The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31

Product Information

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. 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.

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. If the captain does this every single time, the traitors eventually will be teased out. I'm not even talking about sabotage but just a player throwing in the wrong card that doesn't help is problematic and easily discerned if the captain does this.If there’s an uneven split (you’re not playing with 6 players exactly), don’t worry! As long as it’s relatively even, it’s okay! Be sure to look at what Captain powers characters have, as they can help you when you’re leading a group of supposed humans on your turn! Take your respective miniatures and place them in the ‘Rec Room’ on the board. Deal out 5 supply cards to each player. Your hand is secret, don’t show anyone! The updated rule book introduces several modes of play that may limit how detailed players can describe the cards in their hands. We played mostly on “Seasoned Mode.” Our play groups found that allowing players to fully talk about the cards being submitted made the game too difficult for imitations. Once all information was “known” it simply became a numbers game to find the outliers. Perhaps we would find counter strategies in time, but for us, it was too easy to narrow down the suspects. Each group will have to evaluate the communication limitation for themselves and the multiple options are a nice addition. Final Thoughts With the right group this is an engrossingly cinematic deduction game that feels larger than its modest duration might suggest.

Thankfully, there’s a long-standing genre of board games they can pull from that’s engineered to encourage gameplay that mimics what you see in the 1982 film: the hidden traitor game. Games like Werewolf and Mafia popularized this type of game, and Infection at Outpost 31 applies The Thing’s wonderful atmosphere to the basic structure, adding in their own little twists on the genre.

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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.

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. This is a hidden traitor game, where one or several players will become infected as the game progresses. These players will be secretly sabotaging the missions the group is presented with while trying to remain undetected in hopes they'll earn a seat on the helicopter at the end of the game, thus bringing about the end of all mankind. It's up to the human players to minimize the damage caused by the Things and with some careful planning, deduction and table talk, determine who can be trusted when it comes time to escape. 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 Finally, each player rolls two dice, with the player rolling the highest number taking the revolver token. This is your first Captain. Now it’s time to work your way through Outpost 31, discern the imitation(s) among you, and hopefully escape! Once chosen, these players move their miniatures to the ‘Escape’ space on the board, and the moment of truth arrives. These players reveal their Blood Sample cards one by one. If the escape criteria is met, congrats! The Human players win! However, if one imitation made it on board, the Humans lose, and Earth is doomed. Be sure to make the right call! One More Thing…The entire game is built on two T’s. Table talk and tension. With the right group, this game can be amazing. The accusations, counter accusations, and general arguing are hilarious. Let’s deal with the obvious first: yes, I’m certain the developers of the game were well aware of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There? as well as Howard Hawks film The Thing from Another World, much less the 2011 prequel The Thing, but Mondo’s semi-cooperative game very specifically focuses on the John Carpenter version, all the way down to specific characters from the film and even snippets of dialog. With that out of the way, onward with what is important: the game itself. I was frankly surprised by how much fun I had playing this game. Based on other games I own I would say that The Thing feels the most like a mash-up of The Resistance and Battlestar Galactica the Board Game (BSG). It has the team building from The Resistance but then uses a card based resolution system that’s much more BSG. Add in the fact that a player can swap sides mid-game (this happens twice) and you move a bit more towards BSG. 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.

Another big plus for me is that The Thing does an excellent job at emulating the 1982 movie. As soon as you open the box and look over all the components, it’s like stepping into the movie. Also, as the game begins, all players start in the rec-room trying to decide what their next steps are going to be, which places you in the tensest part of the film. Supply cards include many tools but also include Sabotage cards used for automatic fails. As the cooler temperatures roll in, this is one of the games I’m most excited to bring to the table again. If your family or gaming group is looking for a game with lots of tension and deduction, this might be a great add to your game collection.

Concerning an outed infected - certainly there's a few moments where you can influence things. But once you're outed in a high player count game, you spend 75-90% of the game just watching. You no longer take part in the group conversations and you have nothing mechanically to do. It's excruciatingly dull. Missions are more than just a captain asking people onto the team to engage in some up-down voting. The drawn mission card dictates specific success conditions – obtaining an axe or a few petri dishes – but also the types of people needed on a mission. Some mission will require Mechanic players or researchers so you can’t always depend on the one or two people you trust. Even if you could bring them with you, hearing “Sorry man, I don’t any of the items you need” will sink your gut as you look around and figure out who else you can trust.