Keri Russell, whose breakthrough role in the college drama Felicity was only two years away at that point, plays a crucial but difficult role in The Lottery . Popular school teacher Felice Dunbar is unlike other New Hopers, who are more standoffish than usual. No, she greets Jason with a warm smile that hides an unpleasant secret. Having grown up in New Hope, Felice naturally believes The Lottery serves a good purpose, but meeting Jason makes her question everything. And for a minute, it would seem Russell’s character is capable of shaking off years worth of indoctrination. Even though The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 is one of my favorite deduction games, the game isn’t without its issues. The rulebook almost feels like they are over describing mechanics, making it feel more complex than it actually is. It took a good 3 reads before I felt comfortable teaching a group of players. Equally frustrating is when the rulebook doesn’t feel clear. I ended up retreating to the Board Game Geek forums quite a bit in our first couple games. During setup, each player will get a Blood Sample card to determine who is Human and who is an Imitation.

When they Battle The Thing, players follow the previous steps but instead, the Captain uses Supply cards to roll dice to roll 3 or 4 of a kind depending on The Thing level. If they fail the Contagion Level increases. The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 was originally released in 2017 as the first tabletop release from pop-culture studio Mondo, as part of a partnership with the Project Raygun division of licensed board game maker The Op (then known as USAopoly). Infection at Outpost 31, the board game adaptation of John Carpenter’s cult horror movie The Thing, is making a return later this year. Similar to a lot of hidden traitor style board games, Infection at Outpost 31’s design is largely based off of the skeleton of Battlestar Galactica (BSG.) BSG is a hallmark design from 2008 making it ancient by modern board game standards, but it revolutionized the hidden traitor genre so much that games still use its design as a template. Infection at Outpost 31 is one of the games closest in design to BSG, seeking to take that template and streamline it. In a lot of ways Infection at Outpost 31 succeeds.

Achilles: Legends Untold review — Not very legendary

I was not old enough to see the movie The Thing on the big screen in 1982. I had to wait about 6 years later when a High School friend rented it. The Thing seemed just the right kind of wrong to me. Disembodied heads growing legs and eye stalks, and gaping maws opening in a man chest seemed to emulate my love of the macabre and Lovecraft. This brings us to today’s review, The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31. The Thing is based on some famous John Carpenter movie that gets me boos from fellow geeks every time I say I’ve never seen it. The Thing puts 4-8 players into the role of a member of the crew at an Antarctic Outpost who discover an alien ship that’s 100,000 years old (oh spoilers!). Some Thing comes from the ship and tries to infect and infiltrate the humans. Right from the start of the game the players know this. They know one of their team is an “Imitation.” The humans freak out, decide they need to grab some crucial gear, kill off the thing and escape the base. The Imitation wants to blow the place up, infect everyone or sneak aboard the chopper so they can get access to the rest of humanity. To make things interesting, as the players explore the base there are two more chances that more of them could become infected and also become an “Imitation” which turns the game from a one vs. many hidden role game into a full-on team game. Power Out - Place a ‘power out’ card on the room in question. Counter it by discarding a Flashlight supply card. If you manage to defeat The Thing in battle, you will move onto the second section, which increases your chance of being infected. More Blood sample cards are dealt out to all players as you open your crew up to a wider area of the base. This gives a second or third player the chance to become an imitation, making each decision for building a crew, mission and battle even harder. In the final third section when you defeat the Thing, then will move onto the final escape attempt on the helicopter. Table Talk

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. I think the difference is knowing where those moments are where you can do it and cause some confusion. Like I say in the review, you really do see a skill set develop that belongs to this game sand this game only. Unfortunately you need to push through some flawed plays to get there.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. 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. Board game adaptations aren’t always the easiest to pull off, as they can’t rely on the same linear storytelling as something like a video game, but Infection at Outpost 31 pulls from existing board game tropes and wraps it in the movie’s signature brand of tension and body horror.

Final Score: 4.0 Stars – A great social deduction and hidden traitor game that closely captures the tension the 1982 movie. To win the game, players must complete missions, locate and identify the imitations, and escape the Outpost. Your ability to uncover the truth is critical to discover the imitations and win the game. Once players have progressed through sectors 2 and 3, successfully grabbing the items and defeating the Thing wherever it shows, it’s time to make the final decision. Who escapes the base, and who stays behind.John Carpenter’s The Thing remains one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Along with Alien, it is one of the few movies that still unnerves and scares me every time I watch it, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. There is a rising tension that permeates every part of it that is brilliantly coupled with the audience sharing the characters’ uncertainty about who is human. The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 will arrive later this year from USAopoly, Project Raygun, and Mondo to put you in the shoes of those characters. I played at Gen Con and I walked away calling it my most anticipated game coming out of the convention. In The Thing, most players will play a human who want to clear all three sectors of the outpost and then get on the helicopter to escape. Some player(s) will play an Imitation who want to move the Contagion Level up, destroy the outpost before it’s cleared, or to stow away on the helicopter. All roles are kept hidden until the end of the game.

A game round consists of a few steps, but the main action is through missions. The Captain draws a mission log card and gathers a team of players to go in it. Each player secretly hands in a Supply Card, which are shuffled and revealed. If the numbers are high enough, the team is successful and they reveal the room chip, if not, the contagion level increases. Room chips will be either Gear, Discards, or force a battle with The Thing.Let me start with saying that I’m a big fan of social deduction and hidden traitor games. The Thing does an excellent job in both aspects. Whether you’re playing a Human or an Imitation, you’re playing a role and trying convincing other players you’re Human. 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 BIG UPDATE (8/10/19): Thanks to some amazing and hard work by Michael Phelpz, pretty much every part of this mod has been improved.