Sub Terra

Sub Terra is a fully cooperative survival horror board game for ages 10+ published by Inside the Box Games. You and up to five friends are cave explorers who have become trapped deep underground. You must quickly explore a tile-based cave system, utilise your character's specialist skills and carefully manage your actions to find the way out before your flashlights die and you're lost in the darkness forever.   

Designed by Tim Pinder, this 1-6 player, medium weight game sees you, over the course of an hour, chose one of eight characters to delve deeper and deeper into the caves drawing from 66 cave tiles. Each tile will represent, either safe passage, a hazard or a monster’s lair. 

The diverse mix of characters to choose from are, the Medic who can heal others, the leader who can give other players extra actions, the bodyguard who can kill horrors, the scout who can remain hidden from horrors and can discard tiles as they are revealed, the diver who can move between flooded tiles, the climber who can scale rocks with ease, the geologist who can remove rubble and finally the engineer who can blow up walls to make new routes.  

At the end of each set of player turns, the hazard deck triggers the dangers on a specific tile type. This might range from poisonous gas to floods or rockslides and generally involves the explorers unlucky enough to be resting on the spaces immediately taking damage or having to pass a simple skill check by rolling the die. These skill checks can get you out of danger but can also set loose up to three ‘horrors’. These creatures make players stay on the move as they’re chased through the caverns but can be frustrating to encounter and difficult to get rid of. It’s an instant knock-out if a horror catches you, knocking your character out of the game until you're healed by another player. With the random layout and need to press on to escape before the hazard deck runs out – while avoiding any remaining horrors – players may end up forced to leave their friends behind. 

For those who enjoy a cooperative experience on the more difficult side then Sub Terra is a great addition to the collection. And to top it off each tile is printed with UV ink, so you can sit in the dark with nothing but a black light, some atmospheric music and enjoy one of the most atmospheric horror games available.  

Ages 10+

1-6 players

45-90 minutes playing time