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 careful though! This a wonderful system and such a simple way to allow non human players to wreak havoc across the base without anyone ever knowing what role card they have. When I mentioned table talk earlier bringing out some serious debates, it doesn’t getting scarier and funnier than seeing a couple of sabotage cards enter the pile, prompting the leader to question everyone’s loyalty and true intentions. The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 is a hidden identity game. You will relive John Carpenter's sci-fi cult classic in a race to discover who among the team has been infected by this deadly lifeform. Play as one of twelve characters as you lead a series of investigations through the facility, using supplies and equipment to clear the building. The tension mounts and paranoia ensues as you question who you can trust. It’s the ultimate race to save humanity!

The Thing: Human miniatures expansion contains a set of eight highly detailed character miniatures, to use in place of the Characters standees you can find into the base game box. T he Thing - The Boardgame is an intense game experience for 1-8 players based on the 1982 cult movie directed by John Carpenter. It is a game that mixes different mechanics to create an experience that is as faithful as possible to that of the original film. Set in a South Pole research station, the story details the invasion of an alien being, that has the ability to transform its appearance and starts to take over different people within the camp. The perfect theme for a hidden character game, so perhaps it was a mechanical choice more than a thematic one? Or maybe designer Joe Van Wetering is just a fan of the movie? Are We Alone?

Full track list revealed for EA Sports UFC 5, available now to stream

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. 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.

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. 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 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.

Resident Evil 4 review — The horror classic retains its place on the best games ever list thanks to an incredible remake

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. These miniatures represent the 8 main characters seen in the movie, such as MacReady or Doctor Blair. Thematically, I can now see what encouraged the designer of this game to choose this film and specifically this location for a game like this. The sense of isolation adds to the game. There is no help coming, and you need to get out to survive. It works perfectly with a hidden character game and helps develop the sense of uncertainty in every decision, and ultimately, the fun the game brings to the table.