Some people play tabletop games to win, while others play in order to cooperate with their friends and have a good time. But what happens when you want to team up with buddies against one of your worst friends? You play The X-Files: Board Game, that’s what you do.
X-Files: A Remake of the Final Season of GoT? And Rocky is Back! Asummers July 25th Share. HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 10: Actor Peter Dinklage attends the premiere of HBO's 'Game Of Thrones' Season 6 at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 10, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty. 'The X-Files' succeeded because it put character over mythology and never. The first time ever that Fox would “win” the week in the weekly ratings game. Remake of The Fugitive (starring Tim Daly and Mykelti Williamson).
The X-Files Board Game is from IDW Games and was designed by the legendary Kevin Wilson of Descent and Arkham Horror fame. It’s a two to five player game where one person plays the shadowy government group The Syndicate and the remaining players control FBI Agents. The Agents have to solve as many X-Files as they can while the Syndicate player tries to hide the truth, using their vast resources to keep the Agents in the dark until it’s too late for them to ever find it.
That means that there’s two kinds of fun to be had - the fun of being a team and working together to achieve a goal, and the fun of being a complete and utter asshole and ruining your (former) friends’ collective day. It all depends on just what kind of person you are, but rest assured that no matter what there’s a role here for you.
A look at the components and the board makes it look like it’s going to be a nightmare of a game to figure out, but it’s actually pretty simple. As an agent your turn costs of three quick steps - you move one space, you play a card, you draw a card. That’s basically it, although you can choose to trade cards between players instead of move, and gain influence tokens instead of playing a card. The Syndicate Player has an equally short list of actions to perform, as they place X-Files around the board based on the first three seasons of the TV show (you know, the good ones) as well as facedown cards that attach to each of the Files, and feature various nasty cards that will foil the Agents’ plans.
FBI players can choose from Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and Alex Krycheck, each of which comes with their own unique abilities. Each agent has certain skills and weaknesses. Throughout the game they’ll need to play Investigation cards to solve the various X-Files placed around the map, and generally will want to play cards in areas in which their character is strong. For instance, Mulder is strong in Paranormal cards and weak in Science, while Skinner is strong in Political Cards and weak in Paranormal. If you’re strong in a skill you can play a card that uses that skill for free, but if you’re weak in it you’ll have to pay influence. So generally, you won’t want Mulder doing any science. Leave that to the scientists and let Mulder investigate in the only way he knows. Krycheck is a turncoat bastard who can choose to wound a fellow player in order to gain influence.
Investigation cards add a certain number of investigation tokens to the X-File at hand. Once you’ve added as many as are required to close a case, you solve it. Then you’ll be able to reach into an Evidence bag and collect a number of circular tokens for having solved the X-File.
Getting a lot of evidence is key, because this is how you win the game. You need to collect evidence in order to buy pieces of a puzzle that forms the famous I WANT TO BELIEVE poster and beat the Syndicate.
That’s your goal as an agent: close the cases, get the evidence, make the puzzle. The fun comes when the Syndicate gets involved. See, this evil organization doesn’t want you to know what’s up, and will keep you on your toes during investigations. The Syndicate player can put its own tokens (cigarette tokens, of course) in the Evidence bag and make it so that the Agents, while looking for evidence, actually end up finding nothing. Such is the way of the Syndicate.
The Syndicate player also has those cards that attach to each of the X-Files. When the Agents go to investigate a card the Syndicate player can choose to reveal any of those cards - provided they have the influence to buy them - and just generally mess the investigation up.
They can play cards that leaves an Agent wounded, delays them or just cancels the investigation completely. As the Syndicate your job is basically to be the biggest prick you can possibly be, constantly leaving the agents confused and concerned about what tricks you have up your sleeve next. You’ll soon find that you cannot be lenient with them because you are at a distinct disadvantage - the ratio of Syndicate to Agent wins is woefully low in the dozen or so games we’ve played. The key is to keep stringing them along, leading them on wild goose chases and making sure that they never come close to what’s really going on.
It’s remarkably easy to explain the game to people and get them playing but there is a ton of strategy involved, especially for the Syndicate player. They need to learn to play mind games with the Agents, constantly keeping them on their toes and fearful that their next investigation will be for naught.
It’s a bit of a strange game in that it works better once you’ve got a few games in - once Agents begin to understand the Syndicate's power and how they can completely cancel an investigation depending on what card they play, it becomes much more of a mind game. It helps that the Syndicate has a DM screen that they hide behind, leaving you constantly wondering what they’re up to.
The art itself, little that there is, is great. IDW was a comic book company before they started crafting games for all manner of properties - from Chew to The Godfather - so it’s no surprise to see them using the artist from their X-Files comic book series, Menton 3, for art design and the cover art.
The problem is that the layout of the board is a bit confusing. It looks like a wall in some chainsmoking detective’s office, with cases pinned on a map hung against the wall, yet there’s a coffee mug and Fox Mulder’s sunflower seeds placed on it as if it’s a table. Which is it?
It’s perfectly functional, though. You will find X-Files in four locations around the United States - the West, the South, the Midwest and the Northeast. Each are subtly different - the South is a bit of a supernatural mess so two X-files can open on there at any time, while the rest can only hold one at a time.
It’s not the most thematic game around but longtime fans of the series will find familiar episodes represented in the X-Files laid out around the board, everything from Tooms and Soft Light to Fire. There are even Ally cards that can help either sides out, like the Lone Gunman, Deep Throat and X.
But perhaps it’s for the best that it’s not overly wrapped up in the show. This is the kind of game whose mechanics are so sound that anyone can get wrapped up in it, but it features enough references to leave a smile on fan’s faces. The other big benefit is that it plays really quickly. Even with the max amount of players playing (five), a full game will only take you around an hour. Two or three players will take about a half hour. It’s so short that it encourages multiple plays, which is beneficial since you’ll only start to really understand the game with a few under your belt.
It doesn’t matter if you want to either willfully participate in a campaign of misinformation or find sane answers to an insane world, you’ll find your fix here. A tie-in game done right.