Unwelcome Dental Advice

A few weeks ago, I wrote my own review for the Lord of the Rings Adventure Book boardgame. I found the idea fun and wanted to continue doing reviews as an interim type of post on my site when either making a satirical news article would be a little too on-the-nose, or when I just don’t have any other ideas to post.

This week, I’m looking at my favorite boardgame, Alien: Fate of the Nostromo, a cooperative boardgame by Ravensburger (same company that made the last game I reviewed). It’s a remarkably simple game to learn, but can be difficult to master, especially when you bring more than two people to play it. Here’s the premise: You and your doomed crew of five (Ripley, Dallas, Lambert, Parker, and Brett) must complete small objectives around The Nostromo while avoiding encounters with the Alien/Xenomorph threat. When you’ve completed your minor tasks, you must complete a final mission to win the game.

Sound simple enough? Let’s go over setup and gameplay.

Setup: The rules are very clearly written on the setup in the first pages of the rulebook. To simplify, though, I’ll tell you what you need to know. You have five characters to choose from, and each one has a specific number of Action Points and a Special Action. Action Points dictate the number of things you can do any given turn. These things can range from simply moving from one space to the next (costing 1 AP), picking up/using items, building items, or utilizing your Special Actions. Note, some Special Actions clearly state that they can only be used once per turn while others do not. Keep that in mind.

Choose your characters either randomly or pick your favorite. I will say this: Brett is a great character, but his Action Point count sucks. Choose Brett either if you want a challenge, or you’re playing strategically with a larger group. In a two-player game, you’ll find yourself getting caught by the Alien or Ash (more on him later) very often. Once you’ve chosen your characters, set them on the board in the Galley, shuffle the Encounters deck and set it aside, set out all the scrap, items, and Conceal Tokens that the book tells you to do, and shuffle up the Objective and Final Mission decks. When choosing your Objectives, you’ll do so based on the number of players. Because my wife and I are good at this game, we choose more Objectives than required, for a little extra challenge. As for the Final Missions, you’ll choose one at random and not reveal it until the Objectives are complete.

Now you’re ready to play. Play is simple. Tracking the number of Action Points you have, you can move your character a number of spaces and pick up items or build items as long as you still have points. Moving a single space (from room to room) is considered using 1 AP. Picking up Scrap is 1 AP. Building a Flashlight is 1 AP. And so on. As mentioned before, some characters will have Special Actions, Parker is a good choice because he can manifest Scrap (your resource for making items) once per turn. Lambert is one of the more powerful crewmates, as she can spend an Action Point to look at the top of the Encounter Deck and discard the card that would be drawn if it’s too difficult to deal with.

During your turn, spend your Actions and traverse the ship, pick up Scrap or other items, and complete Objectives. The Objectives, for the most part, aren’t terribly difficult. Most of them require you to build specific items and take them to specific locations on the ship. The harder ones require all players to meet in places with at least a single piece of Scrap in each of their possessions. While that doesn’t necessarily sound difficult, there are at least 6 cards in the Encounter Deck that force one or more players to discard Scrap.

Be aware, when moving through the ship, of Conceal Tokens. These are face-down tokens that have one of three results. When you go into a room with a Conceal Token, flip it over. It can be nothing, it can be Jonesy (that’s the cat, for those who don’t remember), or it can be the Alien. In either case of Jones or the Alien, the Crew Member becomes scared and loses Crew Morale. Crew Morale is lost each time you encounter the Alien. Depending on the number in the Conceal Token or the Encounter Card you draw where the Alien “catches” you, you can lose anywhere between 1 and 4 Morale. Lose all your Morale and the game is over. If you flip a Conceal Token on the Alien, the Alien moves to that spot and the Crew Member is forced to flee 3 spaces away.

When you’ve completed your turn, the Alien gets a chance to make its move. Draw an Encounter Card from the Encounter Deck and immediately resolve it. Usually, these cards are pretty tame. The Alien may move one space, and you have to put anywhere between 1 and 3 Scrap tokens on the table in a specified location. There are, however, other difficult to deal with cards where the Alien moves up  to 3 or 4 spaces or Ash moves (if he’s in the game) and can cause the same effect (Morale loss) as the Alien.

Once the Alien has gone, the next player goes, and so on.  Easy, right?

I like this game because it properly portrays the horror of the movie, whether through the artwork on the cards and the board, or through the immersive, slower-paced gameplay. It feels as though the Alien can pop up anywhere if you’re not prepared for it. Sometimes finding – and keeping! – Scrap can be difficult, because the Alien will bar your path or Ash snatches it away from you with his Executive Order cards, but when you work as a team, instead of trying to do all the things yourself, the game plays much smoother.

The Special Actions are fun, but only a few of them really shine at all times. In particular, Lambert’s ability to view Encounter Cards is powerful no matter how many players there are. Conversely, Ripley’s ability to move another player is good when someone is trying to flee from the Alien or get to a place to complete an Objective Card, but is extremely potent the more players you have. Brett is really the only odd-one out. His ability to make items for less Scrap is good but doesn’t really off set the fact that he only has 3 Action Points.

If you want additional challenge, you can opt to add in Ash as a secondary villain. Ash will only move during the Executive Order Encounter Cards, which makes him a negligible threat in a game with one or two players. Avoiding him when there’s a full board of players is much more difficult.

Oh, and here’s a Pro Tip: If you’re finding Conceal Tokens are pesky, build a Motion Tracker (it only costs 2 Scrap and has unlimited uses). With it, you can spend an Action Point to flip a Conceal Token up to 2 spaces away. That way, if it reveals and Alien, not only do you not lose Morale, but you can also distance yourself from it.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Alien: Fate of the Nostromo a 4.9.

Gameplay: Easy to learn, somewhat difficult to master, this game leaves no stone unturned for “uncertainty” like other games I’ve played. You almost never encounter “what happens if” moments where you need to reference the book, save for the first few times you play.

Story: It’s based off the masterpiece Alien. The only difference here is that you can call it an “alternate universe” because sometimes more than just Ripley can survive. I like to think of it as the Alien version of Marvel’s “What if” series.

Artwork: Ravensburger never fails to bring the games they’ve made to life with stunning artwork. The player cards and Encounter cards are all amazing, and the game comes with plastic minis of the Alien and each Crew Member. All of which are well detailed.

Replayability: It’s high. With about 20 different Objective Cards and 5 Final Missions, you can have a completely different game almost every time you play. Certain cards do make it difficult, and that’s where I ding this game a 10^th of a point. Specifically, the Final Mission card “Cut Off Every Bulkhead and Every Vent.” This card is way too difficult to complete with two players, bordering impossible. But you can simply remove it from play and choose another one if you’re only playing with two people. That, however, leaves you with only four Main Missions.

Fun Factor: Again, it’s high. You feel the tense atmosphere of being alone in a corridor with the Alien bearing down on you or understand the frustration of a plan not working how you wanted it to after you’ve tried and tried. But you also know that there are more than one or two ways to accomplish what you’ve set out to do. And that’s what makes the game fun. You can take different approaches. Personally, while I love this game with just my wife and me, it’s a lot more fun when you have to work around other players. I played with my wife and her parents, one time, and we were down to our last Morale point when we won the game. It was exciting.