Leaving Earth: Using math and tech to space travel

By Meeple Lady | November 11, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Two weeks ago, my friend @idontknowrules purchased this game Leaving Earth, which sounded like a game theme he and I were randomly talking about a few weeks before that. He still isn’t quite sure how he ran across the BGG listing for it, but we’re so glad he did. The guys and I have played the game twice this week. And we can’t get enough of it. My other friend even printed out a copy of the rules so he could make his own notes!

This little box packs a big punch. The guys and I are obsessed with this game.

Leaving Earth is a board game made by the Lumenaris Group, which, if you visit their website, sells wool felt sewing kits, puzzles and historically based board games. Guys, the company’s not even on Twitter! But they do make an excellent game.

Leaving Earth plays 1-5 players, from 60 to 180 minutes (though we have yet to play in under 3 hours with 3 players). The basic premise of the game is to conduct research, build spacecraft and complete mission objectives. There’s no game board, just squares that you lay out on the table that indicate a location in space. You move your spacecraft along these locations and hope that your payload makes it to the intended destination.

Leaving Earth has no board, just cards that you lay out in a specific location.

Each year, starting in 1956, you get $25 to spend, and you use it or lose it. Researching technology advancements is $10 each, and when you gain that advancement, your card receives 3 outcome cards with it (which I’ll explain later what these cards do.) There’s also a bit of negotiating here with other players to make money in selling advancements you own, which can be extremely fun.

These are two different types of scientific advancements (each with 3 outcome cards). I can then purchase these rockets now. — These are two different types of scientific advancements (each with 3 outcome cards). I can now purchase rockets that match these advancements

When you advance in that technology, you will also be able to purchase rockets, spacecraft or do maneuvers that correspond to that advancement.

Here are various rockets, capsules and probes you can purchase for your mission. Each has a price, mass and thrust ability.

On your turn, you can also assemble a spacecraft to launch things into space. This is where all the math and outcomes cards come into play. Each location has its own difficulty level, indicated by the number on the edge.

You can see the difficulty level required to move into each location in space.

To move into another location, you need to calculate:

Thrust required = mass x difficulty

I love how the rulebook suggests you have a pen and paper handy to do the calculations — and there are a lot of them! The heavier your spacecraft is, the harder it will be to move into another location. Each spacecraft component has a weight and thrust capacity. Bigger rockets are stronger, but they also come with a heftier price tag, and you may not be able to buy it all in one year.

Each player places components on one of their spacecraft cards. You also get a cheat sheet on how much mass each rocket can hold, depending on how hard it'll be to move into the next location.. — Each player places components on one of their spacecraft cards to indicate what’s in that payload. You also get a cheat sheet on how much mass each rocket can hold, depending on the next location’s difficulty.

When you decide to launch into space, you fire off the required rockets for each maneuver. You then go to one of the outcome cards on that research advancement and flip it over. These outcome cards can say success, minor failure or major failure.

These are all the results of the outcome cards. Hopefully, you have more successes than not.

These cards result in different things for each component. If your rocket blows up, then your launch stops. Sometimes you can repair damage; other times, everything blows up and you have to start over again because you didn’t have enough thrust to send you into orbit and you fall from the sky.

This spacecraft resulted in a major failure for me, hence I lost everything. — This spacecraft resulted in a major failure for me, hence I lost everything because I didn’t get past Earth’s orbit and fell from the sky. Womp womp.

You can also pay to remove outcome cards from that research you just conducted, thereby increasing your odds of success on future turns. As your technology becomes more successful, then you can work toward game objectives without suffering mission setbacks. At this point, you can also sell successful technology to other players, so that they don’t have to deal with negative outcomes.

Here are two mission objectives. I like how they're randomly drawn in each game. — Here are two mission objectives. I like how they’re randomly drawn in each game.

Some of the objectives include sending a man to the moon, collecting a sample on Ceres or landing a probe on Mars. They are all worth different victory points. Also, if you don’t prepare and have sufficient supplies for your astronauts or the life-support system fails them (which unfortunately happened to me), astronauts die, and are worth -2 points each in the end.

You can purchase astronauts to send on your missions, and each one has different abilities.

Some missions also require time, so even though it looks like you’re near Mars or some other location, you have to wait a few years to be able to land. To indicate this, you add time markers on your spacecraft. Thus, another player may be able to complete the objective faster than you can if he or she takes a different route.

@idontknowrules got to Ceres, but had to wait 4 years until landing to collecting a sample.

Game play continues each year until all players have no more actions. Then automatic maneuvers happen, and a year passes. The game continues until 1976, and the person with the most victory points wins the game. If somebody gets enough victory points where nobody else can catch up, the game also ends then.

leaving-earth-money — The awesome artwork extends into the paper money.

Lastly, the artwork on this game is gorgeous! I love the retro look and design of this game — it looks straight up from that 1950s era on how the decade imagined the future to be. I’m so glad my friend ran across this game! It’s definitely worth picking up.

And after a particularly sad and heartbreaking week, it’s nice to be able to find happiness in great friends and great board games.

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