Under Falling Skies - Going Solo

About the game:

Under Falling Skies is a purely solo game. There is a customizable base game that can be enjoyed in many different configurations and a campaign mode included in the box.

I have personally only played the base game in the easiest mode so far (Roswell as the city and the easier sky tiles). 

The game is a dice placement game with a couple of fun twists. You roll two white and three grey dice. If you place a white die, you roll the remaining dice again. That makes for a thinky puzzle that added some push your luck fun to the game.

Another twist is that the mothership changes things as you go- so even if you've "excavated" to open new spaces to place your dice, the mothership can take those spaces away later.

I have yet to play the campaign. My goal is to play ten times with just the base game first. That way I hope to feel really comfortable with the game before adding new rules and twists to the game.

Review:

I really enjoy this game for several reasons. The first time I played, I won. But just barely. I played it safe and spent a lot of energy and time shooting down the enemy fighters. I completely forgot that each turn the mothership drops, so there is a game timer of sorts. So, the first time I won on the last space of the mothership AND with one space in the track that goes down each time a fighter hits your city. Yikes!

The second time I played, I did not get as lucky. Too many ships descended upon Roswell and ended the game when I still had 11 research points to get.

Both games were so much fun because it really came down to a tense couple of last turns.

The components are kind of retro and cool in this game. The clear ships are really fun. It feels like a retro videogame- and we're into those in our household.

Warning! This is not a "small box" game. Not even close. The campaign adds a lot of cardboard and the base game board doesn't even fit comfortably on my table. I have to turn it for it to fit.

Deep Thoughts:

As promised, deep thoughts are at the END of the post. I love playing games solo. Even though I have an amazing player 2 (Tim, my hubby, who I'll mention a lot), he doesn't like playing games nearly as much as I do. He's the more responsible one. When I have the option to play with him, I will every time. But, that leaves a lot of time during the week that I play by myself. Luckily, Covid has brought solo gaming more attention and this year there were several purely solo games created. This is one of them!

Since I play so many solo games, I decided to highlight those games in the title of my posts so they are easy to find. I'm thinking I'll do a similar thing with the two player games. I rarely get to play a game with three or four players any more. Both kids are busy and rarely home any more- which is ok! It's what got me really into boardgaming in the first place. For Christmas a few years ago, Tim got me 7 Wonders: Duel and a couple of other games that could be played with just two in preparation for the day it was just us. That day has almost come! Both kids will be away at college next year.