The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 board game is based on a film originally made in 1951. It received high praise from critics and cinema goers alike. In 1982 it was remade with somewhat less enthusiasm coming from the public but has since gained quite the cult following from fans of suspense and horror films due to its creepy thrills. The Thing – The Boardgame is an intense game experience for 1-8 players based on the 1982 cult movie, mixing different mechanics to create an experience faithful to the mood of the original film. It’s a “hidden roles” game, in which one player is initially the Thing and the other players are humans. The purpose of the Thing is to infect others, to prevent the survivors from escaping from the base (which can happen in three different ways), or to try to escape with them by behaving as a human. Players must cooperate to survive – but who is really on their side? And if they reveal The Thing – are they ready to fight it? The road to victory is truly hard, but not impossible. In addition to these elements, players also have to manage Outpost 31. The game board shows the same rooms as seen in the film, and each of these rooms allows players to perform a different action. Human players have to feed themselves and keep the boiler and the generator on to avoid being in the cold and dark. Some parts of the game may feel a little tedious if players are repeating actions. Gameplay does ramp up once the suspicions rise but I get the impression some may find this build up and slow tension not to their liking. What I love here though is that each character has an ability balanced enough and thematic to their character. Clark is the dog handler so he can ignore the dogs ability to infect him. Nauls is the cook and can use fewer food tokens when managing the kitchen area. Having these abilities gave the game a lot more replay value for me and allowed for some fun combinations of characters.

You must cooperate to survive but who is really on your side? And if you reveal The Thing are you ready to fight it? The road to victory is truly hard, but not impossible. Be Finally we have the dog movement phase where the adorable husky miniatures move around the board based on location cards. These pesky canines can be a problem for two reasons. If a character is alone with a dog in a room they draw from an infected bag and have a small chance of being secretly infected. The other reason is that if a revealed alien finds itself in a room with a husky, it will consume it and grow in strength! Once chosen, these players move their miniatures to the ‘Escape’ space on the board, and the moment of truth arrives. These players reveal their Blood Sample cards one by one. If the escape criteria is met, congrats! The Human players win! However, if one imitation made it on board, the Humans lose, and Earth is doomed. Be sure to make the right call! One More Thing… The idea of drawing tokens from a bag to see if a dog infected you is scary but exciting as your role can suddenly switch. Downplaying the result and keeping your head down while you secretly changes roles feels like your acting out a role in front of your friends.If there’s an uneven split (you’re not playing with 6 players exactly), don’t worry! As long as it’s relatively even, it’s okay! Be sure to look at what Captain powers characters have, as they can help you when you’re leading a group of supposed humans on your turn! Take your respective miniatures and place them in the ‘Rec Room’ on the board. Deal out 5 supply cards to each player. Your hand is secret, don’t show anyone! Based on the iconic 1980s horror movie by John Carpenter, The Thing: The Boardgame is a semi co-operative hidden role game for up to 8 players. The alien can win by either infecting everyone, or boarding the chosen escape method, they’ve managed to get out into the world and spread! Power Out - Place a ‘power out’ card on the room in question. Counter it by discarding a Flashlight supply card. How To Play The Captain (whoever has the revolver token) draws a mission card, and gathers a team together based on the number on the card, making sure to adhere to the departmental requirements. Missions require players to secretly submit supply cards from their hand to the captain to resolve a variety of circumstances, from revealing a specific supply card, to building a hand of dice to roll higher than a specific number.

Finally, each player rolls two dice, with the player rolling the highest number taking the revolver token. This is your first Captain. Now it’s time to work your way through Outpost 31, discern the imitation(s) among you, and hopefully escape! The Thing - The Board Game is a ‘hidden role’ game played over a series of rounds, mixing different mechanics and an engaging characters depth to bring to the tabletop a tense, cinematic experience for 1-8 players. The Thing - The Boardgame is a "hidden role" game, in which one player is initially the Thing and the other players are humans. The purpose of the Thing is to infect others, to prevent the survivors from escaping from the base (which can happen in three different ways), or to try to escape with them by behaving as a human. The cards played by each chosen crew members will determine the number of dice that can be rolled per mission, to a maximum of six. If the result of the dice roll meets the requirement for the mission card, then the humans pass the mission and can reveal the chip that was in this room. Their search was successful. I love how players can be elected to be the leader of the group. It can give you a great sense of duty and control over the game,. Deciding how to distribute the action cards to various locations while keeping an eye on where players are moving to. It’s even more fun if you are secretly an alien player. Watching everyone squabble and argue over why that player moved to a location or why they did something the last turn.

The Thing: The Boardgame

Keeping the base operational feels true to the progression of the film. Working together to keep the heat and the lights on, while trying to figure out the motivations of any suspicious characters is one of the highlights of this game. The Thing is a game that mixes different mechanisms to create an experience that is as faithful as possible to that of the original film. It is a "hidden role" game, in which one player is initially the Thing and the others players are humans. The purpose of the Thing is to infect others, to prevent the survivors from escaping from the base (which can happen three different ways), or to try to escape with them by behaving as a human. If it’s obvious when players are lying, the game becomes a bit of a process. Simply running through the motions without any real tension or drama. However, if a player can really hide their true motivations and create some chaos, then this game can become truly epic. Unlike most games, the harder this game is to win, the better it is as an experience for those round the table.