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 The tension as you all decide who to perform a blood test on and then waiting for them to reveal their role card is unmatched in any game I have played. If players wish to enter a room for a mission with any of these effects in play, they must discard the relevant card to counter it. Also, a player not on a mission may discard a card to remove the effect while others do a mission elsewhere. When completing missions in rooms, you might get items (or ‘gear’) to use throughout the game. These can be used at specific times by the person who holds the item. Flamethrower - The most dynamic bit of gear in the game, with two ‘charges’ of use. The player can either add 3 dice rolls to any mission, or have a player reveal their Blood Sample card to only the player wielding the flamethrower, then the Flamethrowers first ‘charge’ has been used. The card is flipped, and can only then be used to add 3 dice rolls to any subsequent mission.

The Thing is played over a series of rounds each consisting of 8 phases. The game can end in a number of ways. The humans can win if they manage to identify all alien threats and escape the outpost. 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!

The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 board game is based on a film originally made in 1951.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. Some items felt a little underpowered too. Weapons like knives and guns don’t really do much other than prevent encounters with players. I only really found the flamethrower and dynamite to be effective at repelling the thing itself. 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. 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. The humans need to deduce who is their friend and who is their foe and ensure they don’t take any imitations on the chopper with them come the games’ climax. Are you ready to take to the blistering climate with your so-called ‘friends?’ Here’s how to play. The Setup

Yeah, we’ve been here a while. This ‘How To Play’ is a long-un, as The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 has a simple baseline with many moving parts surrounding it. Hopefully this guide has made a semblance of sense, but I have one more parting tip. Though the leader, weapons, and the revealed alien player were the mechanics our group placed at the center of our debates, there are still a lot of other small mechanics running around the game too. At the beginning of a round the Leader will roll a weather die and this will determine how much fuel the base consumes that round. This is a small amount of randomness to how often players have to spend their actions refueling the power systems in the base. There are dogs(?) that move around the base and if you are caught alone with one you may change to the alien team. While they can be caught to remove their risk, this requires some teamwork and trust between players.Battles work by the players involved in the mission by providing another card to determine how many dice can be rolled. You will be facing The Thing at three different levels of difficulty throughout the game as you make your way through different rooms within the base. A level one Thing requires you to roll three of a kind with three rolls. The location and story are intrinsically linked. So much so, that the crew at the real-life South pole Telescope station where the game and film is set, have a tradition whereby the two movies are watched the first night after the final plane of the season has departed. Perhaps now, they will play the game too! Although, that may make it too real! This chip could either be a useful item such as some Rope or The Thing itself which would start a battle. If they fail in any way, either through missing the requirements of the room or via a sabotage card, then the room could be lost to fire. Loose too many rooms and the game is lost. Get Rollin’

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.

Despite a few minor issues The Thing: The Board Game is an outstanding hidden role game. Totally immersive and thematic and one of the best interpretations of a movie into a board game I have ever played. 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.

Usually, another player has been quietly setting up arguments and accusations. If they managed to creep their way onto the Helicopter to win the game for the Imitations, when everyone was convinced of their innocence... well, this is what hidden character games are all about and what games like this are made for. 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 game starts with each player being given a Blood Sample card. This will reveal their role in the game, to them alone, either that of a human or an imitation. There will be one imitation dealt at the start of the game to one of the players. 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. The Thing is a semi co-operative game and this means that despite working together, some of you may have alternate agendas.Dynamite - Dynamite can be used twice in a game to add or remove one pip to or from a dice. Simple, but very useful. 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. 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. Later in the game, more will be dealt out amongst other human cards. In a seven or eight player game, there is the chance for two more Imitations to be dealt. In a four to six player, there can only ever be one more. This is the main rule difference between player counts, but the overall feeling with more players is very different. For a game about table talk, the more in this case is very much the merrier.