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 The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 board game is based on a film originally made in 1951.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. 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. The 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. As a fan of the original movie I can say that this is a superb hidden role game and one of the most thematic and immersive experiences I have ever played. Playing Your Roles In The Thing

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 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

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.

Put the remaining Smoke/Fire tokens, ‘Power Out/Room Destroyed’ cards, item cards, and dice within reach of all players. Now, the really important bit. It’s time to decide who is good, and who is bad. 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. The Thing – The Boardgame is a game created and produced by Pendragon Game Studios. The English Edition is distributed by Ares Games.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 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.

Split the yellow room tokens into their respective sectors (1, 2, and 3), shuffle them, and place one yellow side up in each room. Make sure not to look at the underside until completing a mission in that room, which I’ll get to shortly.The goal of the game designers was to bring the same personal emotions and paranoia that the protagonists of the film experienced to the gaming table. First of all we roll the blue weather dice and consult our chart to see the effects. Clearer skies mean the base uses less fuel and the rescue helicopter will move faster to the base. Bad weather means more fuel is consumed and the boiler room can break, meaning the humans can freeze to death. This can also cause the generator to break resulting in the base being plunged into darkness. 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.

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. However, the player can exhaust both charges to ‘torch’ a player, removing them from the game. After accusing someone of being an imitation, all players vote with a thumbs up or down on torching said player. Note, only one player can be torched in a game with 4 or 5 players. Power Out - Place a ‘power out’ card on the room in question. Counter it by discarding a Flashlight supply card.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. 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. The Thing is a semi co-operative game and this means that despite working together, some of you may have alternate agendas. 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.