Under Falling Skies: A 9-Card Solo Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • 1. Place Dice and Move Ships
  • 2. Resolve Rooms
    • Room Effects
  • 3. Move the Mothership
    • Mothership Symbols
• Game End
• Credits

Components

• 9 cards
• 7 six-sided dice (ideally 12mm): 3 black and 2 white action dice, plus 2 blue robot dice
• 11 tokens (ideally 8mm cubes): 5 green and 2 red enemy ship tokens, and 4 white tracker cubes

The reroll function belongs to the white action dice. The reinforcements are the red enemy ship tokens, held in reserve at the start of the game.

Setup

1. Set up 7 cards above each other to form a continuous image (see the picture on the right in the physical rulebook). This is your underground base, with the mothership track running along the top of it.

2. Set the card with the energy and research tracks where you can easily reach it.

   The cards are double sided, being easy on one side and difficult (with a star icon in the top right corner) on the other.

   For your first game, use the easy side. In subsequent games, you can increase the difficulty by flipping any number of cards to their difficult side.

   Each star adds +1 LEVEL (up to LEVEL 8).

3. Place 5 green enemy ships on the starting spots on the mothership card.

4. Place 4 white tracker cubes on their starting spots (marked with a small white square) on the research track, energy track, damage track, and one on your base as an excavator.

5. Five dice (3 black and 2 white) should be kept nearby.

6. Leave the 2 blue robot dice and 2 red enemy ships aside for now.

Gameplay

Your goal is to develop a weapon to destroy the approaching alien mothership before it gets too close and before your base takes too much damage. You win by getting to the last space on the research track. The game plays in rounds, until you either win or lose.

Each round consists of three phases:

1. Place dice and move ships.
2. Resolve rooms.
3. Move the mothership.

1. Place Dice and Move Ships

At the start of the round, roll 5 dice (3 black and 2 white) and place them one at a time on the available spaces in your base.

White dice have a special function: When you place one of them, you have to reroll all the remaining dice that have not yet been placed.

Each time you place a die, all enemy ships in the die's column descend toward your base. They move a number of spaces equal to the number shown on the die. If the final space has an icon, resolve that effect:

• If the space where the arrow points is empty, move the ship there. Note that a ship that moves to a different column will move again when you place a die in its new column.
• Move the mothership card one row closer to your base. This is bad, because the mothership moves closer. But it gives you some control over the mothership effect that happens at the end of the round.
• The explosion doesn't have any immediate effect when the ship lands on it, but it allows you to shoot down the ship later by activating a fighter with a die of a sufficient value.
• Your base takes 1 damage.

When a ship reaches the lowest space of its column, your base takes 1 damage. Move the damage marker accordingly and put the enemy ship on the mothership card (to be respawned later).

Die placement has a few restrictions:

• Each space can contain only one die.
• You can place only one die in each column.
• Dice can be placed only in excavated rooms, except for one die that can be placed in a room or tunnel to move the excavator. (The space under the excavator is not yet excavated.)

Continue placing dice until you place all five, resolving enemy movement after each die. Then proceed to resolving rooms.

2. Resolve Rooms

Once you've placed all five dice, resolve them one at a time in any order you choose. After resolving a die, set it aside.

Using rooms: To be able to use a room's effect, you have to spend the indicated amount of energy. If you don't have enough energy or you don't want to spend it, remove the die with no effect.

The strength of the effect depends on the value of the die (the higher, the better).

If the room has a modifier above it, the modifier applies to the die when you resolve the room's effect. However, enemy ships descend according to the die's unmodified value.

A room with multiple spaces can be used only if every space has a die. All of the room's effects are resolved with the value indicated by the sum of the dice in the room. If the room has a modifier, apply it only once.

Example: A room shows a −3 modifier, and you need to spend 3 energy and place two dice on this room to be able to use its effect. If you place a 1 and a 6, the total value is four (1 + 6 − 3 = 4), so you would resolve both effects with this value.

Moving the excavator: A die can be placed on a not-yet-accessible space to move the excavator. The die value has to be the same or higher than the length of the route from the excavator to the die, and moving the excavator always costs one energy, regardless of the number of spaces it moves.

So if you spend one energy and the die value is high enough, replace the die with the excavator token, otherwise only remove the die.

Example: To move the excavator ahead 4 spaces, you place a 4, 5, or 6 on the space the excavator moves to. Note that you can place the die even on a tunnel space. Next round, you will be able to use the newly excavated rooms.

Room Effects

• Excavator column (unlike other rooms, this effect applies as soon as you place the die): When you move enemy ships in this column, they move one space less. If you place a 1 here, the enemy ships don't move.

• Energy room: Add the die value to your current energy. If the total is more than 7, set energy to 7.

• Fighter room: Shoot down all enemy ships on explosion spaces that have a number less than or equal to your die value. Put the shot-down ships on the mothership card (to be respawned later).

• Research room: Advance on the research track. To advance to the next space, the die value must be greater than or equal to the value shown on that space. You can advance multiple spaces if the value is at least as high as their sum. (To move through space 3 and land on 1, you need a 4 or higher.)

• Robot factory room: Construct a robot. Take a blue die and set it to the value of this room. Place the blue die in any unoccupied space of any excavated room. This blue die becomes a robot.

  A robot can be used just like any other die during the Resolve Rooms step, once per round, except during the round in which it was placed. After use, the robot remains on the board — decrease its value by 1, and rotate it 45° to show it has been used. (Rotate it back at the end of the round.) You can choose not to use the die, in which case it remains on the board and keeps its value. If you use a robot that is already a 1, remove it instead of decreasing it.

  When placing dice, you still place one die in each column, ignoring the robot dice. You can choose to remove a robot at any time. Robots never move enemy ships.

3. Move the Mothership

• Resolve the glowing symbol under the arrow on the mothership card (see the symbol explanations below).
• Then move the mothership down to the next row. If any ships are in this row, move them to the mothership card.
• Finally, respawn all enemy ships on the mothership card.

Respawning enemy ships: Place ships one-by-one on unoccupied starting spots according to these rules:

• Green ships are placed before red ships.
• Place ships only in empty columns, if possible.
• If every column has a ship, choose a starting spot with the most empty spaces between it and the column's top ship.

If there are multiple options, the choice is yours.

If you run out of spots, leave any unspawned ships to be spawned next round.

Example: (1) The mothership effect places a red ship on the mothership card. (2) When the mothership moves, the green ship in the top row returns to the mothership card. (3) The leftmost and rightmost columns are empty, so ships must be placed in those starting spots. (4) The remaining spots are each the same distance from their column's topmost ships, so the red ship can spawn in either spot.

Mothership Symbols

• Skull/damage symbol: Your base takes 1 damage.
• Excavator-back symbol: Move the excavator the indicated number of spaces back along the track. (Remove any robot dice in the way.)
• Research-back symbol: Move the tracker on the research track back the indicated number of spaces.
• Reinforcements symbol: Put one red enemy ship (if available) on the mothership card. The red ship works the same way as a normal ship, except that if it's shot down, it will be put aside instead of being respawned.

Game End

You can lose the game in two ways, either when the mothership descends to cover the skull symbol, or when your damage marker moves to the skull symbol on your base.

You win if you get the research marker to the last space of the research track.

Credits

• Game Design: Tomáš "uhlík" Uhlíř
• Illustrated by: Kwanchai Moriya

Based on the successful Print & Play version, Czech Games Edition (CGE) went on to release a boxed edition of Under Falling Skies with new graphics, miniatures, a campaign mode, 20+ unique cities, and game-changing missions.