otherwise might have been hard to collect.

So keep an eye out for the crowdfunding campaign and take a closer look. I certainly love this game and have played it many times with different groups of people. Everyone took something else from it and enjoyed something different when playing. Give it a go and soon you’ll say: “I Found Bigfoot!”

Useful Links

• I Found Bigfoot:
• Thing 12 Games: https://thing-12-games.square.site/
• BGG listing: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/382929/i-found-bigfoot

Transparency Facts

I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way.

• I was sent a free review copy of this game by the publisher.
• At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind.

Audio Version

Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

Sound Effects: bbc.co.uk – © copyright 2024 BBC

Invasion by Sascha Ende
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/206-invasion
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Playlist

These are the songs I listened to while I was writing this review: