Friday Filler: Cryptozoology for Beginners

The set-up for Cryptozoology for Beginners is quite simple. The school’s photography class has been given a new assignment and raced off aboard the big yellow school bus on a mysterious field trip. This is out into the wilds to photograph and record the local wildlife. This is no ordinary wildlife though, but cryptids—Nessie, the Chupacabra, Sasquatch, and the Mothman—and if the players can take the right photographs and complete their assignments, they will be rewarded with stars, and get to go home top of the class. Cryptozoology for Beginners is published by Cryptozoic Entertainment and is part of the second trilogy of games based on the art of Steven Rhodes, noted for its sly, subversive dig at the social attitudes and fears of the seventies and eighties. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed to be played by between two and four players, aged fourteen and up. The game is played over the course of three rounds in which players will draft cards—both Assignment Cards and Cryptid cards, and then play the Cryptid Cards to both activate their abilities and fulfil the requirements of the Assignment cards. A game can be played in twenty minutes or more, depending on the number of players.

Cryptozoology for Beginners consists of a twelve-page rules booklet, a deck of ninety-six Cryptid Cards, forty Assignment Cards, forty Scoring Tokens, and a Bus Standee. The rules booklet is short, easy to read, and includes a few clarifications and some optional rules. The latter are for a beginner game and a two-player game. The rules for a beginner game do feel superfluous given the simple nature of game and its play, especially given its suggested age limit. Much younger players will have no problems learning and playing Cryptozoology for Beginners. The Scoring Tokens are worth between three and six points and are kept face down throughout play, including when a player draws one and keeps it, and the Bus Standee is used to indicate the first player in each round.

The two card types are the Cryptid Cards and the Assignment Cards. These come in four colours—red, green, blue, and yellow—and are marked with one of seven icons—either Nessie, Sasquatch Footprint, Chupacabra, Mothman, Eldritch Tome, Target, and Horror. There are some cards which combine two icons, whilst the cards with the Horror icon—the Jersey Devil, Siren, and Jackalope—are colourless. Where link between the icons and the cryptids are obvious, the Target icon refers to Monster Hunters. Each of the Cryptid Cards has a special ability. For example, the ‘Nessie’ card requires a player to activate it and another two cards with the Nessie icon so that he can draw another card, whilst the Chupacabra card needs to be activated plus another four cards with the Chupacabra icon and then lets a player discard any card in play, even that of another player, and in return let the owner draw a new card.

The different types of Cryptid Card are also themed mechanically. Thus, the Cryptid Cards with the Nessie icon enable a player to draw more cards; the Cryptid Cards with the Sasquatch Footprint grant a player more Victory Tokens; the Cryptid Cards with the Chupacabra icon let a player steal cards from another player; and the Cryptid Cards with the Mothman icon grant a player with the most Mothman icons extra Victory Points. Of the other Cryptid Cards, those with the Eldritch Tome icon reward a player with Victory Token and those with Target icons can activated to draw and keep another Assignment card. The colourless cards give a variety of unique effects.

The Assignment Cards each provide an objective and a reward to be gained in return for completing it. For example, Assignment #1 requires a player to accrue four red cards and grants him three Victory Points, whilst Assignment #16 gives a player two points if he can accrue two points and at the end of the round, can either give the player another Victory Point or lets him keep a card with a Chupacabra icon.

Cryptozoology for Beginners is played in three rounds each of which consists of four phases. The first phase is the ‘Assignment’ phase. Each player draws two Assignment Cards, keeps one and hidden, whilst the other is placed face-up where everyone can see it and work to achieving it. In the second phase, the ‘Draft Cryptid’ phase, each player receives eight Cryptid Cards. He keeps a single card and passes the remainder to the next player. This is done until each player has drafted a hand of eight Cryptid Cards. The third phase is ‘Player Turns’. Each player takes it in turn to play a single Cryptid Card in front of him, activate its ability, and if he manages to complete an Assignment Card, either one face up on the table or the one he has secret, he gets to place it in front of him. It will add to his total score at the end of the game. Cards can only be activated once per phase. Play continues until no-one has any Cryptid Cards in their hand. This ends the round, players keep their completed Assignments and points scored, whilst all Cryptid Cards are discarded—unless a card says otherwise. A new round begins and repeats these steps, and then again for a third and final round. The Bus Standee is used to indicate the player who has the lowest score that is not hidden and lets him begin first in the next round. At the end of the game, the player with highest score wins the game.

In this way, the play of Cryptozoology for Beginners is simple and straightforward. In fact, too simple and straightforward. The problem with Cryptozoology for Beginners is that once play begins, there is very interaction between the players, only through a number of limited Cryptid Cards and then through the draft in the second phase of each round. This draft is the most important stage of play, since it sets up much of what a player will play and do in the ‘Player Turns’ phase. To go further, the ‘Draft Phase’ is not so much a ‘draft’ phase, but a ‘planning’ phase, a player trying work out whether to aim to complete Assignment Cards, focus on Cryptid Cards that give more points, and so on. The benefit of the draft means that each player will also have some idea of what his opponents are planning because of the cards they draft—in secret of course, but they are no longer there as the hands are passed around the table. Also, with just a few Assignment Cards in play, the competition between players can be fierce and made all the worse if a player grabs one that another player has been working towards completing, leaving him little time to adjust or really catch up.

Physically, Cryptozoology for Beginners is nicely done. The rules booklet is easy to read and the rules to understand, whilst the Victory Tokens and the School Bus are done on the thick, bright cardboard. The Assignment Cards are clear and simple, if bland, but really all of the game’s flavour comes from Steve Rhodes’ artwork on the Cryptid Cards which is highly entertaining, such as the Sasquatch on the ‘Seclusion of Sasquatch’ Cryptid Card making filming another Sasquatch whilst a third looks on laughing!

Ultimately, what sells Cryptozoology for Beginners is its artwork—and it really is good artwork. Otherwise, game play focuses too much on its draft mechanic—get it right and a player will sail through his turns, get it wrong and he will have slog to catch up. There is also little interaction beyond the draft. Younger players are more likely to like this more than older ones, the latter including the minimum suggested age group for Cryptozoology for Beginners. It is too simple a game for them. Ultimately, Cryptozoology for Beginners feels as if it should offer more than it does.