The Dark Horror of Science Fiction
TWO-GUN PIXIE PRESENTS:
Legendary
Gaming
001 – The Dark Horror of Science Fiction
What’s the word, Nerd Herd?
Welcome to Two-Gun Pixie’s newest blog installment, Legendary Gaming. We have received so many positive responses to our special 3-part “Waiting at the Tavern” reviews that we here at 2GP have decided to make it a regular feature under its own banner. We Thank You All For Your Support!
We hope to continue to bring you fun, informative, and honest reviews of tabletop games. If we don’t like a game, a mechanic in the game, or even the rule book or packaging we’ll let you know. We here at Two-Gun Pixie are NOT PAID to review any game - even games that we receive pre-sale, like the focus of this inaugural post for Legendary Gaming. If you read a game review here than you can rest assured that it is our true and honest opinion of the game. Time is too short to waste on crappy games so let us here at Two-Gun Pixie help you decide how to spend your time and money.
The Pixie’s game shelves are currently bowing under the weight of all Delia’s games found and saved from the bleak and fun-hating Blue Meanies and the time-consuming Langoliers. Many Bothans died to get these games (and their reviews) to you. Straight from the resistance underground, located somewhere deep within the Nerd Wasteland, the Great Grognard presents the very first game to have the honor of being pulled down from the Pixie’s game shelf for review.
On Thursdsy May 19th, 2016 Osprey Games will drop
ULTIMATE EDITION ESCAPE FROM THE ALIENS IN OUTER SPACE.
Before it hits the game stores, Delia, the Two-Gun Pixie Princess of the Nerd Wasteland, received a copy and the Great Grognard and the Twenty-Sided Warriors got a chance to play it. Let’s check it out…
Osprey Games took over this game from their original publishers, Cranio Creations, and gave it a face-lift – or game-lift. We here never played the original so we can’t give an honest comparison to this newest edition. Therefore, this review will be strictly examining the new, current edition.
Combining two key game-play aspects, Hidden Movement and Hidden Traitor, this game attempts to bring a level of horrific atmosphere to the gaming table in a way most games in the tabletop horror genre just can’t.
The basic concept of the game is simple.
Set in the near-future (possibly very near?) humanity is succumbing to the ravages of a degenerative brain illness. As millions die from this disease a group of scientists on an orbital space station have been working on a cure. Positive results begin to give hope as the team implants alien spores directly into the cerebral cortex of infected test subjects. On the morning of July 26th there was an incident. All communication with the space station ceased. Unknown to the world at large the scientists on board battle for their own lives as hybrid alien carnivores tear through the research station.
Players are either scientists trying desperately to reach the escape pods or aliens trying to find and feast on human flesh.
Oh…and the power is out in the station giving the game an atmosphere set completely darkness. Where is everyone else? What is everyone else? Stay quiet when you can and stay the hell away from everyone else if you want to survive!
An interesting aspect to the game is that it comes with no dice, which is common considering that this is a card game. It also does not come with a game board as everyone playing is moving secretly.
The Box
Osprey Games has been hitting it out of the park, or rolling it out of the game room as it were when it comes to the packaging of their games. Much like their wildly popular reimagined edition of Odin’s Ravens, the packaging for the Ultimate Edition Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space is fantastic. However, if they ever plan an expansion it will never fit in the base game box. As is becoming common for Osprey Games they have opted for another flip-lid cover for the game box. This is a nice change from the common box type. The box seems perfectly designed to take travelling and you won’t worry about destroying the box.
Components Manifest
Ultimate Edition Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space comes with:
16 Character Cards (8 Human Crew and 8 Alien Crew – yes, Crew.The aliens to be your fellow researchers on the station!)
5 Escape Pod Cards
77 Dangerous Sector Cards
8 Map Books (Each has the same identical 8 floor maps)
8 Dry-Wipe Marker Pens
2 Cleaning Cloths
The cards are all of good stock, but could use being sleeved as you would for any game you play often. The artwork is amazing and fits the dark, hopeless feeling of the game perfectly!
Each of the Character Cards, whether Human or Alien, offer their player a unique way to bend a rule, as is common – and expected – from most games these days. But unlike most games these rule-bending character abilities are only usable once, which may sound constraining, but trust us, it totally adds to the anxiety and intense atmosphere of the game.
I have seen that the original version of this game included map pads and pencils. That is very common and Osprey could have gone that route, but they decided to do something different. In lieu of pads and pencils, Osprey Games included enough dry-wipe marker pens and map books. This is a great idea. We all loved it; however, we did find a problem with working with dry-erase map books. The spiral-bound flip-book style map books do provide all the information a player may need concerning the symbols used in the game, but we found our dry-wipe markers would smudge very easily. We caught this early on and were able to be pay closer attention to how we touch, open, and close our map books.
Be careful. The slightest touch will smudge and/or erase your movement marks and any notes you may have been keeping concerning the (alleged?) movements called out by the other players when directed to do so by the Dangerous Sector Cards.
Game Play
The game itself may be the most thematically atmospheric tabletop game the 20-Sided Warriors have played. All the artwork on the cards is dark. Some of the pictures are even hard to make out because the art is so dark.
Don’t Complain!
This is perfect! It is exactly what the game is trying to evoke…darkness and silence.
Confusion...
Anxiety.
“Huh?”
“What is that?”
“Who’s there?”
“What?”
The game is about being plunged in near total darkness while trying to escape from hungry, carnivorous aliens out to eat you – AND infect you, turning YOU into an alien carnivore as well!
This is why the dark, almost hard to see at times pictures on the game cards works. Don’t worry, each card, regardless of what the shadowy artwork depicts, has an easy to see symbol in the corner. All you really need to be able to see is the symbol and Osprey Games made sure you could identify them easily.
Each player secretly chooses a random character from the pre-prepared deck and shows NO ONE until they escape or die. You set the deck up based on the number of players and divide the number of Humans to Aliens in the deck evenly according to the number of players in the game. If there is an odd number the advantage goes to the aliens.
As mentioned above, each character has an ability that can bend the game rules once per game, such as the Invisible Alien, who is immune to sensor items and the spotlight, or the Human Engineer, who draws TWO escape pod cards instead of one and hopes one will be functional.
Depending upon which of the eight levels of the space station you play on determines where you start, Human Sector or Alien Sector. Each level also has the escape pods in different locations.
Humans can move one space while Aliens can move one OR two spaces each turn. Where your movement ends on the map decides what you have to do:
If you end your move on a Silent Sector you have to announce “Silent Sector” at the end of your turn. You DO NOT announce the sector you are in.
If you end your move on a Dangerous Sector you have to draw a Dangerous Sector Card and the symbol will instruct you. For example, Noise in Your Sector (announce Noise from the sector you are currently in), Noise In Any Sector (announce Noise from any sector – the one you are in OR Any other sector space on the map, or Silence in All Sectors (announce Silent In All Sectors).
Some cards in this deck are Item Cards, such as Adrenaline (which allows you to move ONE extra space when used) or Sensor (play on another player and they HAVE to announce their Exact Location Coordinates.
NOTE: If you draw an Item Card you HAVE to announce “Silent In All Sectors”.
The game ends when all players of either side are either dead or the last Human escapes from the space station.
Humans killed by Aliens become Aliens unless they have a Clone Card to play.
Final Thoughts
Most tabletop games these days that are centered around the theme of Horror are either Cthulhu/Lovecraftian games or about Zombies. When a game hits the market that is neither of those two subjects it is a breath of fresh air for boardgamers.
Hey, I love both those themes, but can’t we get a different designer game that's based on fear and horror that ISN'T Lovecraftian or about a zombie apocalypse? There are a few out there, but not many, and most of those just feel like a pasted on theme.
Not This Game!
We here at Two-Gun Pixie have played many games with the Hidden Traitor mechanic and many with the Hidden Movement mechanic. This is the first game we have played that combines those two concepts completely making them the single focus of the game. All player roles are secret and all movement is hidden. Brilliant idea!
This game plays fast - about an hour for players new to the game. With a little experience under your belt the game will play faster.
Set-up time is almost non-existent; a quick shuffle of some cards and handing out the appropriate number of Map Books and Dry-Wipe Markers. That’s it. You're ready to play the game.
Ultimate Edition Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space may well prove to be the most intense tabletop game you have played. The sheer sense of NEEDING to escape from EVERYONE else at the gaming table fuels each player to keep close watch on everything the other players say and do - even when it’s not your turn. Unlike so many other games where the downtime in between each player’s turn can lead to player boredom this game plays more like chess or poker. After a player finishes their turn they really need to pay close attention to the other players. You need to try to track the movement of the other players as well as try to determine who is moving LIKE an Alien and who is moving LIKE a Human. Considering that some of the drawn cards make you tell your exact location and others allow you to lie about where you are, it becomes a very intense game of Cat and Mouse… if, when the cat catches the mouse the mouse becomes another cat and helps hunt down the remaining mice.
Just when you think you know who is who and where the others are… THERE’S AN ALIEN ATTACKING YOUR COORDINATES!
All in all, the Twenty-Sided Warriors found this game to be fun and enjoyable. This game will probably be hitting our gaming table often.
If you are a fan of either of the gaming mechanics, Hidden Traitor or Hidden Movement, then you will enjoy adding this game to your shelf!
We think that the easy set-up and the lack of tokens, counters, figures and a board also makes a great “Gateway Game” to bring people into the wonderful world of horror tabletop games!
Osprey Games has a dark, silent hit on their hands here!
