Great
Fantastic. Just wish you could get better weapons for the pistol wielding Marines in the Operations scenario.
Reviews for "ALIENS the Board Game"
Awesome work
I had this board game as a youth and it was awesome, played it all the time. You did a great job replicating it. Here are my only suggestions/wishlists:
1. "A marine has a 00 chance of hitting a target." That was on a 10-sided die in the board game, so you actually had a 1 in 10 chance of hitting with 00 (on a 10-sided die 10 is indicated by 0). As far as I can tell, a marine in your version cannot hit a target when 00 is indicated. So I think your aiming system is off by one unit. For example, in the board game, Hicks needed a 7 or lower to hit an alien with his shotgun at one space, but "10" equaled zero, so he'll hit that alien 8 out of 10 times. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I think I may be correct.
2. In the board game, there were optional rules that you should definitely integrate: The Apone rule, Frost rule, and Dietrich rule. There was also a stairway rule. As I recall, the board game starts out with the requirement that the team cannot move past the right edge of the center stairwell for 5 rounds. Additionally, at any time a marine in a square adjacent to the stairway is grabbed, then freed by his comrades, there was a chance he might stumble and fall over the railing and plummet to his doom. Aliens that were melee'd off the stairwell were also considered killed (though I always thought they'd probably survive the fall)
Apone rule: If Apone is captured, no one can move for 3-4 turns (not sure if I remember that right).
Dietrich rule: If a marine with a flame unit is grabbed by an alien, there is a chance they will accidently trigger their flame unit. If the flame unit was accidently triggered, one square surrounding the grabbed marine was be flamed. Aliens or marines in adjacent squares could be hit and would be killed accidently.
Frost Rule: Obviously, if Frost is accidently (or purposely) flamed, an explosion equal to a grenade detonates from his space in 2-3 turns.
3. It would be cool if you gave the option to not surrender the ammo in the reactor (just for fun, the game would not continue on if that option is chosen).
4. Put Ferro and Spunkmeyer in there as options, why not? I know you said in a previous post that you didn't want to mess with the integrity of the original game, but I must mention that the board game didn't have an ammo counter. If you want to take it a bit further, I always though Hudson should have been a 3-action character or at least have Vasquez's accuracy with the pulse rifle.
5. Picking up weapons. One of the coolest parts of your game is that you see the captured marines rifle/flame unit on the ground after they're carried off. Why not give a marine walking through that square the option to pick up the weapon (except the smart guns). Drake actually does this in the reactor in the movie (I believe he picks up Apone's flame unit, and uses it at the end of the retreat).
That's all I've got. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these. Again awesome job!
homedrone responds:
Your enthusiasm for the game, like many who have posted here, is really great to me. Thanks for posting.
1. You were thinking well, But alas, I have the odds correct. You did make me double check my math though ;) In my game, a 00% chance is the equivalent of a blank space on the range card. A 10% chance in my game is the same as a 0 on the range card.
2. I put in a variation of the Apone rule. Instead of everyone not moving if he is killed, I made it, he can't move for the first 3 turns. ( you can optionally choose to go that path by using the helmet icon during Apone's turn. It gives you more points if you do so). I liked the idea of making this rule a choice by the player instead or random bad luck.
The other rules are cool, but they just make it harder. And since it's already pretty hard, I haven't had the drive to put them in. They might make it in some version.
3. Actually, there's no reason the game would have to end. The heat exchanger was ruptured by Vasquez and Drakes machine gun fire in the end anyway. So, you get the same result. I could put that option in with a big hit to your points. Again, maybe some version.
4. The ammo is a rule in the expansion set. So it's cannon to the board game. Putting Ferro and Spunkmeyer in wouldn't be messing with the game, it would be messing with the movie plot! ;)
5. I dropped the ball on that one. I just didn't design the game well. To put in the feature to pick up weapons would be a huge job. It would be better to just remake the whole thing with hindsight and fix all my previous mistakes. Which I might do one day.
Excellent again
Sorry made an error with the link I wrote before..
http://img413.imageshack.us/my.php?im age=aliensboardgameend2jc3.png
This is the image you should check out..
hammerogod some pointers on finding newt on level 3...
-As soon as you start in the elevator launch a grenade deep into the hive downwards direction (southwards), this will irritate the Queen and she will come running after you, if you have played from Level 1 and have more of a team you can then fire many shots at her and it is easier to kill her. If you are on your own with just ripley, you need to fire many grenades at a distance right at her (you need a direct hit to wound her), then run like hell shooting and running, you can use walls to hide behind and confuse her also, it is difficult.
-Use ripleys scanner to detect Newt..
-If you have more of a team on level 3 split the group up, I use a healthy rescue team of my best units (Usually Ripley, Apone, Hicks) and then have a backup reserve team holding the elevator area (usually the rest of the marines and any injured units). You can use the reserve team as a distraction to the aliens, while the rescue team extracts Newt. Also the reserve team can be used to fire deep grenades into the hive and you can even move them up to the corridor for additional support. Also when you have rescued newt and need to get out things can always go wrong, this is when I throw the reserves in as backup.
-Remember when you find Newt the top corridor explodes, you are going to have to go through the hive to get out.
Check out the link, it proves the game is not impossible, I only lost vasquez in the whole game (and burke who I left on purpose), the rest of the team though battered survived.
An Evil But Addictive Game
Heh...........
You can't win, but the game just keeps you comming back for more Butt-Whippings.
Love the game!
Super Addictive and Fun.
Well Done!
(now tell me the secret of how to actually rescue Newt)
(and add a Cheat mode or something for us wimps)
(Oh!..I almost forgot...Make The Queen A Little More User-Friendly)
Excellent
I couldn't disagree with markcysts more. I quite enjoy the anticipation of an alien dropping on one of your marines heads, also when it does happen its a real situation getting it off, attempt to dislodge the alien by hand with lower chances or risk shooting at the marine and killing him and the alien (I use both methods). A cool thing I noticed is that when many marines are trying to dislodge an alien it will be unable to snatch the grabbed marine up (it takes another roll so might wound or incapacitate him or rarely kill him but does not snatch him), this gives you another go to try and sort the alien out.
This game is truly exceptional, I have played many of the latest video games you buy in shops but none as addictive as this, I keep coming back to it and playing it again, the great thing is there are so many possible outcomes, and I find while I am playing truly film like sequences are played out. For example on level 3 I had a situation where Apone was stuck in a room with 4 aliens within his reach (3 in the same room 1 in the adjacent) amazingly he manages to flame all three in his sight, the go ends but there is one alien left, damn he's a gonner and he is unsupported, the alien runs up and jumps on him, another 2 aliens drop in the room on the alien turn, it's over. But miraculously he manages to throw the alien off and amazingly uses his last 2 goes to flame the other 2 standing aliens, I heard myself say "outstanding, truly outstanding soldier" (he finishes the thrown off alien the next go). Miraculous and heroic action like this is not uncommon in the game, and has you gripping your seat in anticipation.
You can complete operations with the whole film cast intact I remember doing it, it relies a lot on you grenades, granted it is very difficult.
What I would love to see is some seperate missions or more maps not connected to the storyline they do not have to be related to the films but can come from the Aliens franchise, the comics have plenty of cool missions and even the AvP video games have some great material. For example a similar mission to mission 1 would be marines escaping a large complocated infested hulk (I played this often online on AvP2).
Perhaps a map editor, I would love to be able to create missions on this. A multiplayer option would be great also, I would love to be able to play a friend and play as the aliens.
Anyways great work this is an excellent game, it is simply structured but at the same time the gameplay produces and enables a lot of intricacy, so that it has lasting appeal.
I like to play the game grouping my men into 2 fire teams and have a "no one is left to the enemy" policy this means even flaming a grabbed marine rather than have him snatched (only if there is no other option).
The link below is an image of all 3 missions completed in a row, the only fatality I had was Vasquez who died in the tunnels of mission 2 shooting off an alien from a grabbed colleague (who survived the engagement was incapacitated and carried out). If you look on the right of the screen notice that I left Burke, I contemplated taking him back but decided he deserved to die owing to his cowardice and treachery.
http://img413.imageshack.us/my.php?im age=aliensboardgameend2jc3.png
Thanks again great game let me know what you think of the review..
homedrone responds:
I like that you CHOSE not to rescue Burke. Even though you clearly had the option to. Nice :)
A mission editor would be too complicated for me to make since my maps are not constructed by tiles. They are each one big bitmap. If I ever do a remake, I would make the graphics out of individual tiles. Then a mission editor might be a possibility.