Lift Off board game review
If you were told that your alien planet was about to explode, what would you do?
Would you devise any means necessary to get yourself and your buddies off that planet?
We’re sure you’d try to.
Well, now you can give it your best shot in Lift Off! Get Me Off This Planet! by Pencil First Games.
In Lift Off, players compete to be the first to get their 10 aliens off the planet using a wide variety of lift off points, cards, and phases of the moon to escape.
It’s a fun theme for a family board game. And with 10 different ways to get off the planet, there’s plenty of silly replayability with methods such as Bonfire, Jetpack, Slingshot, Teleport, Trampoline, and more.
How to Play Lift Off! Get Me Off This Planet!
The first step in playing Lift Off is setting up the board.
The Planet Core is at the center of the board where all the aliens begin the game. From that, players place the 4 Exit Points that lead from the Core to the Surface of the planet. In between those 4 exit points, players randomly place 4 of the possible 10 Lift Off Points.
The Moon and Sun tokens are placed in their respective spots on the board, the game cards are shuffled, and each player receives 2 cards.
On a player’s turn they’ll do 3 things:
- Draw
- Play
- Moon
1. DRAW:
To start their turn, a player will draw 2 cards from the draw pile.
2. PLAY:
They can then do any of the these actions in any order they like – Move, Play Action Cards, Pay Launch Platform, or Trade 2 cards for 1.
Move: The player can take 2 movement actions by moving one alien twice or two aliens once. Moving through an exit point to the surface is one move. Moving from a surface tile to an adjacent surface tile is also one move.
Play Action Cards: The player can play any number of special cards they have. These include things like moving an alien an extra space, moving the moon, moving the Garglore, transforming a Lift Off Point, and various other special actions written on the card.
Pay Launch Platform: The player can pay the Placement Cost to place one of their aliens on a launch tile onto that Launch Platform (black and yellow striped platform). Payments are made to the area below the platform using Resource cards from their hand (fuel or screw). The player may also pay the Lift Off cost using similar resource cards.
Trade: The player can also trade 2 cards in their hand for 1 card from the draw pile.
3. MOON:
At the end of their turn, the player moves the Moon one space in a counterclockwise direction. When the moon moves all the way around the planet, it’s the end of a day and the Sun token is moved forward one spot. The planet is one day closer to exploding.
Play then moves to the next player on their right.
That’s really all there is to playing the game.
The first player to get their 10 aliens off the planet, wins. Or if the planet explodes before a player can save their 10 aliens, then the player who saved the most aliens, wins.
Ways To Escape
While the basic mechanics of a turn are pretty straightforward, players must make wise choices on which Lift Off platforms they want to utilize to save their aliens.
That’s because every Lift Off Point has a unique way to escape. They have different costs for both placement on the platform as well as launching. They allow a limited number of aliens to use them at a time. And each Lift Off Point depends on the different phases of the moon.
Each Lift Off Point tile displays the following via icons:
- The rocket ship is shows next to the required moon phase for launch.
- The maximum number of aliens that can be on the platform at a time.
- Required resources for an alien to take a place on a platform.
- Required resources (or action cards) needed to achieve Lift Off.
You can see examples of the various Lift Off Points in the photo on the right.
Rather than run down every detail of each method, we’ll simply list the different methods. If you want to see details, we suggest looking at the descriptions in the rulebook on page 8 (found here on www.BoardGameGeek.com).
- Bonfire
- Satellite
- Rocket Ship
- JetPack
- Trampoline
- Miracle
- UFO
- Teleport
- Slingshot
- Stargate
Getting your aliens off first is about making the most of the Lift Off Points available each game.
Luck vs. Strategy
We think the best family board games are those that have a good balance of luck and strategy.
Strategic choices engage us in a game because our choices have consequences. And luck dice rolls or card draws keep us on our toes and give kids a chance against parents.
Lift Off has a mix of both.
There are choices to be made every turn in where to move your aliens, which Lift Off points to head for, when to use Resource cards, and when to play special cards to impact the moon or other players.
However, for a game with a variety of choices we’ve also found that the luck of the card draw plays a bigger factor in the game than we like.
There are a total of 64 Resource cards and 36 Action cards. So out of 100 cards, more than 1/3rd are special actions cards.
Every time we’ve played, there has been one player who seems to draw nothing but action cards. “Nothing but” may be an exaggeration, but if you don’t draw Resource cards, there’s no way you’re getting your aliens off the planet.
So they take the option to Trade 2 cards for 1 card many times during a game, which leaves them overall with less cards to have played in getting aliens to safety.
One way we’ve dealt with factor is to simply remove a number of the special action cards – thus increasing the odds of drawing Resource cards. By doing so, the games have played out a bit quicker which has felt like the right amount of time for a light, racing-type game.
Variants
We actually don’t mind altering the game a bit because the rulebook itself lists a number of variants for playing the game.
One such variant is “Family Fun” which is more like a cooperative approach where players want to help each other save their aliens as well.
In the “Let’s Team Up” variant players form 2 teams of 2 and need to save all 20 aliens to win.
“We Don’t Have Time” cuts the game play time by starting off with just 8 aliens and 3 cards each.
But if you’d rather go more competitively, then play “Cutthroat Planet”. In this variant, when player use the ‘Move your Alien’ card, they can move another player’s alien – even off of a launch platform.
If you come up with another way to play, go for it! After all, it’s your aliens you need to save.
Can the whole family enjoy Lift Off?
Lift Off! Get Me Off This Planet! can be enjoyed by most of the family.
While little kids will definitely be attracted to the little alien playing pieces and the cool artwork, to enjoy the game, it’s better if they can understand the strategy in the game. This includes being able to read the special action cards and understand the impact they’ll have.
Because each Lift Off Point is unique and multi-faceted, you’ll want to make sure the understand the combinations involved to save an alien (move, pay a placement cost, pay a lift off cost, understand the position of the moon, etc.).
If you’ve got pre-teens and teens though, Lift Off! Get Me Off This Planet! can make for a fun family game night.
How does Lift Off score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?
Lift Off scores in the mid-range of our “let’s play again” game meter.
It’s not a game that we play back-to-back merely because of the game length – coming in around 45 minutes. But it is a game that’s so easily replayable because of the mix of various Lift Off Points each time we play.
Since our kids are older, we also enjoy the more competitive nature of the game and find good use in moving the Garglore around to different Lift Off Points because he blocks the use of that launch site. It’s a great way to stall out opponent aliens.
It’s also fun to find ways to hitch rides with other players’ aliens – having them pony up more resource cards to launch with our own alien on board us well.
Thanks Pencil First Games for a creative, space-themed, alien-racing, family board game!
