The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is the only film by Stanley Kubrick to win an Oscar. He was nominated 13 times throughout his long career and 2001 won the award for Best Special Visual Effects. The movie is based on Arthur C Clark's The Sentinel (1951) a great short story if you have not read it its worth it. So here I am reviewing a game based on a movie that is based on a book. I am writing this with the movie playing on my other monitor. I almost for got how much I like this film its been a while since I have seen it. The ability for the film to still be culturally relevant over 50 years later speaks to its quality. Remember in 2020 when all those monoliths started appearing in random places? Yea me either.

Setup

The Setup for the game is straight forward and quick to get going. There are player cards for each of the 5 human characters players can choose from and a screen for the player who is HAL. HAL is the malevolent computer from the movie, perhaps a warning to the current rise of AI but that's a story for another article. The rest of the componets are 2 decks of cards one for HAL and one for the humans and then various cardboard tokens to mark conditions on the board.

When we were speaking of monoliths earlier there's one in the box. Its the first player marker. Each of the humans playing starts with 2 cards for their hand with a maximum of 6. The player playing HAL splits their hand between 3 face up cards on the outside of the HAL screen for all the players to see and three cards behind the screen hidden from the other players.

Game Play

HAL is trying to shut down 3 systems or just the Lif support system. The humans are racing to play three logic sequences against HAL shutting him off. HAL being the cheeky computer that he is gets more turns than the human players. to Start the game HAL gets to take 2-4 turns depending on player count. Then HAL will play after each human player's turn. HAL's cards consist of malfunction cards that will take down systems in the Discovery One spacecraft. Other cards will hinder the humans from reaching their goal of shutting HAL down.

The Human player cards consist of repair cards for the ship's systems and other cards that counter act HAL's cards and the cards to build the logic sequences to shut down HAL. The disconnect cards are numbered 1-12 and players must play a 3 in a row sequence to start the deactivation of HAL. Human players all have different abilities to deal with HAL.

2001: A Space Odyssey has a lot of push and pull from HAL and the Humans. The Humans must work together but they can only share information in a way that the HAL player will understand (no secret code or signal) The reason is totally thematic. In the movie HAL starts reading lips, and there is in fact a card in HAL's deck called Lip Reading that when its face up in HAL's hand the Human players may not talk. The board is a circular track to represent the circular shape of the Discovery One spacecraft.

Thoughts

Quite Frankly the game version of 2001: A Space Odyssey is a lot faster paced than the movie. The game will not take you two and a half hours like the movie will. You will probably have your game wrapped up before intermission. I do highly recommend playing the soundtrack from the movie in the background. It will give you just the right amount of uneasy that this game demands. This is a great lightweight game for fans of the movie and for more casual players. The depth of strategy isn't deep but the varied Human players does offer some extra repeatability. So if this is your first journey to Jupiter or your 50th you should still enjoy this game.

I recommend this light game for true fans of the movie and people who are looking for a lighter space themed game that pits one against many. The theme is great but the art comes off a little dated as its modeled on the 1968 movie. The game plays in 30 minutes making a great for a family game night or bringing to the bar to play with a few friends. 2001: A Space Odyssey is available now in stores and online.

Players: 3 - 5

Year Published: 2025

Recommended Ages: 10+

Time to Play: 30 minutes

Bert's Tabletop games was provided a retail copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Maestro Mediafo this game review. The game depicted here is a retail copy of the game.