We started playing Sneaky Sasquatch about 3 years ago when R was 5. It’s one of the top games on Apple Arcade, it’s regularly updated and doesn’t have ads or microtransactions.
It starts as a very simple game, with Sasquatch (a yeti-like creature) living in a national park. He needs to steal food without attracting attention of the campers and especially the rangers. He can gradually make a little money by looking for treasure and selling stolen food to a bear. Once he gets some clothes, a fishing rod and a golf club, he can make more money while exploring the campground and beyond. Eventually, he saves the campground from a greedy capitalist (twice), finds the source of pollution in the lake and becomes a mayor. There is a ridiculous amount of side quests (including setting up sources of passive income) and it’s completely unnecessary to complete the main storyline or any of the quests to enjoy the game.
We finished the main storyline twice and did a lot of side quests. We didn’t play for a while but these days R is able to finish most of the storylines by herself – as long as I help her with the money part of the story.
Perhaps my favourite part of the game is that you need to feed Sasquatch every single day. A day in his universe is much shorter than in ours so that means you need to constantly hustle to get food. Even if you do have a reliable source on income, it does not make getting food that much easier – you still need to either buy it or steal it, whether in the shops, at a cafe or somewhere else. You can also get a dog in the game (it’s a multi-step quest that R was able to finish by herself) and you need to feed the dog too – and it refuses inappropriate food like grapes and anything containing chocolate.
Needless to say, R and both twins who now also expressed interest in the game struggle with that task. If any of them asks me for any kind of help, the first thing I check is whether they fed Sasquatch (and the dog). He also needs to go to sleep every night.
Funnily enough, that’s also the first rule for humans – if you are grumpy or depressed, ask yourself, are you sure you fed yourself and slept enough? Works with children too, if they are being completely unreasonable, are you sure they ate and slept enough?
At least Sasquatch doesn’t get progressively grumpier if he hasn’t eaten or slept. He does eventually faint if you don’t feed him or don’t let him sleep when he’s sleepy and you are penalised: the animals bring him home but charge you some coins. With the girls’ track record of looking after him I am also positive that they are not ready for any kind of pet that requires regular care (we do occasionally look after our neighbour’s dog but as much as the children beg to see him, they don’t worry about feeding him).
Sasquatch can acquire many skills in the game: there are different types of fish and mushrooms to collect, some very rare. There are dinosaur bones to find with the help of the dog. You can race cars, boats, go-karts, dirt bikes. You can play golf, ski and surf. You can work in the port loading and unloading ships with a crane and a forklift and doing night security. As part of a mission you also work in an office (starting in the mail room) and become a police officer (who fines drivers breaking rules). For some of these activities you need licenses. Most of them earn you money. There is a clear progression. Some of them require a genuine skill, like surfing which is not mandatory for any of the missions but makes travelling to the island much easier and can earn easy income if you know what you’re doing. That’s the part of the game I find most addictive and my children have no interest in.
I swear I spent hours getting Sasquatch to become a better surfer. I am not proud of it and yes, instead I should’ve been spending that time reading Proust to my children or making them organic food out of unicorn tears but in my defence I did it in tiny increments like 10 or 15 minutes at a time that somehow added up to hours of gameplay. First, you need to understand the principle of getting maximum points. You can also upgrade the surfboard as long as you keep winning while competing with various surfers on the island. But eventually, you just need to grind (practice again and again) to become better.
I found it incredibly addictive – instant feedback, some randomness and the clear progression as you improve at this skill which is completely optional in the game, let alone in the actual outside world. When I eventually won the hardest surfing battle I felt a real sense of achievement. I know that all three of my children have some respect for me because I can surf really well in Sneaky Sasquatch. That’s three people – probably slightly more than the number of people who regularly read this blog. Don’t tell me it’s not a real accomplishment! On the other hand, if your read this far you now know why there will never be a video console in this house and the only games I allow myself to play are on an iPad.
You would think acquiring skills like that would be addictive to my children, too, but that’s not the case. Even R who is now older and is capable of finishing missions by herself (she worked her way up from a mailroom boy to an executive in one of the missions) has no interest in practising this obscure skill again and again to get better at it. She asks me to do it to get some quick cash. Funnily enough, when we resumed playing after an almost 3 year break I found that my surfing in Sasquatch is better than ever! I can easily get to record numbers now. And yet I can barely remember any Japanese I learned before the twins were born. That seems unfair.
On the other hand, what I hate is driving any car in the game long distances which is required for some missions. And yet R doesn’t mind it at all. She would cheerfully drive back and forth delivering lumber to her house as long as it allows her to build it up a bit more. In fact, her favourite part of the game when she was younger was customising Sasquatch’s house, outfits and – later, when Sasquatch became a mayor – the town. I would spend hours grinding the surfing skills and she would spend it all on a pimped out car which would say “CAT” on the bonnet, make all the buildings in the town purple and rename the apartment blocks into a Hospital (by the way, there is a hospital in the game and she did that entire side quest by herself after which she decided that when she grows up she is definitely NOT going to be a doctor).
In other words, as I was busy making money and building skills, she was enjoying life to the max. Kind of like in real life. Now, 3 years later, she suddenly realised she needs to make money and stops her little sisters from spending it. You learn budgeting in more ways than choosing a toy under $10 in the shops, I guess (a side quest I never had when I was a child growing up in Siberia).
Now, these days W (age 4) tells me she wants to be a firefighter when she grows up. She’s the smallest of our children and most fond of princess dresses and her own blonde curls. At first I didn’t realise where that dream came from, suspecting childcare, but then I looked at her playing Sasquatch and I realised she picked it up there. It’s true what they say, video games affect children in truly unexpected ways – they might eventually learn to feed their pets every day, save money, play golf with other executives and even decide to become a firefighter instead of a doctor. Beware.
P.S. R had a very short stint playing Roblox which very quickly turned her eyes glassy so that game is banned in our house.
Sails and Commas 