The CryptID Show: Interview with Anica Cihla

Plus One staffer Will talked to Anica Cihla, the creator of The CryptID Show about their new game of radio hosts, cryptids, and finding connection on the air… 

The CryptID Show is a storytelling game for two or more players about constructing and deconstructing cryptid sightings. Working together, the Host and Caller will attempt to explain the unexplainable, aided only by a deck of playing cards and their own imagination. Together, you’ll sculpt bite-sized stories of the bizarrely sweet, the hauntingly esoteric, and the just plain weird, all in the form of a live call-in show. 

Hi Anica! Tell us a little about yourself and The CryptID Show. 

Howdy Will! My name is Anica Cihla (they/she) and I am a game designer with a love of the paranormal, cryptozoological, and otherwise unexplainable. Having grown up obsessed with Scooby-Doo and then, later in life, listening to the unhinged, irresponsible, lightning-in-a-bottle, call-in radio show that was Coast-To-Coast AM with Art Bell, I’m a big fan of the low-stakes mystery genre of media. And hyphens, apparently. 

All that crystallized last winter when I was playing Home Safety Hotline, which is a delightful little video game where you’re tasked with answering the phone at an agency that helps homeowners identify which mythological or supernatural entity is plaguing their house. I loved the inherently episodic, monster-of-the-week (again with the hyphens!) format of a phone call, but I wanted to add a degree of performance and pageantry than you can only really find in 90’s drive-time radio. And so: The CryptID Show was born. 

The game is essentially a dialogue. Tell us more about the mechanics. 

The core premise of this game came out of the fact that improv is not my strong suit. As a former stand up comedian of a decade, I always found the, well, improvised nature of improv daunting as hell. So I wanted to create a mechanics- and component-light game that would serve as a framework for building improv scenes for those of us for whom spontaneity is not our strong suit. The lists of Encounter Characteristics and Caller/Host traits help steer the direction of the scene, while the show format helps ensure there’s a relatively clear way to end the scene once it’s run its course. While these prompts could’ve been achieved to a similar degree of success using tables and a die, I felt the versatility of a deck of cards made a little more sense in regards to how the game is meant to be enjoyed. E.g., one of the proposed settings for The CryptID Show is throwing it in your bag to go play at a bar with your pals, and a deck of cards means you have the ability to transition to other games as the mood strikes you. 

How does The CryptID Show differ from your previous game, Sin Eater?

Sin Eater and The CryptID Show are the main and dessert courses in a meal, respectively. The former, a solo journaling game about the historical practice by the same name, focuses heavily on the player’s choice to forgive or condemn the soul of the dead they’re hired to absolve. The premise and mechanics are designed to elicit character bleed in a controlled manner due to the relative ease with which one can pull from their own life experiences when playing. Which can be a lot! The CryptID Show, meanwhile, is designed to be a much lighter fare, perfect for a quick game or two while you wait for everyone to arrive at game night. I’m incredibly proud of the work I did on both games, and it was a fulfilling challenge I gave myself to create two games consecutively that are so diametrically opposed in both tone and theme. 

What drew you to cryptids? 

My hometown’s mascot (not just our high school, but the actual town itself) was a local cryptid called the Hodag–a toady little dragon-like beast that plagued the logging camps of northern Wisconsin. This has famously and repeatedly been debunked as a hoax by known conman Eugene Shepard, but since there aren’t many other claims to fame one can make in the sleepy little rural towns of the northwoods, the myth of the Hodag lives on. 

Because of this background, I’ve always associated fearsome critters and legendary beasts with a sense of willful whimsy. Sure, we know there most likely isn’t a plesiosaur living in a Scottish lake, but there’s joy to be found and adventure to be had in choosing to believe otherwise! 

Favorite cryptid? 

While I feel as though I need to choose the Hodag, I’m afraid that my true favorite cryptid is the Fresno Nightcrawler. These lil’ guys are nothing more than a pair of long white legs that mosey around the Central Valley. As a big fan of moseying, meandering, strolling, sauntering, and otherwise rambling around, I delight in the idea of a cryptid that does only that. 

Tell us about the contributors! 

It was absolutely fantastic working with the team on The CryptID Show. Both Alex Teplitz and Shane Brockway did an admirable job organizing my frenetic scrawls, and getting Ify, Cate, and Jonathan on board to contribute as stretch goal writers was genuinely a dream come true. The CryptID Show sits at the center of a Venn diagram of goofy improv and spooky sightings, so getting the best names in those two subjects signed onto the project was such a delight. 

However, I think the people who did the most to bring this game to life were Geoff Tice and Randy Milholland. Geoff is such a fantastic artist (and comedian! Give him a follow on Instagram for both his stunning art and very good jokes), and I feel ridiculously lucky that he said yes to creating the cover for The CryptID Show. While this isn’t necessarily the smoothest pipeline, I’ve found it can be difficult for me to get very far in game development when I don’t have a clear idea of art direction, especially when it comes to the cover. The moment I saw what Geoff had put together for The CryptID Show, the tone of the game immediately snapped into place. And, to help bring it across the finish line, the art Randy created for The CryptID Show went above and beyond anything I had envisioned when I first reached out to him. I came to him with a vague pitch, most notably the one where I simply asked him to draw a tabby cat but with fucked-up vibes. I had no idea what I wanted (which, I know, is every artist’s nightmare), but Randy knocked it out of the park. I would never have thought of a cryptid that’s a housecat with human lips and thumbs, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it could never not be that. 

What’s the response been like? 

It was such an honor to see Clint McElroy and Cate Osborn have such a good time with The CryptID Show on the stream we did together (which you can catch here), as well as StoryQuest’s and Party of One’s playthroughs of the game. Everyone’s interpretation of the prompts is always so unique, and being able to witness firsthand the amount of joy coming out of that game is such a special experience. The awesome folks at BlackwaterDnD will also be releasing their playthrough of The CryptID Show on March 28th, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what they do with it. 

The format and theme of this game lends itself to iteration and customization, which is one reason we chose to provide space in the game book for players to add their own Encounter Characteristics, show formats, and Host/Caller traits. In terms of looking to the future, I can’t wait to see the ways people make this game their own–inventing their own cryptids, or bringing in folklore or local cryptids from their own upbringings. 

Do you have plans to add more to The CryptID Show in the future? 

At present, I have two other versions of the game that I’d like to do. As mentioned, I grew up in the northwoods of Wisconsin, which has a rich history of the fearsome critter subgenre of cryptids. Fearsome critters tended to be associated with logging camps in the Midwest and around the Great Lakes in general, and were always especially bizarre, goofy, and incoherent. I’d love to create a supplement or standalone version of The CryptID Show that really dives into these weird little guys. 

I’d also love to create a more kid-friendly version of the game; while it is very customizable by design, there’s enough blue language and off-putting cryptid descriptions in the core rulebook that I’d love to create a version that’s a little more accessible to the younger generation of TTRPG players. 

What else do you get up to when you’re not in the booth?

When I’m not painstakingly reviewing grainy CCTV footage to find definitive proof of the Michigan Dogman, I’m usually doing Muay Thai (shoutout TKMT Uptown), painting up my Salamanders for 40K, reading, or playing video games. I’ve lately been enjoying the historical fantasy horror book Pilgrim by Mitchell Luthi (fans of Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman should absolutely check this out), as well as the indie horror games Look Outside by Francis Coulombe and The Midnight Walk by MoonHood. And when I’m not doing those things, you can find me moseying, meandering, strolling, sauntering, and otherwise rambling around.

Watch the Actual Play with Clint and Cate!

Anica joins Tony of PlusOneEXP to host Clint McElroy & Cate Osborn as they play a session of The CryptID Show!

The CryptID Show is available now. You can find more from Anica Cihla at atticus.haus and give them a follow on Instagram and Bluesky. Plus, check out www.cryptid.show for more inspiration, cryptid art, prompts, and D-D-DJ Squonk’s Radio Soundboard. Aiiiir Hooooorn!