The Op Games’ IT: Evil Below (2019) gives players a birds-eye view of Derry, or at least key locations within Derry that are central to the Losers Club’s encounters with Pennywise, though the navigation and interconnection between locations is more complex than meets the eye, once the pieces are put into motion. Each location space also has four face-down balloon-shaped tokens which, when flipped over, reveal whether or not a Pennywise attack is triggered, combining chance action with straightforward geographic navigation. 

Each of the featured locations is also color-coded to pair with a member of the Losers Club, usually to signal a traumatic encounter that the particular character had with It in that location, though at times these pairings blur the narrative lines between Andy Muschietti’s two IT films (2017 and 2019) and King’s 1986 novel, such as Stan Uris’s connection with the Standpipe. These color-coded alignments serve as starting points and align with foundational knowledge about these characters and their experiences: Beverly Marsh begins in her apartment, Richie Tozier at the Town Square, Eddie Kapsbrak in Keene’s Pharmacy, Bill Denbrough at the House on Neibolt Street, Ben Hanscom in the Barrens, Stan Uris at the Standpipe, and Mike Hanlon outside the Quality Meats Butcher Shop. While characters may face these horrors alone, however, the heart of their story in IT—and the driving motivation of Evil Below—is their collaboration, as they combine their strength and skills to stand against Pennywise, with a game goal of fighting It and rescuing children who have been taken. 

As the players move through Derry on the game board, they collect totems that also echo their identities and terrifying encounters, including items like Eddie’s inhaler, the anonymous postcard that Ben sends to Bev, and Georgie’s paper boat, with these totems and their shared significance serving as a pool of resources to stand against Pennywise when It is encountered. Players’ movement through and engagement with the different elements of the game are actively negotiated through dice rolls as well, with each roll of the set of seven dice giving players different options and possibilities to work with, ranging from a balloon that represents’ Pennywise’s location-based attacks to a hand icon that allows the player to draw a card from the corresponding color-coded location and a heart that allows players to regain bravery for themselves and others. 
Much like Derry in King’s novel and Muschietti’s films, the surface of things seems relatively straightforward in Evil Below, with accessible locations mapped out on an easy to navigate board. However, just like the dark secrets that lurk not far beneath the surface in Derry, from child abuse to It’s monstrous predation, moving through and surviving these spaces is more challenging than they initially seem. Either way, your chances of survival are much stronger when you’re with your friends.