Under Falling Skies: A 9-Card Solo Game (2019)

Overview

Under Falling Skies: A 9-Card Print-and-Play Game was designed for the 2019 9-Card Nanogame P&P Design Contest.

STORY

Hostile alien mother ship is quickly approaching Earth. Mankind has been forced to seek shelter in underground bases to hide from a constant bombardment of the surface. As a leader of one of those bases, you have to develop a weapon able to destroy the alien for good while also expanding your base and dealing with enemy fighters.

GAMEPLAY

The game uses an innovative dice placement mechanism combined with enemy movement.

The cards form a track with an alien mother ship accompanied with an army of smaller ships on the top and an underground base at the bottom.

Each round, you place dice on various rooms in your base, but when you do, you move all enemy ships in the corresponding column, therefore you must carefully consider where to place each die. While higher numbers mean better room effects, they also move enemy faster. There can be only one die in each column so you are restricting yourself with every placement.

Fortunately, thanks to the room effects, you can shoot down enemy ships or deploy robots to increase your workforce, but don't forget to work on the research as well and watch your energy supply.

The game gets more and more tense as the mother ship descends at the end of each round.

Will you be able to reach the end of the research track before your base suffers too much damage or the mother ship gets into the Earth atmosphere?

The game was designed for the 2019 9-Card Nanogame P&P Design Contest and it achieved the following awards:

1st place - Best Overall Game

1st place - Best Solitaire Game 1st place - Most Thematic Game 1st place - Most Innovative Mechanic 1st place - Best Wargame 2nd place - Best Rulebook 2rd place - Best Original Artwork 2nd place - Best Volunteer Prize