Finders Creepers review ⏤ A frightfully fun family game with augmented reality

I wasn’t sure what Finders Creepers was going to be when I initially opened the box. What I found inside is a family game that can use augmented reality to enhance its experience. You do not have to use the app to play the game which I think was a smart move by its creators, but the app is a unique AR experience. I’m not usually one for adding tech into my board games as the reason I like hobby gaming is that it’s usually just a bunch of cardboard. You’ll have to weigh your own tolerance for apps in tabletop games, but my big criteria is that apps work without being a hassle. With that in mind, shall we begin our monster hunt?

Overview

Finders Creepers features a main board of a haunted house, four player minis, and a whole stack of various tiles. At the start of the game you’ll seed four facedown tiles onto each space with the equipment, haunted objects, and holy objects. Then, just before the first players turn, everyone will be able to see where each monster is hiding in the house. Each player will want to memorize as many of the monster’s locations as you can. The goal of the game is to be the first player to capture three monsters by going to the correct space and using the correct equipment for that monster. Each of the twelve monsters require a different combination of three equipment tiles in order to be captured. Haunted objects are hurdles for players to overcome as you cannot enter a room with a haunted object unless you have one of the four holy objects and if you ever end your turn in a room with a haunted object you are scared back to the front gate.

On each player’s turn they take three actions: move to an adjacent space, search a room, collect a tile, scan for monsters, catch a monster, and expel a haunted object. Searching a room flips all the tiles over for that room or adds tiles faceup to that room from the discard pile. Collecting a tile lets you pick up one tile in your current room (max of four.) Scanning lets you check what monster is in your room and any adjacent rooms. Catching a monster has you spend three equipment tiles and finding out if you’ve got the correct equipment for that monster. If you’re correct you successfully capture that monster, otherwise you lose the equipment. Expelling a haunted object lets you move a haunted object to an adjacent room potentially even bumping other players back to the front gate.

At the end of a player’s turn, they will roll the three monster dice which add some chaos into the mix. The monster dice can: give you a special run action token, a special equipment action token, shuffle all the monsters hiding spaces, cause you to discard one of your equipment, add a haunted object to your space, (thus scaring you back to the front gate) or trigger a grand escape. The run action token lets you spend it to move anywhere on the board and similarly, the special equipment token lets you pick up an equipment tile from anywhere on the board.

The really interesting roll is triggering a grand escape as there’s two versions of this depending on whether or not you’re using the app. With the app (Boogle) each player will now try to catch as many monsters as possible with their device in a little AR mini game. Without the app, the grand escape triggers a hide and seek game with the monster cards the game provides. Whoever wins the grand escape will get to collect two equipment tiles of their choice and discard one haunted object from the game board. Once a player has completed their turn the next player in clockwise order will go.

I plan on talking about the app in more detail later so for now I’ll talk about the non-app version of the game. Finders Creepers is a family weight game that has some memory elements. The core of the game is using your actions to move around the board to pick up items in order to capture monsters. If you’re able to remember where the monsters are, you’ll have an advantage otherwise you’ll have to take an action to scan and see what monsters are around you. There’s some light “take that” elements that send you back to the front gate, but there are times when that’s even advantageous.

It’s a strange task trying to judge a game that’s not for you. When I realized Finders Creepers was a family/kids game the only metric I could think of to judge it was: Would I have had fun with this as a kid? I would have had a blast with this game as I was a little Goosebumps goblin growing up. The game’s lightly comedic tone and cartoonish artwork all work well in service of the experience. Finders Creepers gameplay focuses on remembering where your target monsters are and managing your actions and equipment. These aspects aren’t too complicated so kids can put up a reasonable fight. The randomness of the monster dice are both good and bad as they keep the game from being too deterministic, but no one likes it when you’re forced to lose equipment or go back to the front gate. It’s random luck if you’re getting those better action tokens which are incredibly helpful. I can only imagine the look on a kid’s face when someone spends the run token to sprint across the house to catch a monster they were going to catch next turn.

The components of Finders Creepers are also pretty darn good too. The tokens were nice thick cardboard punch outs, chunky plastic minis, and the cards felt high quality. My one small complaint is that I wish the holy items had a different background color aso that’d make them easier to sort out for setup.

The App “Boogle”

They named the app Boogle… I can’t tell if I love it or hate it. Anyway, let’s see what the app changes and if it makes or breaks Finders Creepers. First off, the app works well. I didn’t have any problems with it, but it does need an internet connection. One player is the host to which the others can connect to the game through Boogle. The major downside is that you need one device per player. I would have really expected pass and play functionality, but that’s not feasible with how the app works. I feel like this is a steep requirement. Adults may all have a phone, but since this is a family game I’m not sure everyone will have a device that can run the app.

What does the app add to the game? Boogle will generate and track the locations of the monsters and store which player has caught which monster. At the start of the game Boogle will show each player the location of each monster through its augmented reality function. While this is neat, it’s also accomplished just fine with the monster tokens. The AR monsters look great, with interesting little animations. Boogle will also show you the nearby monsters when you scan for them too. Since Boogle is tracking the monsters and who captures them, it is also able to declare the winner when they’ve captured their third monster.

The biggest difference is when a grand escape happens at the end of a player’s turn. Now each player needs to leave the table to search out the escaping monsters and blast them back to the board Ghostbusters style. You’ll have to physically wander around looking for the monsters. This minigame only lasts about a minute and the player who captured the most monsters gets that reward. This makes me wonder how feasible it is to play the app version in any public locations like a board game cafe. I imagine you would want everyone to be monster hunting in a safe area. The monsters didn’t seem to go very far from the board so it might be ok. The thought of little Timmy running across the room to be the first to catch a monster only to fling the tablet seems like a risk you take.

I have two thoughts when I evaluate a board game with an app. Does the app dramatically improve the game and is the app needed to play the game? With both of these questions the answer is: not really. I wouldn’t buy Finders Creepers for its augmented reality functions, but I would buy the game for its core gameplay. I think the non-AR version of the game stands on its own. While the AR minigame is fun, I can’t help but notice that it is extra work. Ok, we have to go find the other tablets in the house. Oh, no, one of them isn’t charged. It isn’t a ton more work, but enough that I just imagine that sometimes Mom/Dad will just say, “Let’s play without the app.” Boogle while nifty is ultimately just a gimmick. (Also, the non app version of the grand escape is to go around and hide the monster cards somewhere. That is wild. Fastest way to lose game components ever!)

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