Hunting Sasquatch

Game: Hunting Sasquatch
Manufacturer: Spyglass Games
Year: 2016

Personal History:
In recent years my mother has come to believe that there is a very good possibility that Sasquatches exist. This is occasionally a source of good-natured ribbing during family gatherings, and the sasquatch has cemented itself firmly into family in-joke country. Recently I had the opportunity to try a review sample of the upcoming game "Hunting Sasquatch", and while I knew nothing about the gameplay I knew I had to try it out just based on theme alone.

Condition:
As I always caution this is a pre-production review sample, so what you see here in the photos is not what the final product will look like. Indeed much of the artwork has yet to be finished, anything that appears as a dark silhouette of an image is actually placeholder art. I've also been told that some of the iconography is in the process of being changed.

Gameplay:
Each player takes a "Hunter" card. Hunter cards indicate the type of hunter the player is, as well as that hunter's special abilities and their "Doomed" color, which becomes important when exploring new areas. There are a number of different hunter types in this game, each with different abilities and doomed colors.

At the start of a player's turn he must choose a "Location" card. As the game progresses Location cards will be placed in piles, the number of which scales with the number of players (the photos in this review will reflect a two player game). If there are already visible location cards on the piles a player may choose to select one of these. If there are no visible locations, or if the player does not like his current choices, he may draw a location card from the deck, place it on the smaller of the location piles, and then "encounter" it.

Encountering a location involves comparing your hunter card's Doomed color with the Doomed Hunter color on the location card. If a hunter explores a location which shares his Doomed color then that hunter dies and the player's turn is over. Any Location card which is taken from the deck must immediately be encountered. Players also encounter cards they choose to visit from the location piles, however players will know what the Doomed color is in advance and can avoid locations that will kill them.

Once a player has chosen a location and survived the encounter with it his next task is to gather the Hunter Dice and attempt to roll that location's Victory condition. In order to successfully inspect a location and hopefully gather some evidence of Sasquatch's existence the player must roll the collection of die faces printed on the right of the card. The player decides how many of the eight hunter dice he'd like to roll, placing extras aside and then rolling the rest.

If the player is holding any "anti-"tokens from previous turns he must discard any die which matches each token, along with the token, placing them aside with the unrolled dice. Then, the player may activate any special ability  their hunter card allows. Dice are then applied to the location card, first to the "Death" column, and then to the "Victory" column. If at any time the Death column fills up the hunter has died and the turn is over.

If after the first roll the player does not have the results needed to fill the Victory column, he may attempt to roll again. The player rolls the "Fate" die to. If he rolls the horseshoe symbol then he may roll any unused hunter dice again, minus those lost to tokens or unrolled during the first attempt. If the player receieves a trap symbol on the fate die his turn is over and he recieves the "Trap" consequences printed on the location card. This usually involves receiving one or more "anti-tokens" and sometimes losing a turn. Some traps can also give a player horseshoe and lightbulb tokens which have positive effects.

If the player is unable to fill the Victory column after the second roll then his turn is over and he recieves the Trap consequences. If he is successful then he takes the location card. If this location has an evidence symbol on it that he has not recieved before then he also takes the corresponding evidence token.

If a player dies, either from encountering a location or rolling all of the dice on a location's death column, he immediately discards his hunter card, as well as all anti-tokens attached to it. He then draws a new hunter card for his next turn.

Play continues this way until one off two win conditions have been met. First, if any player collects all six types of evidence the game ends. Second, if a specific number of hunter cards are in the discad pile, a number which scales with the number of players, the game ends. Players then add up the value of their captured location cards, plus two points for every unique evidence token in their posession. The player with the highest total is the winner.

So How Is It:?
I played this with my wife, and she is a pretty picky gamer. At the end of the game she had a generally positive opinion of it, and that's a sort of success on its own. This game is easy to grasp, in part because you can start teaching it by saying "It's kind of like Yahtzee, but...". While there are certainly plenty of differences the basic idea of rolling and applying dice is recognizable and an easy sell, making this I think a very good game for families and casual gamers. We had a good time, groaning with our losses and happy with our victories. It moves pretty quickly, and I found that the player powers definitely steer your decision making, which is great.

The game can get a little frustrating, especially if you are trying to get a specific kind of evidence chip. Locations seem designed to dissuade you from attempting them a second time. If you get a trap at a location the penalty anti-token(s) are usually the same symbols as that location's victory conditions. This means capturing the location you wanted has just become even harder, and if the other visible locations share your Doomed color or give chips you already have it leaves you in the crappy position of either probably losing again or having to blind draw a card that might kill you or cover up the location you want. I guess that's party of the game's strategy, but at times certain elements just felt in the way. I especially am not a fan of the "Doomed" color element, and am unsure of its purpose other than to shorten game length somewhat.

While much of the artwork is unfinished in the copy I received, the art which is completed is wonderful. It's a clean, cartoony style which echoes the general lightness of the game perfectly. Every character is unique and charming in its own way. Each location card features a real location and a mythical creature of some kind that is supposed to live there, making the game also a sort of cryptozoic glossary. Each piece of artwork on the location cards has a little scene which includes that location's creature as well as the Sasquatch and usually some hunters doing something.

My biggest source of confusion with the artwork is on the box cover, where Sasquatch is almost fully dressed such that he pretty much just looks like some large bearded guy. If the game is called "Hunting Sasquatch" I'd expect a large, obvious picture of Sasquatch on the cover, not a lumberjack that, after careful consideration is PROBABLY Sasquatch. In fact several mythical creatures appear on the box art and Sasquatch is absolutely the least recognizable one. Were I in charge of that decision (and I'm not) I'd absolutely strip that squatch down.

Final Verdict:
This is a cute, light dice-roller that is easily taught and plays pretty quickly. If you like games like "Dungeon Roll" then you're likely to enjoy this game as well, and when the artwork is completed I bet it's going to look pretty slick. It scores a "Good" 4/5.