Sucking Vacuum
A Board Game
From: Alien Menace
Reviewed by: Marc Shayed
“6 Astronauts, 1 Escape Pod, 2 Seats…You get the picture.”
Sucking Vacuum is the wonderfully dark and humorous new board game of deep space asphyxiation from Alien Menace. Aboard the space station, the six astronauts are fight to survive as the space station slowly, but most certainly, looses all atmosphere.
For those in the cheap seats… that means certain death to all inside… well almost all.
From the back of the box:
“The six-man international crew has just dimmed the lights, bid each other a multi-lingual good night, and settled back to dream of gravity on board the International Space Station when the unthinkable happens. Siren blare, airlocks slam shut, emergency lights flash and it quickly dawns on the crew (not an IQ under 120 among'em) that something has gone horribly wrong. They quickly realize that the whole station is losing oxygen and that it isn't going to be long before they're all so much unrecoverable salvage.
The space station is a disaster. Equipment is strewn about after years of neglect. Nobody knows what to do. But then it dawns on them (sharp lads they are) - there is only one escape pod and six of them. It doesn't take an astrophysicist with a PhD from M.I.T. to figure out that only two of them are going home, and the rest are going to end up Sucking Vacuum…”
Here we have a great teaser for the game. As you can tell, the game is a race and a fight to see who gets to live.
The board is set up as tiles representing different rooms and hallways on the space station, each sealed with an airlock. Here we have some truly clever artists and designers. On nearly every tile there are some very clever pictures of classic sci-fi images… such as Hans Solo frozen in “Carbonite”, “Robbie the Robot”, Star Trek posters, and numerous robots and vehicles from other space movies. A good deal of fun was during play identifying what was on the tiles..
After the station is built, and the players put their tokens on the board, they then place a few “vacuum” tokens. These are tiles where this no air. Players only have a limited amount of air, but can “re-fuel” their lungs at one of the 9 oxygen tanks spread through out the station. Here is the catch… any area that is exposed to a vacuum, is permanently a vacuum. So a player moving into a room (that isn’t a vacuum) from a hallway that is a vacuum, the room then becomes a vacuum. So… once you are in a vacuum… that’s it, you’ll stay in one.
Ok… that’s the bad news.
The good news is that there is stuff to help you.
Spread through out the station there are weapons to help attack the other players, there are space suits to help you … well LIVE , and there are vehicles to help characters to move around and save oxygen. However, there are 2 discs of data… and one is needed to use the escape pod… so if you don’t have a “Escape Pod Fuel Program” disc… then you better find a person that has one and either have them take a ride with you (since there are 2 seats) or beat it out of them.
From the back of the box:
“…Also included for the very first time, the Alien Incursion Expansion and the Sucking Vacuum Tournament rules.”
For added fun, Alien Menace has included rules for 2 variants of the game… Tournament Rules and “Alien Incursion”. The rules for play in tournaments are fairly basic, however 2 sets of the game and 12 players are needed. The “Alien Incursion” game is neat. Turning the game in from 3-6 players to 2 – 9 players. Instead of a “last man standing game”, now the crew is teaming up against 3 aliens that have boarded the ship and looking to capture the humans. The crew has to work together, the gather the space suits and try to get off the station. The players playing the aliens, just want to capture the humans… and has more than enough power to do it. The rules are heavily un-balanced in the favor of the aliens… so the humans have to be clever, quick and work well together.
So… what does Marc really think?
Simply put Sucking Vacuum is clever, fun, and a good value!
The game encouraged each player to speak with an different accent (since it is the International Space Station). This is the sort of thing I tend not to do… ever. However, I did find myself at 1 game speaking in my worst Russian accent, banging on the table yelling “I will crush you!”, right after the player playing a Scotsman stole the fuel disc from me.
He won… I was left to die on the station.
I had fun, my play testers had fun… I am very happy to give Sucking Vacuum my very highest recommendation!
Above all I suggest you judge for yourselves. Check out Alien Menace and their new board game Sucking Vacuum at their website http://www.alien-menace.com …and of course at all of your local game stores!
Sucking Vacuum
From: Alien Menace
Type of Game: Board Game
Game Components Included: 18 Full Color Map Tiles, 73 Full Color Die Cut Counters, 9 Astronaut Standees, 6 Sets of Lungs, 2 Six-Sided Dice, 6 Oxygen Tracking Markers, rules sheets, and full color box
Retail Price: $ $19.95 (US)
Number of Players: 3-6 , or 2-9
Player Ages: 13+
Play Time: 30-45mins
Item Number: ANM7359
IBSN: 0-9714735-9-5
Email: eevans@alien-menace.com & mdavis@alien-menace.com
Website: www.alien-menace.com
Review Score: 10 out of 10 points (5 stars)
Reviewed by: Marc Shayed
Review Editor
http://www.GamingReport.com
