Type of Game: Dice Rolling, Modular Board, Re-Rolling and Locking
Number of Players: 1
Age: 12+
Designer: Tomáš Uhlíř
Artist: Petr Boháček and Kwanchai Moriya
Publisher: Czech Games Edition
This copy of Under Falling Skies was purchased by the author.
CONCEPT
Under Falling Skies is a solo game that can be played either with the multi-mission campaign that comes in the box or as a one-off game. In each game, you are in charge of defending a besieged city under attack by aliens who have arrived and are trying to conquer Earth. Throughout the game, alien ships fill the skies, and they must be destroyed before they reach the city and damage your base!
Will you be able to research enough to complete your mission before your base is destroyed?
HOW IT WORKS
The goal is to move your research marker to the top of the track along the left-hand side of the modular board before the aliens destroy the city. You achieve this by going through a series of rounds with three phases. The phases are as follows:
Dice Phase: Place rolled dice and move ships.
Rooms Phase: Resolve the effects of your chosen rooms.
Mothership Phase: Resolve the mothership’s turn.
As you work through each phase, the alien ships will gradually get closer. If a ship descends below the sky and hits your city, your base takes one damage per ship that reached your city. Once a ship damages your city, it returns to the mothership to be respawned at the end of the round.
There is a tough balance between gaining energy to perform actions in the rooms, improving the research track to win, and destroying ships before your city takes too much damage.
You are victorious by reaching the top of the research track on the modular board, but you can lose in one of two ways:
The mothership progresses to the red skull on the modular board.
Your city takes too much damage.
In addition to normal play, there is a campaign mode that adds further challenges! The campaign is a four-chapter campaign that usually lasts about 10 games and is REPLAYAABLE. Each playthrough of the campaign provides a new combination that tells a story. In a chapter, there are different scenarios, cities and characters. As a player progresses through the campaign, some pieces are permanently removed from the campaign while others may be saved for later chapters. As you get to the fourth and final chapter, you take on the final battle where victory ends that current campaign.
COMPONENTS
The components for Under Falling Skies aren’t complex or of super high quality, but they don’t need to be for their purpose in the game. The clear square and circle pieces used to show your progress or damage have a nice touch, allowing you to still see what’s on the board while giving you an idea of how close you are to victory or defeat. The dice are light and well-suited to the game.
Also, there are three different starting cities that you can use in your games, but there are also 8 other cities that are brought in to the game through the campaign. Each city provides its own challenge to mix up every play that you have and it is a phenomenal aspect of the game.
The only concern is accessibility for those who may have issues with varying levels of color blindness. The pieces of the game don’t have any marks or symbols on them to differentiate them easily when setting up. Though this can be remedied by adding marks or slightly modifying the pieces, it is a disadvantage when setting up for the first play. However, the modular board does a good job of using iconography to assist those with accessibility issues. Overall, the components are well-suited to the reasonable cost of the game.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The 2020 Golden Geek (Board Game Geek annual Game of the Year awards) Winner for Best Solo Game, Under Falling Skies, is a quick game that gives you a brief introduction to what a campaign could feel like and is reasonably priced. You can purchase this online for $20-$30 plus taxes and shipping or locally at many of your friendly local game stores at a similar cost. I have yet to dive into the campaign after five plays of the game, but it’s one that I plan to explore later this year or at the beginning of 2025.
The dice rolls keep the replayability unique, as does the wide range of cities you can defend. The replayability of solo games is what I look for when adding one to my collection. I’ve grown my solo game collection immensely over the last year and enjoy playing them to unwind whether it be a light or heavy solo game. If you enjoy solo games, this is almost a must-own and a game that will always be in my collection.
