Apollo: Race to the Moon

Apollo: Race to the Moon is an asymmetric 1-2 player game, playable in around 90 minutes, covering the US-Soviet space race from 1955 to 1970. One player controls NASA, funded by a congressional dollar budget, while the other runs the Soviet space programme on political will — the approval of Khrushchev and later Brezhnev.

Both sides are racing to land a cosmonaut or astronaut on the Moon before their opponent. Players take turns recruiting scientists, developing technology, and building rocket programmes across light, medium, and heavy lift vehicles. Each turn, players play cards to fund work actions — allocating specialists to advance guidance, life support, docking, and lunar operations technology, or to improve their rockets through research and quality control. Missions are resolved by rolling dice: the colour and number of dice depend on the rocket, the mission type, and how well-developed your technology is. A failed mission sets your programme back; a catastrophic one can kill your crew and cost you dearly.

Prestige points are scored for historic firsts — first satellite, first human in orbit, first spacewalk — with the Moon landing itself worth the most. The player who lands a crew on the Moon wins outright; if neither does, the player with more prestige at the end of Turn 8 takes the victory.

The US is more organised and methodical, with stronger testing infrastructure. The Soviets move faster but live dangerously — their industrial automation gives them unique advantages, but their programme depends heavily on key personalities whose deaths can reshape their entire strategy.

—description from the designer