Review of Cryptid Creeks, a TTRPG full of spooky stories for all
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Target audience for Cryptid Creeks – fans of creepy x cozy vibes and new players
Cryptid Creeks is self proclaimed as a cozy horror game, and I would say that it is pretty accurate! There’s spooky stories and eldritch challenges, but there’s also a strong sense of community, hope, and perseverance strung through everything from the story to the characters to the mechanics. If you and yours are fans of shows like Gravity Falls, Hilda, or The Owl House, this game’s themes should hit home.
When it comes to handling the mechanics, there is a bit of reading required in the character sheets, so I would say something close to a US 4th grade CCS reading level would be needed to use character sheets independently (this will vary based on the player and if they have help from a facilitator as well). The dice roll mechanics use basic addition (i.e. adding two dice and a modifier to get a total) and require players to know how to add three single digit numbers.
Setting for Cryptid Creeks – a town beset by curses and riddled with the supernatural
Cryptid Creeks takes place in an old fishing town that is under constant cycles of odd events. The impacts of various curses make their presence known across town, a watching spirit guides the worthy on their journey, ghosts haunt the old scout club house, and helpful (but also mischievous) little cryptids, called Eeries, hide about your adventures.
And it is your job to help sort out the mess!
You’ll be following the trail of a mysterious eldritch being, The Peddler, to both help the town deal with the wake he’s left behind and uncover the truth behind his particular story.
Your character in Cryptid Creeks – a scout determined to solve the mystery
In Cryptid Creeks, you and your fellow players will be part of a scout troop, taking up the mantle (aka sashes) of the previous troop, who now haunts the clubhouse. Each player will choose from a number of playbooks based on spooky story character archetypes in order to form a team full of particular strengths and weaknesses that must support each other in their mission.
The playbooks make character creation quick… because the character mechanics are already made! Each character comes with questions and goals that they’re pursuing for their quests, their ability bonuses that fit their archetype, special bonus moves, perks, and setbacks that impact play and give flavor, and tracking for their sash and collections. Playbooks are about 6 pages long, since they have explanations for how to play out each character aspect, and… they give some great examples for archetype representation in media to give an easy summary for new players (like Katniss from Hunger Games for the Athlete, Katara from Avatar for the Medic, and Miguel from Coco for the Musician).
Mechanics in Cryptid Creeks – easy to understand the basics while still pushing the story forward
Most rolls in Cryptid Creeks are going to involve rolling 2d6, then adding the result of the two with a modifier to see where you land on a scale denoting if you have a miss + complication, hit + complication, triumph, etc.
This is pretty easy to pick up, and it’s something that kiddo understood on first explanation, which is GREAT for introducing to new players.
From here though, there are layers of nuance that build from this initial concept in order to let players (and the navigator) plan, mess with mechanics, get creative, and push the story.
There’s rules for getting advantage or disadvantage, how make different types of rolls (i.e. describing the nuance between looking for clues vs.clearing a misfortune), or using special moves specific to your character (my favorite is the Musician’s Song of Summer… which we said was played on an ocarina because kiddo is on a Legend of Zelda kick right now). You can also invoke the spirits of the previous troop through scout sash to give a boost to your roll when you need it the most!
Gameplay revolves around a fairly simple core mechanic, but then branches out into more nuance that can be used right off the bat or introduced slowly to give players time to get used to different elements. And it all pushes the story forward. This is a GREAT example of the “rules bright” mechanics that I interviewed René-Pier Deshaies on a while back, and I’m glad to see it being implemented in more and more games.
Overall thoughts on Cryptid Creeks
Coming from Hatchlings Games, I figured this would be a good one since they’ve had so many awesome games in the past, and I was not disappointed. Cryptid Creeks is full of fun stories, a cool overarching mystery, and some spooky (but not too scary) vibes that are accessible to a wide range of players. It’s engaging and story driven, the art is beautiful, set up was quick, and I enjoyed getting to check it out!
Find a copy of Cryptid Creeks
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