When I was approached to design an X-Files board game, I immediately said yes. Although I've worked on a wide variety of terrific projects since I went freelance from Fantasy Flight Games, The X-Files is a show that was near and dear to my heart growing up. I spent every Friday night watching it with Dad until I headed off to college. Even then, every summer we’d be back, avidly following Fox Mulder and Dana Scully's adventures while Mom abandoned the room to find something less “gross” on TV.

Although X-Files has been off the air for over a decade, it still carries a weight to it that younger readers might not understand. It was a show that fundamentally changed how a lot of television was written, and I knew it wouldn't be easy to capture its feel in a way that both X-Files fans and board game players only casually familiar with the show would enjoy, but I immediately set that as my goal.

The fundamental conflict of the show is that Agent Mulder (along with the other, less enthusiastic members of the X-Files) seeks to uncover the truth about the presence of extraterrestrial life on Earth, while a shadowy Syndicate, represented on the show by the enigmatic Cigarette-Smoking Man, tries to keep everything hushed up. In the meantime, Mulder and Scully work their way through a maze of bizarre cases that may or may not have anything to do with the Syndicate’s plans.

The board game follows that plot as much as possible. Up to four X-Files agents play as a team against one other player who controls the Syndicate. Broadly speaking, the agents investigate X-Files that crop up around the United States to gather evidence that they use to uncover the Syndicate – their progress in this goal is shown by assembling a 9-piece jigsaw puzzle of Fox’s iconic “I want to believe” UFO poster. In the meantime, the Syndicate player attempts to slow them down with various complications and traps, as he gets to conceal evidence every turn based on the number of X-Files that the agents have failed to solve. If the Syndicate conceals 25 points of evidence before the X-Files agents can complete the puzzle, the X-Files is shut down for good.

I designed the two sides in the game to be very asymmetrical. The agents play as a team – talking with each other, trading cards, and working to solve the X-Files cases that they think will best help their goal. The Syndicate player, on the other hand, lurks in the shadows behind his player screen, quietly mocking them as he lays cards face down to spring on them later (such as sending Fox on a wild goose chase after his missing sister Samantha), or pollutes the evidence bag with cigarette tokens that can slow down the agents’ overall progress.

Personally, I think both sides are fun to play, but you’ll have to judge for yourself. The X-Files Board Game is coming to stores in late July. Until then, remember – the Truth is Out There!