Last night I decided instead of doing a list, to pull out a solo game and give it a whirl. The game picked, from CGE, was Under Falling Skies. I describe this as Space Invaders mixed with Independence Day where ships are getting lower and you need to research and destroy the mothership. It’s a solo game I’ve played a few times, and going into last night, I had yet to win. Is my luck going to change in this dice placement game?

The Game – Under Falling Skies

In Under Falling Skies you are rolling dice and use them to blow up alien ships, produce energy and research how to defeat the mothership. You use all the dice, and while the higher numbers are more powerful, they can blow up ships better or get further on the research track, it causes the other ships to descend faster.

The game gives you one way to win, research fully how to defeat the mothership. But it gives you two ways to lose. The mothership can get low and destroy everything. Or enough small ships can get through to take out the research base. And each turn the mothership is getting lower, so it is easier for the small ships to get all the way down.

So it is a balancing game as you try and line up ships so you blow them up. If you can that, they go back to the mothership and start coming down again. But if you spend too much time on fighting and producing energy your research will lag behind.

Each time before last night that I played Under Falling Skies, I’ve lost just barely. On the final round I am making that last push for research. And, in the other three times, I would always come up just short of a number I needed to get that last big push. The last spot costs 11 to research so that’s a fairly high total on the dice.

The game takes up a lot of space, but it isn’t too complex. I think it looks bigger and more going on than it actually is. When you get into the rhythm of the game, rolling and placing dice and moving the ship, the game is fast. My play is longer than it normally would be just because I am chatting and explaining what I am doing.

Upcoming Streams

On Wednesday we look to finish off the first chapter of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. We will see if I can beat one of these adventures on the first try. You can click that notification bell on the video here to know when I am going live. It is at the normal time of 8 PM Central.

Next Monday I am going to be streaming what I had thought about doing today. I’m going to be talking about GenCon. Going over some of the things that I’m going to be doing and what I am looking forward to. Then the following Monday is going to be the BGG GenCon Preview list. Or I believe there is another place doing a list as well, but looking at some of those games and what I want to buy or at least try.

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