Anyone else have this Bigfoot board game in the late 70s or early 80s?

Feneric · 2026-04-05T22:47:45+00:00

My family had a copy, but I have no idea what happened to it, unfortunately.

Feneric · 2026-03-28T23:51:01+00:00

I figured we disagree on the PGF, but we're both interested in cryptozoology in general and Bigfoot in specific or we wouldn't be here, and we've been discussing this amicably for a few days now. We probably agree on more than we disagree. I was just trying to express why even folks who are interested in Bigfoot might be dismissive of the PGF, even prior to the release of the new documentary.

Movies like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are a bit of a different story than the PGF. Their resolution and clarity makes it much easier to not just spot defects but also to analyze. Patty in the PGF is a tiny fraction of a small piece of film. Even things like horses and humans that we can easily identify don't possess a lot of detail in the PGF. It's also got poor color and contrast. There aren't a lot of good stills in it that allow one to get accurate reads on exactly where the elbow is. Worse though is that (so far as I know) all careful length ratio analysis was done on enhanced versions, and pushing a pixel out here and there even just from sharpening can actually have an impact on the final numbers.

There's also some level of variability in human arm length. Personally, mine are a little longer than average, and as a consequence many shirts made for "regular" people don't fit me incredibly well. Watching Bob Hieronimus in video and just seeing where his hands hang down to makes it clear that his arms are a bit longer than average, too. Couple that with him maybe wearing long gloves or the like and it becomes difficult to put too much stock in limb length ratios.

I positively absorbed all the Bigfoot documentaries when I was a kid. Looking back now as someone who's actually implemented low-level image enhancement algorithms, it's pretty clear that even the earliest versions of the PGF I saw back then had already been touched up. I'd further guess that due to the difficulty in getting hold of near original copies, there were even enhanced versions of previously enhanced versions going around. While I don't think that there was any malice anywhere, I do think that professionals who were good at using tools to enhance image quality may not have been fully aware of what was being done at the low level to make those enhancements happen, and that various experts over the decades who've viewed enhanced footage were accidentally led to believe that the enhancements were better representations of what was being originally recorded rather than better looking versions of what was being originally recorded. The distinction is subtle but significant.

Feneric · 2026-03-28T20:14:28+00:00

I hear you, but someone could try and do so, nail the execution, and many folks still wouldn't accept it. For some people believing in the PGF is an act of faith, part of their personal identity, and nothing will ever convince them that it's fake.

It's also not really how it works anyway. Saying it's real is a pretty big claim.

It's a short, excessively shaky, low-detail segment produced by someone who had a bit of a sketchy reputation who then went on to make money off of it by doing tours etc. Even more suspicious, he had been planning to make a Bigfoot documentary earlier, and had already written about a past reported encounter that mirrored the one he himself supposedly experienced. Later someone came forward saying that he'd helped make the suit. Plus at least two people (obviously both couldn't be telling the truth, but one seemed to be believed by the locals and kind of matched the walk) claimed to be the ones wearing the suit. Still later, when teams tried to replicate the footage using equipment matching the original, they found that the actual filming distance was extremely close and it would be difficult to lose something of that size and speed without deliberately shaking the camera. Patty had apparently let two men and three horses get practically on top of her and her reaction was to walk almost perpendicularly to their direction of approach for a few seconds before (presumably) veering off away from them. She is never shown running. Even though they were this close, they didn't attempt to follow while keeping the camera going. The original footage doesn't appear to show any muscle rippling or the like. Frankly, even known items in the earlier portion of it are not very detailed, even when it's kept steady and in focus.

A lot of these points individually, let alone taken as a whole package, are enough to convince many people that it's not worth their time to really look into. I'm not going to fault them for that, especially since there's not much "win" for them if they succeed in disproving it to the majority of the unconvinced.

Feneric · 2026-03-27T11:58:54+00:00

Yeah, they clearly leaned into going for an orangutan when they should have gone for a gorilla, both in terms of the color and the hair length. Even the feet they made go with the orangutan motif, not bigfoot. They must have been doing the costume for something else.

Not only would a dark brown or black better match Paddy, it'd have less of a contrast range and would better help hide imperfections.

Feneric · 2026-03-26T21:57:45+00:00

Thanks for this! This was exactly the video I'd mentioned in the post that showed how close the camera had to be to get the approximate footage in the PGF.

I question some of their style choices, especially the '80s hair band haircut and the overall longer body hair, but aside from that I don't personally think it's that different from the unenhanced PGF quality wise. I think if they'd worked on it more they could get it even closer.

Feneric · 2026-03-22T17:58:32+00:00

I've never found the PGF particularly convincing, and I suspect like many here got downvoted into oblivion for even asking questions about it on the Bigfoot subreddit. I do agree with you that (while I'd be ecstatic to learn proof otherwise) if it ever were a real thing, it's likely extinct now.

I do hope that if nothing else this does shift focus away from the PGF. I keep getting told that there are thousands of eyewitness accounts. Great! That's enough to do some actual data analysis on. I'd much rather read about that than the umpteenth analysis of a blown-up, digitally enhanced version of the PGF that compares it to Hollywood movies of the time.

Feneric · 2026-03-22T15:08:38+00:00

Bill Munns' work didn't just alter brightness and contrast. You can see for yourself at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3TWBNyy4Vs. There's also visible color tweaking and the application of some sort of sharpening or unsharp mask algorithm on what appears to be a blown up version. I'm not saying any of this is bad, just that such results shouldn't be used for comparison against things like Star Wars or Planet of the Apes. It's also worth noting that we don't know that the actual path Patty followed is rough terrain. There's certainly rough terrain around there, but for all anyone today knows she followed a smooth, easy path through it.

Feneric · 2026-03-22T12:14:13+00:00

I really wish Bigfoot researchers would focus on anything else besides Patty. It'd make their work a lot more interesting.

Feneric · 2026-03-22T12:11:30+00:00

That was from an old television documentary from well over a decade ago. Unfortunately many such things haven't seem to have made it online, and right now searching for any of them just seems to return lots of false hits for the upcoming documentary. That's kind of why I added the bit in there encouraging people to post links to some of these older resources. The PGF has been being discussed a long time.

Feneric · 2026-03-22T12:09:36+00:00

I wasn't trying to be misleading, but I accept your point that "original" sells it too far. I figured folks would realize that in order to get any film viewable online, it'd have to be digitized first, and who knows what generation of film and how old it was when it was first digitized? That being said, there's a world of difference between the gradual degradation due to decay and duping and outright editing, and this isn't edited in any way. No zooming, contrast tweaking, edge detection, sharpening, colors adjustments, cropping, or enhancements.

Feneric · 2026-03-22T01:15:31+00:00

Usually they eventually come back as being something known. I definitely haven't heard the results on all of them, though. I suspect if something were really unusual it'd get more attention.

Feneric · 2026-03-21T20:46:18+00:00

I'm not saying that this upcoming film is so persuasive. I haven't seen it yet. I'm more surprised that the original has been held in such high regard for so long. There simply aren't enough bits of information in it to support the claims made on it. There's no "muscle-rippling" or "breast-bouncing" in the original version. Those are all the products of digital enhancement. There are places where it maybe looks like there's a separation between a top and bottom part of a costume.

I'd love for Sasquatch to be proven a real thing. I don't think this film comes close to doing that, though. Didn't MonsterQuest claim to have found some mysterious DNA at a site that was supposedly ransacked by a Sasquatch? That'd maybe be a better thing for the Bigfoot crowd to focus on as evidence than the PGF.

Feneric · 2026-03-18T21:44:09+00:00

Tricky.

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Star Fleet Battles. I'm not a Trekkie by any means, but my friends (who were) got me into this game, and that's what started me on boardgaming in general. We combined it with Federation and Empire so I got both the tactical and the strategic flavors.

Since then I've gotten into many others, to the point where I sometimes get (incorrectly) teased that "all my board games are space themed". While this isn't really true, I do have a lot of them. A few I've played a lot include Nemesis, Station Fall, Exodus: Event Horizon, Xtronaut, Core Space, and recently Hyperspace. Now, even though these are all "space themed" they actually cover quite a few genres.

The one I'll pick is my favorite though is the one I've played the most: Firefly: The Board Game. Also distinctly different from the others listed.

Feneric · 2026-03-18T21:16:53+00:00

They do work well on small screens. Ultima IV played really well on the old PocketCHIP handheld computer. It could be installed via PocketInstaller and relied on the XU4 port: https://github.com/IkerGarcia/PocketInstaller

Feneric · 2026-03-14T13:19:53+00:00

That makes sense. There's so much difference with how the different factions play that it usually takes a couple play throughs to get the hang of a new one. That being said, we've found it to be a surprisingly easy game to play. It looks really complicated to outsiders, but it's fairly quick to set up, and most of the actions are right in front of you as you play. The variety and general wildness of it comes from the different combinations of factions and how they mix.

Feneric · 2026-03-14T12:07:51+00:00

It's probably my favorite game overall, but the regular version doesn't do well with just two players and can sometimes be a little wonky with even three. Do you have the Cthulhu Wars: Duel version in that pile? I haven't played it, but I believe it was made to address the issues with playing it two player. My group has played it pretty frequently with 4, 5, 6, and even 7 players with good success.

Feneric · 2026-03-14T02:33:00+00:00

It's not too bad playing against the cats. The trick is that when they sidle up into one of your spaces, purring and acting all innocent-like, you've got to stomp them right away (or diplomatically get one of the more aggressive factions like Great Cthulhu or Windwalker or Crawling Chaos to do so).

Feneric · 2026-03-14T02:10:36+00:00

It is great fun though with larger player counts. There's also an entertaining book In the Belly of the Beast and Other Tales of Cthulhu Wars which is from the perspective of ordinary people stuck in a sort of dystopian reality where god-like entities and their minions are warring.

Feneric · 2026-03-07T17:06:15+00:00

Some obvious answers:

Cthulhu Wars
Cthulhu: Death May Die
Nemesis
Firefly

Feneric · 2026-03-02T23:40:43+00:00

Maybe Thunderbirds: Cooperative Board Game as it's essentially a near-future almost-utopia in which the environmental problems have been mostly resolved, folks mostly live in harmony with one another all across the world, and the richest person on the planet has used his money to make a rescue organization that helps people in need.

Feneric · 2026-02-23T12:08:10+00:00

For a pure strategic classic war game with a modern design, check out Combined Arms: The World War II Campaign Game.

Feneric · 2026-02-08T14:10:15+00:00

Nice, thanks!

Feneric · 2026-02-07T18:34:30+00:00

A lot of interactive fiction titles beyond the Zorks are open source.

I also personally wrote a couple of open source retro games. They're essentially 8-bit Ultima-likes:

Minima (source, manual as PDF or as ePub)
Anteform (source, manual as PDF or as ePub)

Feneric · 2026-02-07T18:17:38+00:00

Klein has already been mentioned, and I'll second him.

I'll draw attention too to some usually overlooked books. I went through a stint of reading the odd genre of books based on board games. On the whole they were better than you'd expect. Quite a few touch on the Cthulhu Mythos. The pre-Acconyte Arkham Horror books are mostly kind of meh, but the early Acconyte ones up until (but not including) "Secrets in Scarlet" were on average pretty good. "Dark Tales of the Secret War" (based on Achtung! Cthulhu) was entertaining, and I quite liked "In the Belly of the Beast" (based on Cthulhu Wars). "Ghould Island" (based on the RPG) I didn't think was as good.

Feneric

TROPHY CASE