How to Play

Outlive

2-4 players 40-110 min 7.3 Board Game Geek Rating

In this post-apocalyptic survival game, players control four heroes of varying strength who venture out daily to gather resources while avoiding rival clans. Each of six rounds alternates between day phases for resource collection and night phases for shelter management, feeding survivors, and recruitment. Victory goes to the clan that best adapts to survive.

Published 2017

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Select board size

Use small main board for regular game

Choose meeple type

Use wooden meeples as they're far more functional than deluxe plastic meeples

Set radioactivity tracker

Place cube at 0 on radioactivity gauge on player board

Place airlock tile

Put airlock tile at top left of player board

Set starting rooms

Place starting 3 rooms (yellow room tiles) unbuilt (gear side up) on left side of player board

Draft room tiles

Randomly take 6 room tiles, choose 4 to place in shelter unbuilt

Select leader

Randomly take 2 leader cards, choose 1, take printed resources, place heroes on their sides at printed locations in any order

Determine first player

Player with oldest leader is 1st player

Prepare equipment tiles

Shuffle equipment tiles, create facedown stack, place 3 faceup next to each City location

Seed location resources

Stock locations with resources based on player count:

Prepare city search tiles

Shuffle city search tiles and place stack facedown at respective city

Prepare prey tiles

Shuffle prey tiles and form 3 equal stacks at designated locations on main board

Place seaweed token

Place seaweed token faceup at Military Base location

Prepare event cards

Shuffle event cards, place 6 facedown on round track board, return remaining to box

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Restock resources

Replenish main board with resources based on player count table, shuffling city search tiles

Reset heroes

Lay all heroes down on their sides (inactive)

Reveal event card

Flip that round's event card and apply effects of all faceup event cards

Move heroes

Starting with first player, players move heroes one at a time

Apply pressure

When arriving at location, apply pressure to other active heroes there

Spend action points

Take actions based on hero's strength value

Solve events

Starting with first player, pay printed cost to claim any faceup event card for victory points; may solve only 1 at a time but can solve additional when turn comes back

Feed airlock survivors

Pay 1 water for each row with at least 1 survivor

Feed room survivors

Pay printed commodity cost per occupied room (any combination); lose 1 survivor per unpaid commodity

Adjust radioactivity

Increase radioactivity based on round's level; prevent 1 boost per survivor in airlock; lose 1 survivor per point beyond -11

Recruit survivors

Discard commodities 1-for-1 to recruit new survivors to airlock (if space available)

Build rooms

Spend any combination of 3 materials to flip room tiles to built side

Activate rooms

Use room abilities only if built and fully stocked with survivors (once per round)