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Russian Football History 2012-2013
Sports and Entertainment
7.0
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App
"Russian Football history 2012-2013" - is an application about Russian Football 2012-2013. With...
Russian Football History 2011-2012
Sports and Entertainment
App
"Russian Football History 2011-2012" - is an application about Russian Football 2011-2012. With...
Ukrainian Football History 2012-2013
Sports and Entertainment
App
«Ukrainian Football History 2012-2013» - is an application about Ukrainian Football – Season...
Gloomhaven
9.0
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Gloomhaven is a game of Euro-inspired tactical combat in a persistent world of shifting motives....
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Strife: Legacy of the Eternals in Tabletop Games
Jun 12, 2019
I cannot tell you how hard it is to organize a game night with the full group. And I probably don’t have to – I’m sure you understand the struggle too. So for those times when only 2 of us are available, it’s always nice to have 2-player only games to play. But sometimes deciding on a game can cause a bit of strife…
War rages across the land as the Eternals (immortal beings) fight each other for dominance over the realm. Calling forth their chosen Champions, battle after battle is fought until one Eternal emerges victorious. Will your Champions aid you on your quest for supremacy, or will you be forced to cede to another Eternal in the end? Choose your Champions wisely, and may your legacy and power reign supreme!
Strife: Legacy of the Eternals is a competitive two-player game of perfect information – each player has an identical hand of 10 cards from which to play. At its core, Strife is like War – players simultaneously reveal their chosen card and the highest number wins that battle. Players earn Victory Points for battles won. But there’s a twist. Each card has a unique ability (Battle Ability) that, when played, can influence the total power of either your or your opponent’s card for the given turn. And that’s not all – each card also has a secondary ability (Legacy Ability) that can be used the turn after it was initially played to also influence the total power for that next turn. Strategy is key! How can you play your cards in a way that both the initial and secondary powers can benefit you? One power is immediate and one is delayed by a turn, so think carefully about how to best combo your cards/powers! Don’t forget, as a game of perfect information you also know exactly what your opponent is working with too! Use your deduction skills to determine which card they might play and figure out how to use your remaining cards to undermine their total power. The game is played over the course of 3 rounds, and the player with the most Victory Points at the end is the winner!
For a game that seems so simple, Strife actually has a steep learning curve. Every card in your hand has a unique Battle Ability AND Legacy Ability that you have to learn to successfully play. You can’t just pick this game up and play if you don’t know the powers and understand how they work. It might be a little easier to learn if there was a player reference guide for all of the powers so you could just look in one place, but there isn’t one. So I’m left flipping through all of my cards trying to find a power that I thought I saw that could maybe combo with a power on a different card. The rule sheet suggests using ONLY Legacy Abilities your first game to get a feel for the flow, which I appreciate. But when you finally add in the Battle Abilities, you have to be paying attention to 2 different powers on 2 different cards each turn and it can be confusing if you don’t fully know all of those powers.
That being said, I think this game would be great if it used ONLY a Battle Ability or ONLY a Legacy Ability. Having both just feels like too much to me. Until you understand all of the abilities, it’s hard to decide on a strategy since you don’t really know how certain powers will work with each other across different cards. I have played this game multiple times, but since I don’t play 2-player only games often, I haven’t had the opportunity to totally learn all of the powers. And if you play with someone that has never played Strife before, it feels a little unfair if YOU know the abilities and how they work while your opponent is totally in the dark. It would be a much easier game to grasp if there was only 1 power on 1 card to consider for each turn.
I got Strife from Travis when he was doing a small purge of his collection, and I can see why he was getting rid of it. It’s a part of my collection, but I can’t guarantee how long it’ll stay there. In theory, it’s a cool game. But in actual execution, it’s just a little too complicated for what I feel it should be. Give Strife a try if you want, but I don’t really think you’re missing much if you don’t. That’s why Purple Phoenix Games gives Strife a 4/12.
https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/strife-legacy-of-the-eternals-review/
War rages across the land as the Eternals (immortal beings) fight each other for dominance over the realm. Calling forth their chosen Champions, battle after battle is fought until one Eternal emerges victorious. Will your Champions aid you on your quest for supremacy, or will you be forced to cede to another Eternal in the end? Choose your Champions wisely, and may your legacy and power reign supreme!
Strife: Legacy of the Eternals is a competitive two-player game of perfect information – each player has an identical hand of 10 cards from which to play. At its core, Strife is like War – players simultaneously reveal their chosen card and the highest number wins that battle. Players earn Victory Points for battles won. But there’s a twist. Each card has a unique ability (Battle Ability) that, when played, can influence the total power of either your or your opponent’s card for the given turn. And that’s not all – each card also has a secondary ability (Legacy Ability) that can be used the turn after it was initially played to also influence the total power for that next turn. Strategy is key! How can you play your cards in a way that both the initial and secondary powers can benefit you? One power is immediate and one is delayed by a turn, so think carefully about how to best combo your cards/powers! Don’t forget, as a game of perfect information you also know exactly what your opponent is working with too! Use your deduction skills to determine which card they might play and figure out how to use your remaining cards to undermine their total power. The game is played over the course of 3 rounds, and the player with the most Victory Points at the end is the winner!
For a game that seems so simple, Strife actually has a steep learning curve. Every card in your hand has a unique Battle Ability AND Legacy Ability that you have to learn to successfully play. You can’t just pick this game up and play if you don’t know the powers and understand how they work. It might be a little easier to learn if there was a player reference guide for all of the powers so you could just look in one place, but there isn’t one. So I’m left flipping through all of my cards trying to find a power that I thought I saw that could maybe combo with a power on a different card. The rule sheet suggests using ONLY Legacy Abilities your first game to get a feel for the flow, which I appreciate. But when you finally add in the Battle Abilities, you have to be paying attention to 2 different powers on 2 different cards each turn and it can be confusing if you don’t fully know all of those powers.
That being said, I think this game would be great if it used ONLY a Battle Ability or ONLY a Legacy Ability. Having both just feels like too much to me. Until you understand all of the abilities, it’s hard to decide on a strategy since you don’t really know how certain powers will work with each other across different cards. I have played this game multiple times, but since I don’t play 2-player only games often, I haven’t had the opportunity to totally learn all of the powers. And if you play with someone that has never played Strife before, it feels a little unfair if YOU know the abilities and how they work while your opponent is totally in the dark. It would be a much easier game to grasp if there was only 1 power on 1 card to consider for each turn.
I got Strife from Travis when he was doing a small purge of his collection, and I can see why he was getting rid of it. It’s a part of my collection, but I can’t guarantee how long it’ll stay there. In theory, it’s a cool game. But in actual execution, it’s just a little too complicated for what I feel it should be. Give Strife a try if you want, but I don’t really think you’re missing much if you don’t. That’s why Purple Phoenix Games gives Strife a 4/12.
https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/strife-legacy-of-the-eternals-review/
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Rucksack in Tabletop Games
Jul 20, 2020 (Updated Jul 20, 2020)
Why does this always happen to you? Here you are, minding your own business when you are thrown into some strange scenario and are caught with only five ridiculous items on you. You have to survive… but how?
Rucksack is a card drafting storytelling and voting game for 4-8 players. Each player will be drafting a hand of five item cards in order to create the greatest survival story satisfying the active scenario.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and the final components may be different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to back the game through the upcoming Kickstarter campaign, order from your FLGS, or purchase through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup, give each player a voting sheet and pencil. Shuffle the scenario cards into a draw deck. Shuffle the item cards into a draw deck. Flip over the top scenario card and the game is ready to be played.
The game is played over three rounds and each round is played in two halves. During the first half of the game players will be drawing one card from the item deck and deciding whether to keep or discard it. If kept, the next player will do the same. If discarded, the player will add the card to the face-up discard pile and MUST keep the next card drawn. The next player may then choose the topmost card of the discard pile or draw from the item card draw stack. This continues until all players have five cards in hand and the game then transitions into the second phase – storytelling.
Using the drafted five cards each player will explain how they would survive the active scenario, and this is the crux of the game. How would someone use tweezers, a towel, a stun grenade, binoculars, and a wine glass to last 40 days on an island full of hostile inhabitants? Well this may be exactly what you are presented with while playing Rucksack. Each player will give their ideas and pitch them to the group. Once all players have made their cases, each player will mark on their voting sheet who created the best plan to combat the scenario. After three rounds the votes are tallied and the winner is crowned! Well, not with a real crown. Unless you want. But those are sold separately.
Components. Again, we were provided a prototype copy of this game, so all comments on components should be taken with that in mind. In fact, some cards came without art or flavor text on them. This in no way detracted from our plays. The components here are a bunch of cards, a pack of golf pencils, and a pad of voting sheets. The pencils and voting sheets are fine. The cards, though not final quality and missing many art pieces, are also fine. The art style on this game is interesting and I like it. Rucksack could be played with no art and I would feel the same way about it. So in summation, the components here are good.
This is another game that I thought would be a dud upon reading the rules and knowing the people I am able to play games with currently. However, once we started playing a whole new side of these people came forth to weave these intricate stories of how someone would use marbles to help them be rescued from an uninhabited island. I found myself also prodding the creative part of my brain (that I don’t use much anymore). It has been a surprise for me that I like this one so well. I’m not usually into storytelling games, but using these item cards to help guide the final answers prove to add such a unique facet to what could have been such a disaster for our group. I am proud to have this game in my collection to scratch a very different itch that I never thought I had.
Should you be in the market for a good and light storytelling game to get the creative juices flowing and the hilarity of others’ answers out, then do consider backing or purchasing Rucksack. You will enjoy it immensely and think about it even after you’ve played. That is the sign of a great game to me.
Rucksack is a card drafting storytelling and voting game for 4-8 players. Each player will be drafting a hand of five item cards in order to create the greatest survival story satisfying the active scenario.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and the final components may be different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to back the game through the upcoming Kickstarter campaign, order from your FLGS, or purchase through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup, give each player a voting sheet and pencil. Shuffle the scenario cards into a draw deck. Shuffle the item cards into a draw deck. Flip over the top scenario card and the game is ready to be played.
The game is played over three rounds and each round is played in two halves. During the first half of the game players will be drawing one card from the item deck and deciding whether to keep or discard it. If kept, the next player will do the same. If discarded, the player will add the card to the face-up discard pile and MUST keep the next card drawn. The next player may then choose the topmost card of the discard pile or draw from the item card draw stack. This continues until all players have five cards in hand and the game then transitions into the second phase – storytelling.
Using the drafted five cards each player will explain how they would survive the active scenario, and this is the crux of the game. How would someone use tweezers, a towel, a stun grenade, binoculars, and a wine glass to last 40 days on an island full of hostile inhabitants? Well this may be exactly what you are presented with while playing Rucksack. Each player will give their ideas and pitch them to the group. Once all players have made their cases, each player will mark on their voting sheet who created the best plan to combat the scenario. After three rounds the votes are tallied and the winner is crowned! Well, not with a real crown. Unless you want. But those are sold separately.
Components. Again, we were provided a prototype copy of this game, so all comments on components should be taken with that in mind. In fact, some cards came without art or flavor text on them. This in no way detracted from our plays. The components here are a bunch of cards, a pack of golf pencils, and a pad of voting sheets. The pencils and voting sheets are fine. The cards, though not final quality and missing many art pieces, are also fine. The art style on this game is interesting and I like it. Rucksack could be played with no art and I would feel the same way about it. So in summation, the components here are good.
This is another game that I thought would be a dud upon reading the rules and knowing the people I am able to play games with currently. However, once we started playing a whole new side of these people came forth to weave these intricate stories of how someone would use marbles to help them be rescued from an uninhabited island. I found myself also prodding the creative part of my brain (that I don’t use much anymore). It has been a surprise for me that I like this one so well. I’m not usually into storytelling games, but using these item cards to help guide the final answers prove to add such a unique facet to what could have been such a disaster for our group. I am proud to have this game in my collection to scratch a very different itch that I never thought I had.
Should you be in the market for a good and light storytelling game to get the creative juices flowing and the hilarity of others’ answers out, then do consider backing or purchasing Rucksack. You will enjoy it immensely and think about it even after you’ve played. That is the sign of a great game to me.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Apotheca in Tabletop Games
Jun 12, 2019
In the fantasy world, Witches and Wizards get all the credit for magical feats. But if it weren’t for the proverbial ‘man behind the curtain,’ those feats wouldn’t be possible! Who am I talking about? Apothecaries, of course! Yes, maybe a Wizard single-handedly defeated a dragon, but only after drinking a healing potion to recover some strength. And maybe a Witch was able to sneak past some henchmen after drinking a potion of invisibility. The list goes on! The point is, apothecaries can do some cool magical stuff too. So keep crushing it out there, apothecaries – this game is for you!
After years of study, you have finally become a master apothecary, and making magic potions is your passion. You buy all of your ingredients in a secret marketplace with no problem until one day, you come across another apothecary trying to buy all of the same ingredients as you! Who does this person think they are?? Using your quick wit, and some sleight of hand, you manage to scatter the ingredients around the marketplace to hide them from your rival. Now all you’ve got to do is give them the slip so you can go pick up the ingredients. Be careful, though – you’re rival is as sly as you are, and is scouring the marketplace to find them first!
In Apotheca, players are racing to create three magic potions before their opponents do. To craft a magic potion, players must make a match of three potions of the same color in a row. Played on a 4×4 grid, potions are manipulated by apothecary powers from recruited apothecary cards in a manner similar to movement in chess, or better yet – Onitama. Complete three matches, and you win! As a whole, I could describe Apotheca as chess with a helping of tic-tac-toe.
One thing I really like about this game is that it’s a game of semi-hidden information. Some things are hidden and some things are not. You do know the apothecary power(s) your opponent has, but you don’t know the color of the potions they put into play. Based on how they use their powers to manipulate potions, both face-up and face-down, you must deduce their strategy and thwart their attempts at making a match! Of course, they are doing the exact same thing to you – only you know the color of potions you place, but your power is known to your opponent. It’s a unique game of deduction and deception that requires more strategy than meets the eye.
Apotheca can be played with 1-4 players, but I think the best player count is 2. In a 3-4 player game, it can be difficult to build a concrete strategy because the board can significantly change between your turns. In a 2-player game, the board changes as well, but not nearly as quickly since it is just a back-and-forth with turn order. Also, more players means more hidden information – it can be tedious trying to remember who performed what action and who has what powers as you try to deduce everyone’s strategy. I don’t mind Apotheca as a 3-4 player game, but I would certainly prefer to play it as a 2-player game.
As you can see by our individual ratings, we are a little split on this game. It requires a decent amount of strategy and deduction, which work well together in this game. Apotheca was one of the first games in my collection, and it’s one that will stay there. Overall, Purple Phoenix Games gives Apotheca a sneaky 12 / 18.
https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/apotheca-review/
After years of study, you have finally become a master apothecary, and making magic potions is your passion. You buy all of your ingredients in a secret marketplace with no problem until one day, you come across another apothecary trying to buy all of the same ingredients as you! Who does this person think they are?? Using your quick wit, and some sleight of hand, you manage to scatter the ingredients around the marketplace to hide them from your rival. Now all you’ve got to do is give them the slip so you can go pick up the ingredients. Be careful, though – you’re rival is as sly as you are, and is scouring the marketplace to find them first!
In Apotheca, players are racing to create three magic potions before their opponents do. To craft a magic potion, players must make a match of three potions of the same color in a row. Played on a 4×4 grid, potions are manipulated by apothecary powers from recruited apothecary cards in a manner similar to movement in chess, or better yet – Onitama. Complete three matches, and you win! As a whole, I could describe Apotheca as chess with a helping of tic-tac-toe.
One thing I really like about this game is that it’s a game of semi-hidden information. Some things are hidden and some things are not. You do know the apothecary power(s) your opponent has, but you don’t know the color of the potions they put into play. Based on how they use their powers to manipulate potions, both face-up and face-down, you must deduce their strategy and thwart their attempts at making a match! Of course, they are doing the exact same thing to you – only you know the color of potions you place, but your power is known to your opponent. It’s a unique game of deduction and deception that requires more strategy than meets the eye.
Apotheca can be played with 1-4 players, but I think the best player count is 2. In a 3-4 player game, it can be difficult to build a concrete strategy because the board can significantly change between your turns. In a 2-player game, the board changes as well, but not nearly as quickly since it is just a back-and-forth with turn order. Also, more players means more hidden information – it can be tedious trying to remember who performed what action and who has what powers as you try to deduce everyone’s strategy. I don’t mind Apotheca as a 3-4 player game, but I would certainly prefer to play it as a 2-player game.
As you can see by our individual ratings, we are a little split on this game. It requires a decent amount of strategy and deduction, which work well together in this game. Apotheca was one of the first games in my collection, and it’s one that will stay there. Overall, Purple Phoenix Games gives Apotheca a sneaky 12 / 18.
https://purplephoenixgames.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/apotheca-review/
Wendake
Tabletop Game
"Wendake" is the name that the Wyandot People use for their traditional territory. This population,...
BoardGames 2017Games Nativegames
Escape: The Curse of the Temple
6.5
Rate It
Tabletop Game
Escape: The Curse of the Temple is a cooperative game in which players must escape (yes...) from a...
Paul Kellett (118 KP) rated Lifeform in Tabletop Games
May 1, 2019
I demoed this at Fan Boy 3 in Manchester during the Kickstarter campaign and was really excited to get to try this out.
So, what is the game?
Basically, it is Alien: The Board Game. A highly thematic one against many survival game where some of you play the crew of the mining ship Valley Forge trying to escape the clutches of an unknown alien killer before the ship self-destructs. Sound familiar? You bet, and it captures the tension of that well-known film perfectly.
I arrived part way through a game and Tristan kindly gave up his seat to let Me jump in. I basically new nothing about how to play, having only watched a couple of demo videos earlier in the week but with a crib sheet in front of Me explaining the card icons and a quick run down of what you can do in a turn, it didn't feel overwhelming and I was able to take over quite seamlessly. The game was close to the end and the alien player had already taken out most of the crew and was set up very nicely to ambush the rest of us. It wasn't long before the ship was adrift with just one deadly occupant...
How does it work?
We played a basic game, so some of the more meatier options were not included and we just had the simple task of gathering enough equipment and escaping in the shuttlecraft.
In the full game, players will be assigned personal objectives like downloading the ship's log from the data core or gathering specific equipment. This will add much more depth to the game as each player will be striving to achieve these goals as well as trying to avoid the alien and reaching the escape shuttle.
In the simple game however, we just had to focus on escaping. To do this, you need to collect the equipment tokens that are arranged in various rooms on the board. These are then placed on a track at the side of the board in various slots for coolant, energy cells, weapons, space suits and halon canisters. Most of these tracks have a minimum number of tokens needed before you can attempt to escape and any extra will grant bonuses like drawing extra cards or gaining a flame thrower.
In your turn, you get to perform one action so the downtime is minimal and the turns fair zip around the table, often before you've had a chance to take a breath and plan your next move.
All the actions are played from the cards you have in your hand, so you feel the tension of needing to get somewhere but having to wait until you draw a card that lets you run through multiple rooms.
Drawing cards. Now there's a thing. The ship's self destruct has been activated (naturally) and you only have 30 minutes until the ship blows up. Each time you choose to draw more cards into your hand, you slide the marker up the track, closer to the big bang.
I can't say too much about what the alien player can do as I didn't get to study that side of things too much but it certainly has some devious tricks up it's sleeve.
The alien player starts with two standees on the board. They look identical besides a little coloured sticker (this will be a set of symbols in the final game). He also has a corresponding set of tokens next to his player board and he will choose one of these to be the alien. The other standee (or standees, as later in the game there is the chance to get a third standee out) is a decoy so the crew, essentially seeing these as blips on their trackers, never know which is the real threat until it's too late.
There is a nice twist here, as, after making a kill, the alien player get's to reset his tokens and choose again which one will be the decoy and which will be the real killer. The alien player can also choose whether the kill was silent, offing the victim quickly and cleanly, or whether it is a nasty, brutal affair with lots of screaming. If the latter, then the other crew members hear this and all have to make a panic move into an adjacent room. This can be really useful if the crew are about to pick up equipment or possibly achieve an objective (I'm not sure if the personal objectives will be common knowledge or not sat this point).
The alien has various little trackers it can use from hatching more eggs letting it increase the amount of cards it holds, to taking control of the android on the crew which will then get placed on the board and follow a programmed track, killing any crew in it's way until it gets to the escape shuttle where it will start sabotaging various systems.
The alien also gets to place terror tokens and power out tokens on the board. If you enter a space with a terror token, you have to draw a card from the terror deck and these are always bad. A room with a power outage is dark and you can't run through it, you must stop your movement there. Other bad things can happen in the dark too.
What if I die?
Another neat thing this game does is avoid player elimination by cycling the crew. In our game, there were two of us controlling two characters each and when both of My characters died, I took one from the other player so we had one each. When that character was also killed (yes, I was not doing well...), rather than being forced to sit out the rest of the game, I could choose one of two secondary roles to play.
I could take control of the ship's mainframe computer which would allow me to do things like open and close bulkhead doors, slowing the alien down, allow the other players to draw more cards and various other useful things.
Or I could play the ship's cat. This was the option I went for and it was great. I could distract the alien, destroy some of it's eggs (so reducing it's hand size), place additional equipment tokens on the board or assist the other crew by letting them draw more cards.
It was this that that actually gave us the win as it was looking pretty bleak towards the end, but the cat actually managed to guide the last remaining crew member to a flamethrower and distract the alien long enough to make our escape.
What do I think?
This game is superb. Easy to pick up, but very thematic and definitely very tense. The decisions can be easy at times, but then you will hit a situation where the alien has you cornered and you must make some hard choices.
As I said, the theme just drips off every part of this game like a slightly corrosive drool. Our game started off really well - we managed to quickly gather a massive chunk of the equipment we needed to escape but the alien had been cutting the power and placing terror tokens closer to the escape shuttle ready for our eventual arrival and by the mid-game, we were feeling trapped and the alien was using the ventilation ducts to spring out and take us down one by one.
We were down to one surviving crew member and the ship's cat who, as I already mentioned managed to lead the human to the safety of the shuttle and espace.
Just getting to the shuttle isn't the end, however, there is one last twist (as in all good stories). At around the mid-point of the self destruct track, the alien get's to pick a card which is his estimate on what point prior to the ship blowing up we will reach the shuttle. If he has guessed correctly, then as we leave the stricken mining vessel, we find out that the shuttle has one extra occupant...
We were lucky and the alien player had guessed incorrectly, but had he been right, then there would have been a final battle aboard the escape shuttle and we may have been sending some deadly cargo back to Earth...
I can highly recommend this game and best of all, there is an expansion that adds an AI deck and a whole other set of objectives for solo play. I had a quick look at this and it looks like it will make for a very tense and really exciting solo game as well as a cool multiplayer experience.
So, what is the game?
Basically, it is Alien: The Board Game. A highly thematic one against many survival game where some of you play the crew of the mining ship Valley Forge trying to escape the clutches of an unknown alien killer before the ship self-destructs. Sound familiar? You bet, and it captures the tension of that well-known film perfectly.
I arrived part way through a game and Tristan kindly gave up his seat to let Me jump in. I basically new nothing about how to play, having only watched a couple of demo videos earlier in the week but with a crib sheet in front of Me explaining the card icons and a quick run down of what you can do in a turn, it didn't feel overwhelming and I was able to take over quite seamlessly. The game was close to the end and the alien player had already taken out most of the crew and was set up very nicely to ambush the rest of us. It wasn't long before the ship was adrift with just one deadly occupant...
How does it work?
We played a basic game, so some of the more meatier options were not included and we just had the simple task of gathering enough equipment and escaping in the shuttlecraft.
In the full game, players will be assigned personal objectives like downloading the ship's log from the data core or gathering specific equipment. This will add much more depth to the game as each player will be striving to achieve these goals as well as trying to avoid the alien and reaching the escape shuttle.
In the simple game however, we just had to focus on escaping. To do this, you need to collect the equipment tokens that are arranged in various rooms on the board. These are then placed on a track at the side of the board in various slots for coolant, energy cells, weapons, space suits and halon canisters. Most of these tracks have a minimum number of tokens needed before you can attempt to escape and any extra will grant bonuses like drawing extra cards or gaining a flame thrower.
In your turn, you get to perform one action so the downtime is minimal and the turns fair zip around the table, often before you've had a chance to take a breath and plan your next move.
All the actions are played from the cards you have in your hand, so you feel the tension of needing to get somewhere but having to wait until you draw a card that lets you run through multiple rooms.
Drawing cards. Now there's a thing. The ship's self destruct has been activated (naturally) and you only have 30 minutes until the ship blows up. Each time you choose to draw more cards into your hand, you slide the marker up the track, closer to the big bang.
I can't say too much about what the alien player can do as I didn't get to study that side of things too much but it certainly has some devious tricks up it's sleeve.
The alien player starts with two standees on the board. They look identical besides a little coloured sticker (this will be a set of symbols in the final game). He also has a corresponding set of tokens next to his player board and he will choose one of these to be the alien. The other standee (or standees, as later in the game there is the chance to get a third standee out) is a decoy so the crew, essentially seeing these as blips on their trackers, never know which is the real threat until it's too late.
There is a nice twist here, as, after making a kill, the alien player get's to reset his tokens and choose again which one will be the decoy and which will be the real killer. The alien player can also choose whether the kill was silent, offing the victim quickly and cleanly, or whether it is a nasty, brutal affair with lots of screaming. If the latter, then the other crew members hear this and all have to make a panic move into an adjacent room. This can be really useful if the crew are about to pick up equipment or possibly achieve an objective (I'm not sure if the personal objectives will be common knowledge or not sat this point).
The alien has various little trackers it can use from hatching more eggs letting it increase the amount of cards it holds, to taking control of the android on the crew which will then get placed on the board and follow a programmed track, killing any crew in it's way until it gets to the escape shuttle where it will start sabotaging various systems.
The alien also gets to place terror tokens and power out tokens on the board. If you enter a space with a terror token, you have to draw a card from the terror deck and these are always bad. A room with a power outage is dark and you can't run through it, you must stop your movement there. Other bad things can happen in the dark too.
What if I die?
Another neat thing this game does is avoid player elimination by cycling the crew. In our game, there were two of us controlling two characters each and when both of My characters died, I took one from the other player so we had one each. When that character was also killed (yes, I was not doing well...), rather than being forced to sit out the rest of the game, I could choose one of two secondary roles to play.
I could take control of the ship's mainframe computer which would allow me to do things like open and close bulkhead doors, slowing the alien down, allow the other players to draw more cards and various other useful things.
Or I could play the ship's cat. This was the option I went for and it was great. I could distract the alien, destroy some of it's eggs (so reducing it's hand size), place additional equipment tokens on the board or assist the other crew by letting them draw more cards.
It was this that that actually gave us the win as it was looking pretty bleak towards the end, but the cat actually managed to guide the last remaining crew member to a flamethrower and distract the alien long enough to make our escape.
What do I think?
This game is superb. Easy to pick up, but very thematic and definitely very tense. The decisions can be easy at times, but then you will hit a situation where the alien has you cornered and you must make some hard choices.
As I said, the theme just drips off every part of this game like a slightly corrosive drool. Our game started off really well - we managed to quickly gather a massive chunk of the equipment we needed to escape but the alien had been cutting the power and placing terror tokens closer to the escape shuttle ready for our eventual arrival and by the mid-game, we were feeling trapped and the alien was using the ventilation ducts to spring out and take us down one by one.
We were down to one surviving crew member and the ship's cat who, as I already mentioned managed to lead the human to the safety of the shuttle and espace.
Just getting to the shuttle isn't the end, however, there is one last twist (as in all good stories). At around the mid-point of the self destruct track, the alien get's to pick a card which is his estimate on what point prior to the ship blowing up we will reach the shuttle. If he has guessed correctly, then as we leave the stricken mining vessel, we find out that the shuttle has one extra occupant...
We were lucky and the alien player had guessed incorrectly, but had he been right, then there would have been a final battle aboard the escape shuttle and we may have been sending some deadly cargo back to Earth...
I can highly recommend this game and best of all, there is an expansion that adds an AI deck and a whole other set of objectives for solo play. I had a quick look at this and it looks like it will make for a very tense and really exciting solo game as well as a cool multiplayer experience.