Designer:  Adam Kwapinski (InBetween, Lords of Hellas, Nemesis)

Artists: Piotr Foksowicz (Nemesis, Neuroshima Hex! 3.0, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon), Ewa Labak (Etherfields, Nemesis, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon), Michał Oracz (Nemesis, Pret-a-Porter, Stronghold, This War of Mine: The Board Game), Patryk Jędraszek (Nemesis), Paweł Samborski (Nemesis), Piotr Gacek (Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, Etherfields, The Edge: Dawnfall, The Great Wall, Lords of Hellas, Nemesis, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, This War of Mine: The Board Game), Andrzej Półtoranos (Nemesis)

Publisher:  Awaken Realms (Nemesis, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, This War of Mine: The Board Game)

Genre/Mechanisms:  adventure, cooperative game, dice rolling, hidden roles, horror, miniatures, modular board, player elimination, semi-cooperative game, traitor game, variable player powers

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Nemesis Lockdown is already fully-funded. In fact, pledges currently total more than 99x the initial funding goal with 6 days left to go on the campaign!

Player Count:  1-5

Solo Mode:  yes

Complexity:  medium-heavy

Risk:  medium-low

What It’s About: “A standalone expansion to Nemesis. It builds on the tense, cinematic experience Nemesis is known for, adding even more opportunities for emergent, dramatic gameplay. Become an unlikely survivor, locked in an underground base with something terrifying.”

How It Works:  Gameplay in Lockdown functions similarly to that of the original Nemesis game, described below.

During the Player Phase, all players Draw 5 Cards and pass the First Player Token clockwise. Then players continue taking turns of 2 Actions each, until all players have run out of actions and/or passed. Actions are generally activated by discarding the required number of cards from the player’s hand, and include things like Movement, Careful Movement, Shooting, Melee Attack, Escaping, Trading, Crafting an Item, and Picking Up a Heavy Object, as well as Actions specific to certain rooms.

These actions may result in the player making “noise” and subsequently rolling dice, attracting various alien types, combat, taking injuries, having to heal or dress wounds, and even dying (one variant of the game allows the first player eliminated to control the Aliens, and take more specific destructive actions towards the remaining crew members).

Then players proceed to the Event Phase, when they move the Time Cycle tracker forward. At a certain point in the game, this will unlock the sleep chambers, where players can go to safely hibernate– if, that is, they’ve managed to properly reroute the direction of the spacecraft. Players wounds may also worsen, and in some cases a player could die if an alien gestates inside of them. More aliens may be drawn into play, and aliens already in play can move, attack, etc. An Event Card is drawn and resolved each Event Phase, fires may spread, and in some cases, enough Fire Damage can take out parts of the ship, or even the ship as a whole if enough of the Engines are damaged. Make no mistake, players are navigating a death trap in space. Player phases and Event Phases alternate, until all players are dead or in hibernation chambers.

It’s possible all crew members have already died from alien attacks at this point. But any crew member who has successfully made it into a hibernation chamber, who has also successfully completed their Objective/Goal, has a chance to “win” the game; and it’s possible for multiple players to share the victory if they’ve also hibernated and completed their Objective/Goal. But there are several ways the game can still be lost: 1) at the end of the game when the Engine cards are revealed, if at least 2 of the 3 Engines are Damaged, the ship explodes, and everyone dies and loses the game; 2) if the ship’s self-destruct is active, then even if it successfully makes it’s space jump to its new coordinates, it explodes and everyone dies and loses the game; 3) if the ship has not had its coordinates reset for Earth (or for some other destination per an Objective card), then all hibernating crew members die and lose the game, because they are never woken from hibernation and effectively die in their hibernation pods; 4) if a player fails a Contamination check in hibernation, they are carrying an alien spore, and they die and lose the game.

Comparisons:  Part of the reason for Nemesis’ success is that there really isn’t another game out there to compare it to. The original Nemesis game portrayed a group of survivors aboard a spaceship fighting off aliens reminiscent of those from the Alien films. Since there were more aliens than one, but less than a horde (and a group of humans fewer than the militarized group from the Aliens sequel), the overall feeling of the game lies somewhere between the experiences of the first two films, Alien and Aliens. Lockdown is now changing the formula up with a new setting and different kinds of aliens, and along the way Awaken Realms has thrown campaign play into the mix.

On the one hand, the Nemesis bears some similarities to dungeon crawlers as well as mission-based games like Star Wars: Imperial Assault. While the mission is generally to survive, players also have a hidden goal, which sometimes can introduce a traitor aspect to the game a la Dead of Winter. On the other hand, there really isn’t much dungeon crawling in the traditional sense, but there are a handful of other mechanics for players to manage, the most important of which is probably the noise levels players create that help trigger alien appearances. You could probably make a bit of a comparison to something like Mansions of Madness, which also features exploration, combat, and miniatures. But the heart of MoM is exploration and solving the scenario’s mysteries and quests, whereas in Nemesis you really are just trying to stay alive while fulfilling your individual player goal.

Perhaps the best comparison may be Deep Madness, a heavily thematic dungeon crawler featuring alien monsters in an underwater setting. But Deep Madness is simply not as well-made of a game, either in its game-play or its writing. And ultimately, while the alien/horror elements are equally present in both games, Deep Madness functions much more like a traditional dungeon crawler with tactical combat choices (or like the aforementioned Star Wars: Imperial Assault), and doesn’t contain the same kind of tension or atmosphere that Nemesis so expertly builds through its game design.

What Should I Pledge?:
$12 Nemesis Distress – PC Game Access: access to the online multiplayer PC game only.
$121 Nemesis: Lockdown: a copy of the standalone expansion Nemesis: Lockdown, including all stretch goals from the campaign.
$134 Nemesis Core Box Bundle: the original Nemesis Core Box, plus the Aftermath and Void Seeders expansions.
$235 Lockdown Gameplay All In: includes everything in the Nemesis: Lockdown pledge level, plus the Aftermath, Void Seeders, and Carnomorphs expansions, as well as the Medic Character Pack.
$311 Nemesis Gameplay All In: includes everything in the Lockdown Gameplay All-In pledge level, plus the Nemesis Core Box and Untold Stories #1 & #2.

Add-Ons:
$45 Carnomorphs Expansion
$10 Medic Character Pack
$28 Aftermath Expansion
$38 Void Seeders Expansion
$8 Untold Stories #1: comic book featuring a branching, multi-mission cooperative campaign.
$8 Untold Stories #2: comic book designed to add a storytelling spin to standard semi-cooperative games of Nemesis.
$25 Nemesis Playmat: two-sided, 840 x 560 mm, stitched corners.
$25 Lockdown Playmat: two-sided, 840 x 560 mm, stitched corners.
$30 Terrain Cosmetic Expansion: includes 5 Dead Bodies, 4 Escape Pods, 12 Doors, and 8 Eggs.
$39 Kings Cosmetic Expansion: includes alternate sculpts to replace the game’s Queens, including the Void Seeker King, Intruder King, and 3 Carnomorph Kings.
$19 Space Cats Cosmetic Expansion: includes Catomorph, Catonaut, Catruder, and Voidcat.
$42 Nemesis Lockdown Pledge Sundrop
$42 Nemesis Core Box Bundle Pledge Sundrop
$79 Lockdown Gameplay All In Pledge Sundrop
$99 Nemesis Gameplay All In Pledge Sundrop
$6.50 Kings Sundrop
$5 Spacecats Sundrop

KS Exclusives
None specified.

All-In Total: Let’s assume you’re not interested in the cosmetic-only expansions like Terrain, Kings, and Space Cats. Then, in the continental U.S., you’re looking at $311 for the Nemesis Gameplay All In, $50 for the two Playmats, $99 for Sundrop, and $29 for One Wave shipping for a total of $489. If you’d instead prefer Two Wave Shipping to get the original Nemesis products early in February 2021, then shipping is $42 and your total is $502. If you want the 3 cosmetic expansions, including Sundrop, then your total will be $602.

Nemesis Lockdown completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, June 18th and tentatively ships in September 2021.