The Menace Among Us

About this board game

The Menace Among Us is a 40–60-minute semi-cooperative card game for 4–8 players, set aboard a crippled spaceship that is losing oxygen and power. Everyone must help restore the vessel, but hidden Menace players are working to sabotage the ship and eliminate the crew.

Each player receives a secret Agenda: loyal Crew, deadly Menace, or the Coward, who will support any side to survive. Your Agenda provides a team goal, an individual goal, special abilities, and the card composition of your personal 13-card deck. You then choose a Character, adding seven cards and two specialized Above Deck Actions to create a unique deck.

Much of the game’s tension comes from Below Deck Actions. Players contribute cards face down, where they are shuffled together before resolving. Crew members try to repair systems and raise Energy, while Menace players secretly introduce sabotage and attacks. If too few players go below deck, the ship’s Emergency Maintenance Assistant adds cards—but its compromised system may also add damaging effects, giving traitors plausible deniability.

Above Deck Actions happen openly and often require Energy or Oxygen. These costs create difficult choices: a helpful ability, such as the Doctor’s healing action, may also consume the air the crew desperately needs. Players must judge actions, motives, and unusual behavior without knowing who can be trusted.

• Secret agendas and individual goals
• Asymmetrical, shuffle-built card decks
• Face-down sabotage and open character abilities
• Votes that can expose a suspected player—or waste precious Oxygen

In The Menace Among Us, the Crew wins by finding the Menace and reaching a safe Energy threshold before the air runs out. The Menace succeeds by preventing that recovery or killing the crew, while special commendations reward survival and completed individual goals.