Do you like cryptids? Do you like board games? Do you like cryptid board games with cute art? Then Twisted Cryptids from Unstable Games is for you! The newest Kickstarter campaign from founder and designer Ramy Badie already has over $1.3 million pledged with a week to go.
Twisted Cryptids will come with 6 tarot-sized Cryptid cards, a wilderness board, 82 action cards, 6 Cryptid meeples, 20 hidden trait cards, 18 event cards, 18 hiding spot tokens, 18 double-sided myth tokens, a sinkhole token, and a first player token. There are also 36 human tokens, 9 card dividers, 54 sighting cards, 6 unicorn chaos magic cards, and 1 unicorn meeple.
I love that this game has card separators. I regularly stack my cards front to back so that it’s easy to pull them apart when setting up for a game, but having actual separators in each game would be so nice! The art is by Badie himself, and is just as cute as the art was in Command of Nature.
In Twisted Cryptids, players pick and play as one of the six cryptids (the KS exclusive comes with the first two expansion characters): Bigfoot, Loveland Frog, Mothman, Jackalope, Nessie, and Chupacabra. For completionists/collectors, the campaign page does detail all the future expansions planned.
Each of the cryptids has their own special ability, which can be used once per round with a goal of getting the most myth points. To do so, players strategically manage encounters with the humans, revealing their presence only when necessary, and aim to maintain control over the six locations available in the Wilderness board.
Players hide stack their 9 sighting cards in 3 stacks, then place their corresponding Hiding Spot tokens in The Wilderness. If there is an Encounter at that site, they’ll have to reveal the top card of that Stack and resolve whatever is on it. Humans come in three “flavors”, hunters, hikers, and researchers, who all respond differently to each type of Cryptid, and will either gain or lose players Myth points.
Players can also lure, scare, attract, and extract humans to sway where the next Encounter might occur. At the end of 5 rounds, the Cryptid with the greatest Myth is named the True Legend.
There are a bunch of cool expansion and addon options, including the ability to get copies of and add-ons for previous Unstable Games campaigns and games! Plus for those who really love getting every last item, there are both acrylic standees and vinyl figurines.
You can learn more and see all the cool options at the campaign page, but don’t hide too long! The campaign ends on October 22.
Images courtesy of Unstable Games
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