Launch Bay Escape

It's been 30 years since the last uprising of the Zraxii Empire was beaten down by the brave troops of the Terra Republic. Applying for the mission with the codename "Elite Peacekeeping Shockwave" sounded glorious at first, but turned out being a little bit dull as patrolling a remote part of the galaxy without any upbeat outposts did not motivate the crew greatly. Instead, one of the most stimulating activities became the weekly BBQ on the electric fire in the dust-heavy unused launch bay, within the protective shield of the XP95 fighter craft. Today's menu included some deep space frozen Milky Way cow meat, discovered on an abandoned vessel near the dwarf planet Taplor 4.

"RRAARRRAARR!" — The ship's alarm was blazing.

Only after a few important wasted moments did the squad realize this was not a test as they found themselves between the run wild XP95 fighter, filled with enough explosives to destroy a small moon, and the marching forces of the until now assumed defeated Zraxii Empire trying to board the ship. Luckily the squad's exceptionally extensive combat training and experience came in handy, if only they had kept up training regularly...

Launch Bay Escape is a ridiculous co-operative game featuring planning that's enriched with a small deck-building mechanism. It's suitable for space soldiers from the age of 10 and takes about 30-45 minutes. The difficulty level is easily adjustable per game as you increase the complexity by adding more and more aliens, obstacles, and madness.

The game is played in rounds. At the start of the game a rectangular game board divided in rows of squares is placed. One end features the launching ship and the starting area for the players, the other end features the Launch Bay exit. All players have their own character sheet and corresponding deck, and all players have their own special abilities, number of hit points and shield. Players start with six cards in their hand. At the start of a round, all players plan three cards from the available cards in their hand, face down. Next, the first card of all players is revealed. All cards show a number, movement options, and special abilities. In order of highest to lowest number, every player follows the instructions on their planned card. When all cards are resolved, the ship moves one row towards the Launch Bay exit and all aliens move once towards the ship and attack. This is repeated for both remaining planned cards. At the end of the round, all planned cards and remaining cards in the player's hand are discarded and a new hand of six cards is drawn. Once damage accumulates, some cards will be planned randomly.

Players can gain experience by killing aliens. Experience enables the players to buy extra cards to add to their deck. In addition, players may find items on the game board, usable only once or multiple times.

The players lose if the ship or all the players are destroyed before reaching the escape pods at the end of the Launch Bay.

—description from publisher