The third and final game from the trio that includes Let’s Dig For Treasure and Let’s Summon Demons, Don’t Talk to Strangers is the only one that’s founded on particularly good advice– that is, don’t get abducted by aliens.
In this game, each player is responsible for a set of children. If at the beginning of your turn, none of your kids are outside, you place one in the school, from where they will be trying to reach some safe spot. The board has several of these, like homes and pools, though some have more available space than others. To reach these locations, players will play one movement card per turn (ex: Run, which lets you move two spaces). Some of these make use of either city buses or school buses, with stops indicated on the board.
After you’ve moved, you’ll draw a card; if it’s a Stranger Sighting, it gets played immediately, and you choose a Stranger Space on the board to place an alien. Any child on that space when the stranger is placed is automatically abducted (removed from the game), and unless a card says otherwise (i.e. Heroic Dog) kids cannot move through that space. If you drawn an abduction card, choose a kid on the board (doesn’t have to be yours) and flip the flying saucer token like a coin. If it lands saucer side up, the kid gets abducted. This includes kids in “safe” spots. So, you know, it’s not so much that they’re safe as that they’re scoring points while they hide for their lives.
What do I mean? Well, each safe space has a point value associated with it, so the actual goal is to get your kids into high value spots — but if you get too greedy, you risk an abduction toppling your lead, which is your incentive to save many and save often! Some safe spaces also have additional effects, such as the library, which lets you have +1 cards in hand (base is 3), or the parks, which let you have an additional kid in play at a given time — effectively, this means you don’t have to wait for your current one to be safe before placing the next.
The game ends when all the Strangers are placed, and whoever has the most points wins; that said, I’ve never actually done that part, because there’s also a card that has the potential to end the game.
