I’m not exclusively a board gamer; I enjoy video games as well. One of my favorite series released was the Dead Space series. Short version of the series: an Engineer gets caught up in the middle of a cult that inadvertently(?) worships a plague that creates monstrosities out of dead people, all while in space. If you couldn’t guess, it was a horror/action title with you trying to survive against all odds.

The video game series has long been dead but it seems like a board game is on the way that scratches that itch…

Meet ALONE, by Horrible Games. A Kickstarter, dungeon crawler board game that is currently running at the time of this post. The difference with this game is the one vs many aspect. Furthermore, the one is the hero and the many are the monsters/evil. I am unaware if this has been done before but I am excited about the idea. So why do I think this game is like Dead Space?

The lone hero is actually an engineer like our protagonist, Isaac Clarke. Like an engineer, he can use actions to build/upgrade equipment. If he comes across them, he can repair lights as well weld/unweld doors & arm/disarm traps. And at anytime, a cultist and/or a hybrid creature/monstrosity can jump out and attack our would-be hero. Throw in the dark corridors with an unknown objective location on a dark map (tiles are not persistent) and you have the makings of a great horror experience that is screaming Dead Space to me.

The main creatures are a little different from the necromorphs but I’d say they are close enough. Plus they have other slithering crawlies and cultists to make up the difference. Let’s just call it a different strain from the Markers. Altman be praised.

To make this game stand out a little more, they’ve include an interesting aspect for the evil players: unique decks. Each player picks one deck with its own theme which includes Fury & Fear, more to be announced later. Depending on who is in control, the enemies will control differently as well as different effects on the hero character. Any fans of the series will understand that affecting our hero’s psyche is right up the correct alley!

There is a lot more to this game that I am barely touching on, but Alone seems to be checking off enough check boxes to make consider this a Dead Space board game. Since the video game series is no more (not even hope of a remaster), this is the next best thing. And if I get really ambitious, I could make my own necromorph miniatures and Isaac Clarke mini. That would be Peng!

Alone is accepting pledges on Kickstarter until May 25, 2017 11am ET.