Obcy

About this board game

Obcy is a 1988 science-fiction board game for 2–7 players, with games lasting about 60 minutes. Based on the film Aliens, it takes place inside the Weyland-Yutani atmospheric processor, where a human team must complete its mission and escape.

One player controls the Alien Queen, while the other players take the roles of colonial marines Vasquez, Hicks, Gorman, and Hudson, civilian Ripley, and the android Bishop. The human players collect data discs and deliver them to computers to discover their mission objectives. Once a predetermined number of objectives has been completed, the Queen is defeated and the team must flee the base.

Each turn, the Alien player spawns a die-roll’s worth of aliens and attempts to stop the humans from succeeding. The human team can fight back with equipment including rifles, flame throwers, grenades, explosions, and more. If they can fuel it, they can also use the APC, adding another option for dealing with the dangerous environment.

With an easy rules system described in a four-page manual, Obcy offers a focused struggle between a coordinated human team and an ever-growing alien threat. Its scenario-driven objectives and combat give it some resemblance to Space Hulk.

• Gameboard, character cards, paper figures, dice, and a fight result table
• 72 alien counters and 74 equipment counters
• 20 task cards plus black and blue counters
• Fan-made Predator expansion featuring a third side of the conflict

The fan-made Predator expansion allows one player to control a Predator that attacks both aliens and humans, with the goal of killing an efficient number of them. Whether playing the core game or adding this third faction, Obcy brings a compact, cinematic battle for survival to the tabletop.