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John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing was a milestone of the Horror genre. Both were immensely successful and influential, pushing the boundaries of practical effects at the time, and raising the bar for cinematic horror going forward. A group of people trapped together not knowing who is friend or foe? Sounds like a pretty engrossing social deduction board game concept, don’t you think?
Originally released back in 2017 (reprinted and released in 2022), The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 drops 4-8 players into the freezing cold of the Antarctic, and turns a number of humans into imitations, tasking them to ensure the humans don’t escape the base, or remain undetected and escape alongside them.
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
Place the main game board in the centre of your space, with the objective and infection trackers close by. Be sure to use the correct side of the infection tracker based on the number of players, one side for 5 players and below, the other for 6 and over.
Then, place the red computer miniature on the leftmost space of the infection tracker. If you’re playing with under six players, make sure you’ve removed any mission cards from the mission deck featuring the blue ‘6/7/8’ text in the bottom left of the card.
Then, shuffle both the mission and supply decks individually and place them on the board in their respective spots. Now it’s time to choose your character but be sure to have an even split of the three colour-coded departments across your players.
An easy way to ensure this is to give the first player free choice of department, the second the choice between only the remaining two departments, and the third player only the one department, then repeat.
An Uneven Split?
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!
Split the yellow room tokens into their respective sectors (1, 2, and 3), shuffle them, and place one yellow side up in each room. Make sure not to look at the underside until completing a mission in that room, which I’ll get to shortly.
Put the remaining Smoke/Fire tokens, ‘Power Out/Room Destroyed’ cards, item cards, and dice within reach of all players. Now, the really important bit. It’s time to decide who is good, and who is bad.
Build a game start deck of ‘Blood Sample’ cards based on the number of players, with one red ‘Imitation’ card, and the rest being blue ‘Human’ cards. Deal one to each player, take a look, but keep your allegiance secret. Then, another Blood Sample deck is built (again based on the number of players) and is placed face-down on the board ready for the assimilation phase- which we’ll get to. The deck requirements are as follows:
- 4 Players: 7 Human cards, 1 Imitation card.
- 5 Players: 4 Human cards, 1 Imitation card.
- 6 Players: 5 Human cards, 1 Imitation card.
- 7 Players: 5 Human cards, 2 Imitation cards.
- 8 Players: 6 Human cards, 2 Imitation cards.
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!
How To Play The Captain (whoever has the revolver token) draws a mission card, and gathers a team together based on the number on the card, making sure to adhere to the departmental requirements. Missions require players to secretly submit supply cards from their hand to the captain to resolve a variety of circumstances, from revealing a specific supply card, to building a hand of dice to roll higher than a specific number.
However, the supply deck also features red ‘Sabotage’ cards for the Imitations to use to attempt foil the missions and slow the Humans down. Once the mission has been read out and the team has been decided, the Captain picks a room in the relevant sector (starting in Sector 1), and players move their miniatures to that room.
Once there, players submit a card face down to the Captain (including the Captain themselves), who shuffles them out of sight (as to not know who submitted what), then looks at all the cards. And If any Sabotage cards have been played, these must be resolved immediately by submitting more supply cards in attempts to counter it- or it’ll just fail the mission without question.
If none were played (or they’ve been resolved already), attempt to resolve the mission through dice rolls, revealing a number of cards, or simply by checking the submitted cards against the criteria. Also if when checking the cards for Sabotages, the Captain may choose to swap out one potentially useless card for one more hopefully useful one from the top of the supply deck (but not a Sabotage card though, obviously).
If you are successful, flip the yellow room token. This might be an item you need to proceed to the next sector, or potentially a boss fight-style mission against the titular Thing. If you reveal an item, take the respective item card and give it to the Captain of the mission. Then, if the item is on the respective sector’s objective track, place it there.
If you are unsuccessful, move the computer miniature one space up the infection tracker, then resolve the effect on the space you’ve just moved it to. Scroll down to the Room Effects section of this guide to see exactly what happens. Don’t flip the room tile, and move your miniatures back to the ‘Rec Room’.
If you are successful but revealed The Thing, players on the current mission need to submit another card face-down to the Captain in the same manner as usual, but need to build a dice pool (up to a maximum of 6) in a poker-style minigame. The completion criteria depends on the sector you are currently in, and is detailed on the infection tracker.
For example, the Sector 1 Thing battle requires the Captain to roll 3 of a kind in a maximum of 3 attempts, being able to ‘hold’ dice between rolls. If this criteria is met, you’ve beaten this iteration of the Thing! Move the room token to the objective tracker. If you fail, the process is the same as failing any normal mission.
After each mission, players involved during that turn draw back up to 5 supply cards. Those left behind in the Rec Room can discard one card from their hand and redraw if required. The Captain token (revolver) is passed to the next player on the left, a new mission card is drawn, and the process begins again.
Forget What/Who You Know.
Once the objective tracker has been completed for a specific sector, players then progress to the next sector, completing missions as normal.. You must complete the item/battle requirements for the sector on the objective tracker to move ahead. However, this is where things get interesting.
When moving between Sectors 1 & 2, and then between 2 & 3, the humans amongst you might just have a change of heart. Before starting the missions in a new sector, take the Blood Sample deck you built earlier and deal out one more card to each player. Players then compare their new card to their previous one, and resolve the pair in one of three ways:
- If both cards are Human, nothing happens. The player remains Human.
- If their new card is an Imitation, they’ve turned. They’re now on the bad side.
- If both cards are Imitations, nothing happens. The bad stay bad.
Secretly hand back your original card, and those handed-back cards are shuffled and create a new Blood Sample deck on the board. Now someone human might have turned, or if the humans were very lucky, an Imitation might have received another Imitation card. The next act of the game could still only have one Imitation, perhaps two, or in games with more players, even three. At this point, the new Captain draws a mission card, and play continues as normal.
Gear
When completing missions in rooms, you might get items (or ‘gear’) to use throughout the game. These can be used at specific times by the person who holds the item.
Rope - This can only be used after the Mission card has been revealed. Rope can be used to tie someone up (essentially forcing them to sit out a turn, also being unable to discard and redraw after a mission), provided the Captain of that turn consents to that player being tied up. It can also be used to skip the current Captain if players are suspicious of them. If a departmentally required player is tied up, the criteria can be ignored, but the Captain cannot swap one supply card for one from the supply deck on that mission.
Dynamite - Dynamite can be used twice in a game to add or remove one pip to or from a dice. Simple, but very useful.
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.
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.
If the vote is successful, the player is ‘torched’, their blood sample card is revealed to all, they are eliminated from the game, and the infection tracker moves up one space.
If the vote is unsuccessful (majority thumbs down or a tie), the Flamethrower card has been ‘used’ and is discarded. No-one is eliminated early.
Room Effects
When the infection tracker moves up a tier, the Outpost succumbs to the antics within. The tracker specifies something happening in the room the most recent mission was failed in, but the mission deck itself might throw a spanner in the works. If the latter comes to fruition, roll a dice to determine which room in your current sector suffers (each room has a number in the lower right).
If players wish to enter a room for a mission with any of these effects in play, they must discard the relevant card to counter it. Also, a player not on a mission may discard a card to remove the effect while others do a mission elsewhere.
Smoke & Fire - Place a smoke tile on the room. If a turn is completed without a smoke tile being resolved, it is flipped to ‘Fire.’ A room can also be set ablaze immediately by the infection tracker or mission deck. If, like smoke, fire is ignored for a turn, the room is destroyed. To counter either Smoke or Fire in a room, discard a Fire Extinguisher supply card to remove the token.
Power Out - Place a ‘power out’ card on the room in question. Counter it by discarding a Flashlight supply card.
Room Destroyed - Does exactly what it says on the tin. Place a ‘room destroyed’ card on the relevant room, and a ‘room destroyed’ token on the infection tracker. Players cannot enter destroyed rooms. If four rooms are destroyed, the Imitations win. Likewise, if items required for the objective tracker are lost in destroyed rooms making progression impossible, the Imitations also win.
The Endgame - Get To The Chopper!
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.
The Captain of the team to have completed the objective tracker nominates a Final Captain (which can be themselves), and is voted for by thumbs up/down by all players. If a vote is successful, proceed. If not, the player to the left of that Captain then nominates someone else, and this repeats until a Final Captain is decided. For every two unsuccessful nominations, the infection tracker increases, so don’t keep disagreeing!
Once that’s been decided, the Final Captain might have some Blood Tests to use based on where the computer mini has finished on the infection tracker. Once this number of players to be tested has been decided, they reveal their Blood Sample cards to all players at the same time. The final Captain now decides who will be boarding the helicopter alongside them. The number of players determines how many players are required to be chosen for escape:
- 4 Players: 2 or 3 players selected (all Humans must escape to win).
- 5 Players: 3 players selected.
- 6 Players: 4 players selected.
- 7 Players: 4 players selected.
- 8 Players: 5 players selected.
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…
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.
Talk. Discuss. Lie. This game succeeds if you’re communicating with your fellow (hopefully) human players. Though you can’t show it, you can talk about what’s in your hand. Offer yourself to help do missions, or lie through your teeth and drop a Sabotage card when you can. If you’re accused, don’t just sit back and take it- especially if you’re actually Human. Defend, deflect, or lie some more. Sometimes just reiterating that you are human can make all the difference depending on which side you’re on.
But most of all, enjoy! That and- try not to take things too seriously. Fists almost flew when I revealed myself to be an Imitation on the chopper. One of my most memorable nights in all of board gaming.