The early portion of the year is always slow for tabletop releases. The deluge begins in the summer once convention season kicks off and then carries on through the holidays. Despite the transition period we’re now in, there has been a small collection of exciting new games that have emerged. These six titles contain innovative ideas, creative adaptations, or clever twists on existing systems.
The Thing board game gives you too many sad, cold, and lonely ways to die
11.04.2024 - 15:33 / polygon.com
John Carpenter’s 1982 movie The Thing ends with its few remaining characters in a desperate spot. Faced with an alien creature that can infect, assimilate, and emulate human bodies, the survivors don’t know who among them might secretly be an alien, or whether their pyrrhic efforts have eliminated the infection. They’re stranded in the Antarctic with their research base destroyed. Their resources are gone, there’s no meaningful shelter left, they’re freezing to death, and they can’t even trust each other enough to work together.
Sounds like fun, right? Like something you can’t wait to experience for yourself?
Much like 2022’s board game version of the classic gang-war movie The Warriors, Pendragon Game Studio’s board game The Thing aims to recreate a movie’s plot and vibe for a set of players who enjoy a punishing challenge and an oppressive situation. Kickstarted in 2022 and now available for retail purchase for the first time, the game blends elements from a variety of familiar board games, but the pileup of elements makes it surprisingly difficult for characters to survive. There are many ways to lose this game, and only a few fairly unlikely ways to win. That means threading the needle and pulling off a victory feels particularly fantastic — but in game after game, our playtesters failed early, died messily, and wound up deeply frustrated with The Thing.
There are two major modes for the base game. In the version for four to eight players, one player starts as the single secret alien running around the Antarctic research base, using cards to covertly sabotage collaborative projects (a dynamic familiar from games like The Resistance: Avalon and Secret Hitler) and infect the human scientists. Another version, for one to three players, simplifies the action, eliminating the traitor mechanic and replacing it with a much simpler dice mechanic. That makes it easier to move forward quickly, but this version of the game can be even harder to win.
First-time players should expect a steep learning curve. There are eight phases to each round of the game, and unlike most similarly complicated games, The Thing doesn’t supply players with a card or guide to help them track of what happens when: The designated leader each round gets a phase guide, but that’s it. All the action options — like preparing food in the kitchen, going to the med lab for DNA testing kits, fueling up the boiler room and the electrical room, and so forth — take a while to understand because there are so many choices and different rules for each room. And as many previous players noted after the Kickstarter-funded version landed, the rulebook is ambiguous and sometimes hard to follow.
Once players know the game and have decided how to
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