The Thing™ Infection at Outpost 31

Product: The Thing™ Infection at Outpost 31 | product page |,
Publisher: The Op Games (Project Raygun), In Conjunction With: MONDO, Universal,
Release Date: 2017, Genre: Licensed Products, Film Tie-Ins, Social Deduction Games

The first real foray The Op Games made into what are now their Signature Games, The Thing™ Infection at Outpost 31 was a collaboration between MONDO (for art and graphic design) and USAopoly’s internal “Project Raygun” team (for game design and production). The choice of adapting Universal’s The Thing film was exciting, in part for it’s unabashedly mature subject matter.

The Thing™ Infection at Outpost 31

As writer, my job was to get the rules, cards, and other copy in good order. I needed to evoke the atmosphere of terror in the Antarctic night while ensuring that the game made sense.

Game designer Joe Van Wetering and I shaped the rulebook into what was part “orientation manual” for the station, part rulebook. The image below shows the cover, designed to look completely innocuous…as if it was just an official part of Outpost 31’s orientation materials.

Rulebook Cover

This composite image shows the first four interior pages of the rulebook—you can see the merging of the concept of “in-universe” manual with a fully-functional rulebook for the game. (The full rulebook is available for download on the product page at The Op Games.)

Composite of Rulebook Pages 2-5

The Thing™ Infection at Outpost 31 was well-received upon it’s 2017 release. Its success led to The Op Games producing more Signature Games—including Quests of Yore: Barley’s Edition, which I designed. It was updated, with a few minor changes for clarity, to a second edition in late 2021.

If you’re interested in one final piece of brilliant madness you should watch the following video. It features Elijah Wood explaining the game: