Repos | Stranger Things: Attack of the Mind Flayer | Board Game | Ages 10+ | 4-10 Players | 20 Minutes Playing Time

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The Mind Flayer's presence was almost always accompanied by atmospheric disturbances. In the Upside Down, dark storms would rage in the skies above, with startling red lightning shooting across, illuminating the whole dimension in scarlet light. The storm seemed to be linked to Vecna's emotions; the Mind Flayer was seen looming over Hawkins Middle School, seething with Vecna's anger.

Following the machine’s deactivation, and the gate’s closure, the psychic link to the Upside Down was cut off once again, causing the flesh monster to collapse and become inanimate. The creature’s corpse fell into the hands of either the American or Russian government, or alternatively, burned up in the ‘mall-fire’ that apparently broke out following the battle’s conclusion. The US military arrived to assess the aftermath and stormed the Soviet base; Dr. Owens reached the room containing the Key, and surveyed the smoldering remains of the shut gate. The Mind Flayer is very similar to the Elder Gods of H.P. Lovecraft, with his work actually tying into the Stranger Things universe, with Lisa from the novel "Darkness At The Edge Of Town" being a graduate of the infamous Lovecraftian college "Miskatonic University". In 1983, a gate to the Upside Down - a dimension somehow related to Dimension X - was accidentally opened by Eleven at Hawkins Lab. Henry, also known as Vecna, first actively attempted to take over the world in 1984. Acting through the Mind Flayer, he possessed Will Byers and an army of adolescent Demogorgons, or "Demodogs". Eleven interfered by closing the gate at Hawkins Lab, severing the psychic link between the worlds and killing the Demodogs in the process. As Eleven closed the Gate, Will's friends and family worked to force a piece of the Mind Flayer out of his body, which in turn became dormant after the Gate's closure. Lots of things about the Mind Flayer remain a mystery, and that's by design. "There’s an H.P. Lovecraft sort of approach, this inter-dimensional being that is sort of beyond human comprehension," series co-creator Matt Duffer told Entertainment Weekly. "We purposely don’t want to go too much into what it is or what it wants.”Will had another vision later that day. He went to have a bathroom break in the middle of the night and was returning to his bedroom. However, he saw a red light illuminating the walls of his house. The front door swung open, revealing the Upside Down beyond it, where the red storm violently raged once again. Will walked out into the Upside Down and witnessed the obscured but distinctive silhouette of the Mind Flayer, or "shadow monster", amongst the clouds. The isolated piece of the Mind Flayer remained dormant at Brimborn Steel Works until 1985, when a newly opened gate reestablished the psychic link to Vecna. Via this piece, Vecna began kidnapping and possessing multiple humans and rats, feeding them chemicals and melting their bodies into puddles of biomass. This biomass was then combined to create a proxy form, through which Vecna could directly act in the human world; like the Mind Flayer, this proxy form also resembled a spider, and had the same flame-shaped head. However, this proxy form was rendered useless and inert after the new Gate was shut, and the psychic link disabled once again. [4] The Duffer Brothers experienced much difficulty in writing the episode, particularly because it featured the tragic death of their favorite new character Bob Newby ( Sean Astin). They liked his performance and didn't want him gone, but decided eventually that his demise was the right thing to do narratively. [1]

I needed a neutral card. Someone suggested that food could be neutral, and two food could supplant a wound, but I thought it would get too complicated. I am not sure why I ended up going with gold as a neutral card, but I think it was the idea that you can collect gold over several games and thus collect personal "points". Some players like this, but ultimately I think this was a mistake. I now think I should have gone with the food concept, especially since each night could require players to eat dinner (discard a food), which could reveal information. Matt Duffer told Entertainment Weekly that the shadow monster was inspired by horror classics: "There's an H.P. Lovecraft sort of approach, this inter-dimensional being that is sort of beyond human comprehension." [7] That night, Will and his friends went to play at the Palace Arcade. While his friends argued with the arcade's employee, Will became distracted by another vision. He walked out of the Upside Down version of the arcade. To his horror, he witnessed a blood-red storm raging in the sky above, before hearing an unearthly howl. However, Will's friend Mike Wheeler snapped Will out of the vision. In Beyond Stranger Things, the Duffers revealed that Eleven's reunion with Mike at the end of this episode was originally planned to have taken place at the Snow Ball of the season finale. [2]After the fireworks fizzled out, the proxy monster regained its composure; it launched a spiked tendril directly at Eleven, only to be intercepted by Billy. The creature, enraged by Billy’s betrayal, launched a dozen more tendrils at him, fatally wounding him. At the same time, Hopper and Joyce reached the Soviet control room and disabled the Key machine. Hopper was thought to have perished in the process, but had survived by escaping to another platform within the same room. He was soon captured by Soviet forces.

The possessed Billy uses "we" pronouns to refer to itself, suggesting that the Flayed may maintain vestigial traits of individuality even while part of the Mind Flayer's hive mind. While a massively powerful being, the Mind Flayer was not without weakness. Most notably, it had a low tolerance to heat, particularly fire. All hosts within its hive mind shared this weakness, resulting in the creature feeling pain whenever a connected entity was exposed to heat, or burned. Lots of events were canned, and there are several new events that I would not have included due to fears of balance issues — but this is a casual game, and I suspect Pierre knows what he's doing! Looking for a Way Out"- Mike proposes they use Will to find the Mind Flayer's weakness after they first obscure their location. Though Vecna's control of the Mind Flayer's hive mind made him powerful, the two-way nature of the psychic connection was also a point of vulnerability. Any pain felt by the connected entities was shared amongst them; the physical suffering of his thralls would translate to every other being in the hive mind, including Vecna himself. This made the hive mind a prime target for his enemies.Eulogy"- The group tries to deal with the events occurring at Hawkins Laboratory; Mike informs the group that Bob was the original founder of their school's AV club. Original shot of Bob's death sequence with Kate in motion capture. The final cut had her replaced with a Demodog via CGI effects I hadn't gotten to season 3 yet, but the Mind Flayer seemed to be an obvious match for the game, so Repos paired with another Asmodee subsidiary named Mixlore to make the licensing deal with Netflix, then a talented developer at Repos named Pierre began percolating ideas. I don't worry about people who don't like my games; my goal is to brand them correctly so that people who would like them can discover them. This gets risky when working with IP because there's a lot of love for Stranger Things, and it isn't easy to satisfy everyone. My guess is the Walmart crowd will buy the game but not play it, and the hobby gamers will play it but not buy it — except for you delightful people (you know who you are) who will buy every version of the game. Salut! The next day, a mind-addled and disturbed Billy kidnapped his co-worker Heather Holloway and took her to the Steel Works, where she too became possessed by the creature. Over the next few days, dozens more people were 'Flayed', including Doris Driscoll and Bruce Lowe. The Flayed would often target those close to them, such as Heather's parents, Tom and Janet. In some cases, such as with Doris Driscoll, exposure to infected rats was enough to bring the individual under the Mind Flayer's thrall. As with the rats, the unfortunate humans would be made to gorge cleaning fluids and other toxic chemicals, which would seemingly boost the infection's grip upon their minds. Some of these individuals would later dissolve into biomass, and reconstituted into fleshy monstrosities directly under the hive mind’s control.