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 are trying to develop a weapon able to destroy the alien for good while also expanding your base and dealing with enemy fighters.
Components
- 9 cards
- 7 six-sided dice
- 11 tokens
- Instrucitons
Setup
1 A Set up 7 cards above each other to form a continuous image (See the picture on the right).
2 Put the card with an energy and a research track next to the constructed column.
3 The 9th card serves only as a round overview.
The cards are double-sided, being easy on one side and difficult (with 
in the top right corner) on the other. For your first game, use the easy side. In subsequent games, you can increase the difficulty by flipping any number of cards to their difficult side.
Each adds +1 LEVEL(up to LEVEL8).
4 Place 5 green enemy ships on the starting spots on the mother ship card.
5 Place 4 white tracker cubes on their starting spots (marked with a small white square) on the Research track, Energy track, Damage track and one on your base as an Excavator.
6 Five dice (3 black and 2 white) should be kept somewhere near.
7 Leave 2 blue robot dice and 2 red enemy ships aside for now.
Game Play
Your goal is to develop a weapon able to destroy the approaching alien mother ship before it gets too close or before your base takes too much damage.
You do it by getting to the last spot on the research track. The game plays in rounds until you either win or lose.
Each round consists of three phases:
- Place dice and move ships
- Resolve rooms
- Move the mother ship
1. Place Dice and Move Ships
At the start of the round roll 5 action dice (3 black and 2 white) and place them one at a time on the available spots in your base.
White dice have a special function when you place one of them, you have to reroll all the remaining dice that have not yet been placed.
Immediately after placing a die, move all enemy ships in the same column downward the number of spaces corresponding to the die value and then resolve the final spot they land on. (See the symbol explanation below).
If the space where the arrow points is empty, move the ship there.
The order of placing dice matters because in some cases the ship can move more times during one round when you first move it to a different column and later activate it again by placing a die in that column.
Move the mother ship card one line lower along the track.
Moving the mother ship usually triggers a nasty effect depending on the leftmost glowing symbol it covers, but when you move the mother ship because of this symbol, ignore the effect.
The explosion doesn't have any immediate effect when the ship lands on it, but it allows you to shoot down the ship later by activating an orange room with a die of sufficient value.
Your base takes 1 damage. (Move the tracker accordingly).
When a ship reaches the last space of a track, your base takes 1 damage. Move the damage marker accordingly and put the enemy ship on the mother ship card (to be respawned later).
The dice placement has a few restrictions:
- Each spot can contain only one die.
- You can place only one die in each column.
- Dice can be placed only on the already excavated rooms.
(Excavated rooms are the ones from the start of the track down to the excavator token).
Once each round, you can place a die to an unexcavated space (room or tunnel), to be able to move the excavator and thus gain access to new rooms. The die however still blocks the column and move enemy ships.
Continue placing dice until you place all five, then proceed to resolve rooms.
2. Resolve Rooms
Once you've placed all five dice, resolve them one at a time in any order you prefer. After resolving a die, move it aside.
Using Rooms:
To be able to use the room effect, you have to spend the indicated amount of energy. (Move the tracker accordingly). If you don't have enough energy or you don't want to spend it, remove the die with no effect.
The strength of the effect depends on the value of the die (the higher, the better).
Some rooms have a modificator above them, so when you activate such a room, resolve its effect with a modified value. (Enemy ships still move by theoriginalvalue).
In case of larger rooms, all its slots have to be occupied to be able to use its effect, but you add up the value of al I dice placed there. (See the room effects on the below)
It's the only room that is resolved immediately after placing a die and it allows you to move all enemy ships in the column one less space than usual.
Restore your energy up to a number of the die value. Although you are able to reach higher values, the maximum amount of energy is 7.
Shoot down all enemy ships on a space with an explosion symbol of the same or lower number than the die value. Put the shot down ships on the mother ship card (to be respawned later).
Advance on the research track. The die value has to be at least the same as the number on the next space where you are going to move.
It's possible to move more spaces at once if the value is at least as high as the sum of the spaces. (To move through space 3 and 1 at once, you would need a value of4orhigher).
Construct a robot to temporarily increase your workforce. Take one of the blue dice (set aside or an already placed) and set it to the value of the assigned die. After resolving all dice, place the newly constructed robot to an already excavated room of your choice.
Starting with the following round, the robot works in that room as a normal die with a few changes:
Even though the robot occupies the spot, he doesn't move enemy ships and doesn't count towards the "one die per column" limit.
You still have to use energy to activate a room with a robot, but instead of removing the robot die, lower its value by one (even if you haven't used the room effect) and leave it on the room. Remove it only when it already has a value of one and can't be lowered any further.
Moving the Excavator:
A die can be placed on a not yet accessible space to move the excavator.
The die value has to be the same or higher than the length of the route from the excavator to the die and moving the Excavator always costs one energy, regardless of the number of spaces it moves.
So if you spend one energy and the die value is high enough, replace the die with the excavator token, otherwise only remove the die.
3. Move the Mother Ship
Resolve the glowing symbol just under the arrow on the mother ship card. (See the symbol explanation below).
Then move the mother ship card one line lower along the track. If there were any obstructing ships on the top line, put them on the mothership card.
As the last thing, respawn all enemy ships placed on the mother ship card.
Your base takes 1 damage.
Move the excavator to the indicated number of spaces back along the track. (Remove any potential robot dice in the way).
Move the tracker on the research trackback to the indicated number of spaces.
Put one red enemy ship (if available) on the mother ship card, (to be respawned later)
The red ship works the same way as a normal ship, except that if it's shot down, it will be put aside instead of being respawned.
Respawning Enemy Ships:
Place the ships one by one on the unoccupied starting spots of your choice above a column that doesn't contain a ship.
In case all columns contain a ship, you can choose any unoccupied starting spot.
In case all starting spots are occupied, leave the remaining ships on the card, to be spawned on the next round.
End of the Game
You can lose the game by two ways, either when the mother ship descends to the glowing skull symbol, or if your base gets enough damage to move the marker down to the skull symbol next to your base.
You win when you get the research marker to the last spot of the research track.
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