The Bug Hunt is on
Aliens: Bug Hunt is a 1-4 player cooperative dice rolling game based on the popular Aliens IP. It has recently become available through retail in the US and is expected to hit the shops in the rest of the world soon.
The game comes with 4 different rulebooks, one for each of the player roles. This production decision was made so that the rules overload doesn't burden only one person, but it may be cumbersome for a solo player to handle. Thankfully, there is a rules compilation in the files section on BGG. It is advised by the creators that you play double-handed instead of pure solo, to have a better chance at winning.
At the start of the game, each player takes 2 grunts and one named character (e.g. Hudson) and places them on their player board. You will draw 3 Mission cards that grant bonuses when activated, and also compile the Phase deck that dictates the player sequence. The squads enter the main board through Sector 3, and on each turn perform Movement and Action. You may spend up to 3 Movement points to move your squad inside the locations, and then either Shoot, Capture an Objective, Breach a Barrier or Reload.
To Shoot the Xenomorphs in a room, you may deplete any of your squad members to use their total firepower and target that many aliens. Xenomorphs are represented by dice which you roll to see if they are killed. If you roll blank, they die. If you roll a white symbol, they survive. If you roll a red symbol, they survive and you take a wound. When the turn is over, you flip a new Phase card to see if it is the Xenomorphs' turn or yours again. On their turn, Xenomorphs will damage any squad that is in the same room as them and if they are not in the same room, they will move towards a squad. You then proceed to spawning more aliens into the sector.
If you can't spawn any more Xenomorphs, or all members of a squad are killed, or the Phase deck or Tracking deck run out of cards, you lose the game. You win if all 3 Mission cards have tokens on them and your squads manage to exit the sector.
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