Space Monster

"There’s something alien in Deep Space Outpost 233-B, and it’s hungry. Will you figure out how to neutralize it before it eats you?"

Space Monster is a cooperative exploration / suspense / combat game for one to five players. Your goal is to figure out the space monster’s weaknesses and stop it before it eats everyone on the space station – including you! This brings up an important point: The game is actually only mostly cooperative. if things get really dire, you can make a run for the sole one-person escape pod. If you escape and the monster eats everyone else, you win!

During play, you search the outpost for weapons and items to help you neutralize the monster. You may also have to go to specific rooms to perform tasks, like restarting the failing generator, pumping up the life support system, or overriding the safety systems on the airlock. Each player gets one action per turn and an allotment of movement points. The monster also gets at least one action and move every turn.

Space Monster uses a modular, card-based board, special powers for each player, a deck of special powers for the monster, and an unusual deck-based hit point system for the monster. When the monster takes damage, it loses cards from its health deck. When all damage is dealt, the instructions on the card on top the the discarded health cards tells you how the monster reacts. If you draw the special Dying Gasp card, you know the monster is almost dead.

Space Monster is a fairly complex game. As such, it is appropriate for ages 14 and up. A 4-player game takes about 60+ minutes to play, although your first game may take significantly longer.

The rules, cards, and tokens you need to play are all available as a 240 KB PDF at http://www.invisible-city.com/file_download/139/