Fire the catapults!
Space Invaders is a dexterity-based board game for 1-4 players, inspired by the Space Invaders video game, and designed by Kane Klenko. It will be available in retail from August 1 for the US, with an early release from July 25 in Target stores.
The game board of Space Invaders is divided into multiple lanes, and the two top rows are filled with Invader cards. Different Invaders may have different movement rules (some go downward by one notch, some push the Invaders in front of them, some go all the way down until blocked by another Invader). Next to the board, furthest to the player, is the UFO mothership that you must defeat.
Your goal is to destroy the UFO mothership and all of the Invaders. Your ammunition tokens are sorted into different levels, from 1 to 3, each with its own special ability (this ability depends on the unique card that is handed to the player at the beginning of the game, and so will be different from one player to another). You start the game with three level 1 blast ammunition tokens but will gain additional ones over the course of the session. On your turn, you get to throw all of your active ammunition tokens at the Invaders, by means of a small catapult. If your token falls on the “surface” area, you get it back and are allowed to try again. If your token falls on an Invader card, the Invader gets destroyed, unless it is shielded by another Invader. Some Invaders also have two hit points and you must hit them twice to defeat them. Finally, you may also try to send a token to the UFO mothership to damage it with one hit. Then, you retrieve all your tokens for the next round.
After your turn, the Invaders take a turn. All Invader cards, from right to left, from bottom-most to top-most, will move according to their special rules. If they hit the surface, they deal as much damage as indicated on their cards. The Planet has 20 HP in total unless you want to play at a higher difficulty level. When the planet takes damage, you might cross special spots on the HP track that will call for reinforcements: that way, you will gain additional tokens to use in all of your future turns. Then, once all the Invaders have moved, you refill the top two lanes of the board so that they are filled with Invader cards.
During this step, if there are less than six Invaders in the top two rows (because you exhausted the deck), the last round is triggered. At the end of this round, all Invaders will move straight to the surface, and deal double damage! Then, if you have survived this wave, the Final Battle takes place. You launch all your tokens at the UFO, hoping to bring it down… Otherwise, it crashes on the Planet and destroys it.
When playing solo, you must multi-hand the game at the player count of your choice. You may also adjust the difficulty by setting the number of Invader cards in the deck, the UFO HP, and the Planet HP to the recommended levels.
Sure this is by Klenko...I don't see any dice...? Seems to me a kind of next level Flying Hats, I guess I will pass this time.
Looks kinda cool, but dexterity-based? Bye-bye! I have trouble rolling dice. 😄
Cool!