Bigfoot Review

Designer: Scott Almes

Artist: Brett Brooks

Publisher: Game Salute

Number of Players: 2

Duration: 15 mins

I am an absolute sucker for a purpose made two player game. Most the games I play are with my S.O. so having a game that was made for two just fits the bill perfectly. So you can understand why Bigfoot had some immediate appeal to us.

Bigfoot was launched on Kickstarter back in early 2014 and was created by Scott Almes of Tiny Epic fame and published by Game Salute. 

In Bigfoot players take on the role of either the eponymous Bigfoot or the Cryptozoologist. The game is pretty simple, once you get over the complicated rule book that accompanies the game. Players take it in turns to play as either role, the Cryptozoologist takes the path cards and and lays two paths with the six drawn cards. The cards range from action cards to location cards that the Bigfoot might be hiding in. Along comes Bigfoot (who at the start of the game took five location cards which are kept secret) and looks at the paths chooses one and then lay down the “bigfeet” markers on the cards corresponding to the locations that he has in his hand.

Pictures taken from Bigfoot Kickstarter page

Now for the thinky bit. Based on the number of tokens laid on each tile the Cryptozoologist can take guesses at the end of each round to see if they can work out where Bigfoot is hiding out.

The game ends once the Cryptozoologist has located all five locations that where picked at the start of the game. The game is played over 6 rounds so they have to be quick to get them all.

There are other little nuances to the game some I will mention below, but that is the basic game play.

This game is a simple deduction game, if the Cryptozoologist lays the paths correctly then it should be pretty straight forward for them to guess the 5 locations in less than the 6 rounds of a game. It also helps that they can spend actions to take a second guess in a round but if they get two incorrect guesses in a row then its game over and Bigfoot wins.

Pictures taken from Bigfoot Kickstarter page

That, is my big issue with the game. This is really a one player game with the second player only being required to be an observer. Bigfoot does next to nothing, other than putting tokens on cards and showing a correctly guessed card. Other than that they are sitting watching their opponent work out which location they should be guessing. Which is quite fun when they are really struggling and the answer is so obvious to you. There is nothing they can do to influence the game itself, which isn’t fun when you are playing as Bigfoot.

The 6 rounds do play pretty quickly, so you can switch character roles each  game so that everyone gets a go, but its that turn while you are Bigfoot that makes it a bit dull for a few minutes.

I can see this game working really well with a parent and child set up, as they will feel like they are doing something to be involved by laying tokens, rather than a seasoned gamer who will see the non-involvement side of it. But also bear in mind that this is a light game and a decent filler to have in the collection.

For deduction it ticks all the boxes, for player interaction unfortunately it misses the mark somewhere.