Cryptid Hunter

Originally written on the intfiction forums. Minor edits were made.

You are a Mysterious Creature Researcher, on a Mysterious Creature Hunt after a totally-not-nefarious-front hires you to do so. To facilitate this, you’re given the location of a small town with a history of strange animals, a convenient stealth suit and a list of three such Mysterious Cryptids to catch.

You are given a choice of six set locations to go to. Each location has the same cryptid, but the list of required ones is randomized each playthrough. Once you go to a location, you encounter an unusual creature, and must cross-reference the initial description (that can be expanded with further observation and taking photos) against the traits written in the list (which is a convenient choice click away). You can back out and come back later if you’re not sure, which is advisable since you’ll most likely find at least two cryptids with overlapping traits in the required list. You also have a notebook that lets you write your own text, which is a nice feature but I didn’t feel the need to utilize it in my playthroughs.

The game is reasonably paced and not too long. A first playthrough will probably take fifteen to thirty-five minutes depending on how thorough you are. You’re graded on how many of the correct cryptids you caught. If you got all of them right, you have a further choice between three different end states. If you get less than that, the game basically goes “womp womp try again.” The endings themselves run the gamut on (Spoiler - click to show)how much you care about the cryptids’ wellbeing. They’re short and close the game off well while also being open-ended enough to give the viewer room to imagine what could happen next.

The writing accomplishes the tasks of creating diverse creatures (I appreciated the intentionally-low quality black-and-white photos) and a setting with history - I liked the info about the town’s locations and wanted to know more. I only noted two typos (“Your” should be “You’re” in the blurb, one section reads “it’s two hooves”). The creature in the well was my favorite, (Spoiler - click to show)a freaky being who can imitate voices and lure people into wells. I got the cave worm in both my playthroughs so I also have a soft spot for it (sorry for the (Spoiler - click to show)whole “sawing the body off” trick, but hopefully you will be fine after I let you go…but does that mean there are two of them running around that cave? Did the halves join back together? Desperately need to know the answer).

Cryptid Hunter is a pleasant little pattern matcher, especially for the people who cared about filling out those Pokedex entries, though I would say one complete playthrough where you capture all three assigned cryptids is enough.