Retro: Don’t Have To Be Fast, Just Don’t Be The Slowest When Escaping ‘Big Foot’
Don’t let the box art fool you, this monstrous beast wants to have you for dinner.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s it seems like every celebrity had their own board game.
Don’t worry, we’ll likely cover …most of those games eventually.
More often than not these games had very little to do with their namesake. But with each of these celebrities getting their own game, is it any surprise America’s favorite cryptozoological phenomenon has his own board game as well?
Even if they got Big Foot confused with a Yeti in calling it a Giant Snow Monster Game, the box art shows the cheerful and jolly demeanor of this gentle giant. But it’s all a lie.
Released in 1977, this game pits players against each other in a test of survival. As Bigfoot tramples throughout the town, players are trying to avoid his bestial wrath and ferocious visage.
Truly terrifying
The game play is pretty straightforward. Each player rolls a die and moves that many spaces. Depending on which space they land on, different things happen. This is basically how 95% of retro board games played out, so it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.
Landing on blue space lets you draw a card, which has different effects from moving any player token or moving Bigfoot around. However, the important ones are the yellow and red Bigfoot spaces. Land on one of them and Bigfoot goes on a rampage! Roll the dice and move Bigfoot that many spaces in any direction. If Bigfoot moves across any player’s token, he stomps on them.
In Bigfoot’s base is a pile of footprint tokens. Pressing Bigfoot down releases one of the tokens. If it’s a blank, you’re safe. But if it’s a footprint, Bigfoot has crushed/captured/eaten/mauled you. Your choice.
Try not to be floored by the ultra HD quality of this gif
Gameplay continues until there is only one player left standing after the insatiable hunger of Bigfoot has been sated. That player, as the only survivor of the attack, maintains a Pyrrhic victory over his fallen friends and family.
Final Thoughts
As with every game before Settlers of Catan brought us out of the dark ages, this game is very bad and based way too much on lucky rolls and card draws.
I’ll admit the Bigfoot figure with the footprint tokens is pretty neat but it’s still just a more different way of drawing from a deck of cards. At least this game has slightly more going for it than, say, Candyland. At least here you can move your token and Bigfoot freely around the board, making for at least some level of tactical decision making. Still though, the game is retrotastic – which is not the same as fantastic.
Thanks for reading!
