Lift Off! Get Me Off This Planet is Eduardo Baraf’s adorable Kickstarter board game of saving aliens from destruction.
I hadn’t previously considered the possibility of a casual board game about aliens escaping an apocalypse. Thankfully, Eduardo Baraf has turned to Kickstarter to fill that particular niche. His project, Lift Off!: Get Me Off This Planet, challenges 2-5 players with rescuing aliens after one trips over a coolant cord at the planet’s core. What helps Lift Off! stand out, adorably light-hearted designs aside, is that the co-operative gameplay slowly turns competitive the closer one gets to inevitable destruction.
Lift Off‘s primary objective is to be the first player to rescue their alien pieces, which requires a certain amount of teamwork at first. Lift Off points are scattered around the planet in the form of rocket ships, teleporters, and stargates, each requiring certain resources on key moon phases to activate. But as the population lowers and resources dwindle, players fight to ensure their alien pieces will leave the board before anyone else. Action cards assist in this goal by terraforming the board, spawning tornadoes, or even altering the phases of the moon to your benefit. For groups that prefer co-operative play, Lift Off! also includes family-friendly variant rules with less of a “take that” mentality.
Lift Off has another nine days and $8000 to go before its Kickstarter goal is reached, which is certainly possible given the $27,000 it’s raised already. If successful, it should be a charming board game that’s fun for the whole family… regardless of how many planets get destroyed along the way.
Source: Kickstarter
