Cryptids Story Starter: Rules of the Game
Illustration detail from the Legends greeting card.
Over the past weekend games were the topic of conversation at our house. The range included the Super Bowl, Olympic Games and Abducktion: a Weirdly Strategic Game of Duck Kidnapping that our daughter and son-in-law brought over to play on Saturday evening. For me, enjoying both watching and playing games this week was incredibly fitting for wrapping-up the six-week series of Tell Me a Wilds Story.
Some stories ask us to slow down.
Others ask us to look closer.
And some — invite us to play.
The sixth drawing of the series offers a scene of something familiar and lighthearted. A game many of us learned without instructions. A game shaped by place, imagination, and the rules that quietly emerge overtime.
Hide-and-seek.
This Story Starter, Rules of the Game, takes that playful spirit and opens it into a moment mid-motion — where the rules of a cryptid hide-and-seek game are revealed not by explanation, but by watching how the game unfolds. Who counts. Where it’s safe to hide. Which places are off-limits. And why some rules exist at all.
Successful seekers of the Big Foot Hunt in Cameron County.
Prompt Excerpt
Ring around the hemlock tree,
Valleys full of mystery.
Shadows aren’t shadows—
I FOUND YOU.
The rhyme is how the game ends. How playing together began, no one remembers anymore...
A Continuing story
Across the Pennsylvania Wilds, legends like Bigfoot don’t live only in books or on postcards. They show up in small towns and wooded valleys, at festivals and scavenger hunts, and in stories passed along with a wink. The lore is less about proving what’s real and more about enjoying the shared experience — a reminder that imagination has always had a home here.
The invitation is the same:
Come play in Penn’s Woods.
The Rules of the Game PDF includes the full story starter along with companion questions designed to spark conversation, imagination, and storytelling. You’ll also find a playful worksheet page. It’s a place to record your own Bigfoot hide-and-seek rules — serious ones, silly ones, and at least one rule added after the incident.
This cryptids inspired piece is part of Tell Me a Wilds Story, a series inspired by the images of the PA Wilds Collaborative Series Postcard | Greeting Cards. For another perspective on Bigfoot lore rooted in the PA Wilds, you may enjoy Confessions of a Bigfoot Hunter on the PA Wilds blog. Find it here.
P.S. If you are interested in the game I mentioned playing, you can find it at Pop’s Culture Shop in Wellsboro, PA. If you visit the shop, I also highly recommend taking home the fun dice game Tenzi as well!