At Gen Con this year, I had a chance to play the new version of Not Alone—actually titled Not Alone: Remastered Edition—at the Luma Games booth. Apparently, the original version came out in 2016, but this one had evaded my radar.
Not Alone is a One vs Many game of cat and mouse set in the far future. You are shipwrecked on a mysterious planet called Artemia, but you and your fellow survivors are… wait for it… not alone! There is a creature hunting you who wants to assimilate you into the planet’s ecosystem.
Gameplay Overview:
In Not Alone, one player takes on the role of the Creature, while the rest of the players are The Hunted. The goal for each team is to be the first to get your marker to the victory space.
Each round takes place over four phases:
1. Exploration Phase: Each of the Hunted secretly selects a card from their hand, which corresponds to one of the locations on the board. Initially, they have access to the first five locations, but eventually can branch out into 6-10.
2. Hunt Phase: The creature player places their token on one of the locations, trying to catch the other players.
3. Resolution Phase: The Hunted reveal where they are. If the creature has picked their location, they lose a will, and the creature moves one space closer to the victory space. If they are safe, they can use the location’s action. These range from collecting their cards back, to gaining access to new locations, to moving their rescue counter forward extra steps.
4: Maintenance Phase: A cleanup phase where players retrieve their markers and the rescue counter automatically moves forward as pace.
During the round, the Creature may play a hunt card, which will give them an advantage in different ways. It may give them extra markers to place, force the hunted to lose extra will, or possibly gain hidden information from the Hunted.
Rounds go by in this manner until one team has reached the victory space.
Game Experience:
Not Alone is an interesting game of cat and mouse. If you like hidden movement type deduction games, this is a good option for players seeking a quicker experience. Most of our games took about 30 minutes, which felt about right for the gameplay here.
I’ve played both roles a few times, and I’m not quite sure which one I like better. The Creature is harder to play because it’s you vs everyone else, but the Hunted get to work together, and I really love the group against the powerful creature trope. I will say that even though the Hunted are on a team, I never experienced a ton of collaboration.
This is because any communication must be done out in the open. So if you want to suggest someone go to card 5 (the Rover), you need to say it in plain view of the Creature player. This caused too much paranoia for our groups and, for the most part, people kept quiet. I think if groups played enough, they could develop their own shorthand, but in our experience, it was mostly every Hunted for themselves, trying to move the rescue counter as quickly as possible.
Early on during the game, I think the creature has a bit of an advantage. The players only have 5 locations to visit, and once they do, their card is discarded into a face-up discard pile. This means the creature only needs to glance over to know where they’ve been (and thus where they can’t be this round). Where things get tricky is after a player has visited the Rover. This lets them draft a new card for their hand (for locations 6-10). As the game progresses, the Creature will need to try and keep track not only of who has played which card, but who has access to extra locations.
I feel like the late game switches from cat and mouse to more of a whack-a-mole experience. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. It’s still plenty interesting, and the creature has access to cards they can play each round to make their job easier. In fact, once the rescue marker enters the planet’s orbit, the creature gets a second marker to play each turn, doubling their chance of catching someone. The Creature also has a shorter track to go, evening things out.
Finally, this new Remastered edition comes with an expansion to help the replay value of the game. Called Frozen Lands, this provides a new set of locations to use, and some new cards for the creature deck. The main thing to know about this one is that it’s much more collaborative than the core game. It requires at least four players because many of the locations will require the Hunted to interact with other Hunted in some way. For those who want more direct interaction with other players, this is here for that.
Final Thoughts:
Not Alone: Remastered Edition is a nice twist on the 1 vs Many genre. I feel like many games have multiple players hunting one player (such as Mind MGMT), but this flips it around and makes one powerful creature hunt the rest of the players. I think this one makes a great addition to anyone who likes the 1 vs many deduction genre. The rules are really easy to learn, and the game plays pretty quickly. And the sci-fi theme slides in really nicely with the mechanics on the cards. All around, this is a great new edition of Not Alone.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – A great twist on the 1 vs. many genre.
Hits:
• Easy to learn
• Fun theme
• Gameplay evolves over the course of the game
Miseses:
• Player collaboration is limited
