‘Stranger Things: Upside Down’ Board Game Review
CMON have a funny habit of releasing games we weren’t expecting with little or no warning – often at inexplicable moments in time. Designed by the master of remasters and campaign games himself (Rob Daviau), Stranger Things: Upside Down breaks the mould slightly by being neither a remake nor a campaign game – but nonetheless it draws from Daviau’s recent experience because it offers a completely cooperative experience that spans the first two seasons of the massively popular Netflix show.
Given that Stranger Things: Upside Down is aimed at the more casual end of the market, the design is as simple to pick up and play as you might expect, yet thanks to the design expertise on offer, it remains satisfying for players of all levels – including those with considerable board gaming experience. If there’s one thing we all know – and which Rob Daviau takes into account – it’s that a cooperative game with only two chapters needs to be quite difficult in order to make it a satisfying and long-lasting experience.
The player(s) can choose from any of six playable characters, including the four main kids and then both Joyce and Hopper, and the game supports from one to four players with scaling applied for whatever player count you choose. Eleven is featured in the game as a miniature and through the players ability to call upon and leverage her powers, but she is not directly playable. Equally, some characters from the later series (like Steve) appear as allies, but are not directly playable.
Seasons One and Two are represented by different sides of the board, each of which have a different overall objective. On the Season One board, for example, the players must rescue will by venturing into The Upside Down and defeating the stacks of tokens on three specific spaces (more on that later) all the while out-maneuvering or fighting off the Demogorgon and two patrols. In Season Two, more enemies appear in the form of Demodogs and the objectives change – with both scenarios feeling relevant to the show itself.
The game is driven by action cards, and each player begins with five of these in hand ranging from power levels one to three. All characters have a special ability, and all but one will just move one space per turn by default. Players can spend action cards to move additional spaces up to the value played. Once they arrive at a destination space, they can then take the associated action. Sometimes this is uncontested and sometimes they must undertake a test.
When an action is uncontested, the player can discard cards to take the action at the power level of the spent action cards. This may, for example, allow a player to draw a lot of item cards and then pick one – or to rest, and reduce their fear level (which acts as health) by a significant amount. When an action is contested, the test will be taken against a stack of tokens – most of which will be face down and ranging in value from zero to five.
To make this point, if you want to recruit an ally who has three tokens beside them, you can assume that the maximum token value is five. If the top token is flipped up (which it will be, if the token is in the “real world” and you can see it’s a two, then you know that the maximum value for this test will be two (for the token you can see) plus potentially ten more (five each for the facedown tokens.) If you only have say nine power across your action cards and you choose to play anyway, you are at risk of losing – although based on these numbers you will probably be OK because the chances of two facedown fives is fairly slim.
When a test like this is passed, the whole stack is discarded and the benefit of succeeding is given to the player who passed the test. In this case, the ally would join them and begin to provide whatever benefit is printed on the card. On other occasions, one of the “Free Will” objective stacks might be removed, the Demogorgon might be fought off, or a Patrol might be distracted meaning that you can move it to a new, less relevant location.
When a test is failed however, that player has essentially wasted their turn – although one random token from the stack will be removed, making that same test easier for a later turn and potentially allowing the players to memorise what was there to further increase their chances. Now, if you’re the bright spark here and wondering “why don’t I just use all my cards on every single turn” then let me explain more as to what the game does in response, to help make sure success isn’t that simple.
Basically, about half the action cards have an exclamation symbol on them. Each of these, plus the “Act” you are in (one, two or three) will determine how many scene cards you draw. Scene cards are almost all bad… Or actually, all bad, but with varying degrees of how bad. They spawn and move bad guys, they take away your action cards, they remove eleven’s powers and they mess with the game state in unpredictable but thematic ways. You do NOT want to dump your whole hand and pull three or more of these unless you can guarantee something very beneficial in return, and that gives Stranger Things: Upside Down a fantastic tension.
Essentially, this is a cooperative game that has some randomness – especially in the scene deck – but it’s also a push your luck game. Often, if you draw three scene cards and the third one is the really bad one, then chances are you’ll be kicking yourself for a decision to made earlier that led to an additional danger symbol being thrown into the mix. This can be reconciled around the table when it results in something necessary happening – like defeating the Demogorgon or clearing a “Save Will” pile, but if you happen to just miss… Well that’s the kind of kick in the teeth that gives cooperative games their teeth,
Stranger Things: Upside Down is a bit unusual in pure mechanical terms, and it’s important to read the manual from the beginning in order to understand the key game concepts. To that end, the setup for each season is actually close to the middle of the book because you must not start there. Get your head around the action card and test system first and then have a few practice turns and Stranger Things: Upside Down is a breeze to teach – with a typical two player game taking about 45 minutes to complete from start to finish.
Stranger Things fans will absolutely love Stranger Things: Upside Down because it really does capture a lot of the essence of the show, especially in those first two seasons which in my opinion were by far the best. The design is tight and simple, with a good mix of pure luck and player agency, a tough but beatable difficulty level and the feeling that whether you win or lose, you do so by the finest of margins. The components are decent, with good artwork and the miniatures capture the characters in the show really well to round out a package that is well worth a look.
