Introduction

For those of you who had the unfortunate experience of playing the poorly programmed Buzz Aldrin’s Race Into Space back in the early 1990’s, Liftoff is the board game it was based off of. The computer game never gave much in the way of satisfying results or much fun, courtesy of a lengthened game, wonky crew capatability rules and an amazingly bad random number generator. Liftoff is a surprising antithesis to the computer game and holds the old adage that the original is usually the best.

The Game

Liftoff is a board game that simulates the race to the moon, starting in the late 1950’s and going into the 1970’s you could go long if your game is going very poorly or are playing a historical China. Instead of a two way race to the moon it is a four faction race, though in practical experience up to six can play the game and it still be enjoyable. Heck making up your own chits based off of Australia, South America, Romans, etc can be fun. The games normal factions are the USA, Europe, Soviet Union and Asia. All factions are the same, there are no inherent perks or different equipment options. The configuration of missions is all about weight and usually your method for getting to the moon will dictate what rocket program(s) you buy and research.

The race to the moon is complicated and serious business and is done in steps. The start is getting a satellite in orbit, then a manned suborbital, then a manned orbital, etc. However you have the option of skipping steps, but that penalizes your safety factors. What are safety factors, you ask? Those are the numerical values of your various parts of your space program (e.g. capsules, lunar modules, mini-shuttle, kicker, rockets, EVA suits, etc). These are increased via three ways; research, random events and practical application. As your program progresses each success (even if you are not the first) gains a budgetary award to buy equipment or research equipment. As equipment is rolled against its safety factor it can go up by 1 percent per mission, though that is usually capped at 98% for most systems and the research maximum is usually a few less percentage points. Ergo to gain the maximum safety factors a component of your space program must be used in a mission. The only caveat to this is if the mission ends up a catastrophic failure the system that caused the failure goes to its base safety factor, which can set a player back a few turns and open a window for another faction.

As mentioned above there are random events in the game. Each random events card has an event and usually a budget increase or decrease. Usually the lower your budget is the more likely you will get a budget increase, if you have a high budget the opposite occurs. In the events you can lose astronauts, take hits to safety factors, steal or give technology, fortunate accidents or lastly have mandated missions or political directives (military build up being a bad thing and a leader’s promise to get to the moon a good one...unless you fail).

Each turn starts with adjusting your budget and collecting it. Then random event cards are drawn and the effects noted to your budget, technology or mission planning. The research is bought and rolled for (up to five six sided dice per turn for a percentage based safety factor). After research is done missions are declared for the next year (in order of highest budget, so lowest always gets first crack). After declarations are made for the next year the current year’s missions are attempted in order of lowest budget, missions can be rushed, but for each month it costs 1 megabuck and 1 percent for the safety factors…not counting any penalties from random events or skipping steps. Then finally, liftoff! Each mission has different criteria and must be noted when declaring the mission, simple missions require few rolls against fewer systems…more complex ones require more rolls against more systems. To get from the Earth to the Moon requires more than 25 rolls to succeed…and even if you are playing it safe and have 98% on average maximum safety factors it is still likely there might be a misstep. When that happens, usually your crew gets a saving throw which is based on their experience. Should that fail then it is off to a cavalcade of charts that get into gritty detail on the failure. Not all is bad when diving into the charts…sometimes the problem will resolve itself, other times the mission will be a failure with a chance for the crew to continue home. Oh yeah they can also all die in some terrible manner.

The Stuff

If you judged Liftoff by the quality of its components you might come away disappointed. Inside the box are:

Rule Book

Random Events Cards (cardstock)

4 Nation’s Cards (astronauts, equipment, declarations, etc on colored cardstock)

Game Board (glossy paper)

Dice

The biggest disappointment is the game board which given it is simply glossy paper and used throughout the course of the game can show wear and tear very quickly. More so as it has to fold in half to fit in the box and the crease can wear it down even faster. The cards for the nations and random event cards hold up alright as they are card stock.

Commentary

Liftoff is obviously an extrapolation of a very complicated subject and for the most part it gets it right. The nice touch is there are lots of ways to get to the moon and accomplish the goals in between. Unlike the US space program usually your route to the moon is an early decision in the game. The staged approach like NASA did (Mercury then Gemini and lastly Apollo) does not usually work within the game until you have had success in missions or random event cards that you can afford to go back and buy secondary systems incase what you met success with has a catastrophic failure. But with lots of options in Liftoff from 4 rocket types, 3 lander types and 4 capsule types and the other sundry technologies there is pleasant variety and none of which is a guaranteed success as even under optimal conditions getting to the moon is tough to do…especially if the dice gods are frowning.

Liftoff favors some risk taking as the rewards for the early stages of space flight are very rewarding and can kick start a program into a higher gear. But the tactic of going with a super expensive and reliable system and biding your time while the other factions fight it out over first satellite and man in orbit is also a valid tactic. There is a slight game design flaw as one of the steps that is easy to skip to in the unmanned lunar satellite or probe, which negates over half the steps a nation has to take. That mission obviously has no astronauts at risk and many of the manned missions can be skipped even if your country has no manned mission experience. The saving grace to this design flaw is that usually it is the countries doing super expensive systems (mini shuttle or mega-capsule) that have to take this route.

My group has added some house rules to make up for some deficiencies in Liftoff. Research and launches are done twice a year, though the same budget is only collected once. Reentry has an added 5% to the safety factor. Also we have added new rewards for the first type of a rocket launch (an Apollo 3 stager is impressive!), some new missions (first woman in space) and tweaked the rewards table for 5-7 players instead of the normal 4.

Liftoff is a game I love, given I have been playing it a few times a year for almost a decade (usually on the anniversaries of the first and last moon landings). It is also I game I hate sometimes because my dice rolling is fickle and I have never managed to win Liftoff.

The nations in Liftoff all being the same might raise the hackles of some purists or those looking for a slightly deeper game. I think it would have been interesting to make the Soviet rockets more powerful but their equipment heavier…or their penalty for catastrophic failures less severe. The US could have lighter equipment and slightly better safety margins. The Europeans and Asian factions could have some mix of the two or they play it straight. This would make the international mission cooperation more difficult as sharing equipment might not always work within the weight constraints of Liftoff.

Summary

Liftoff is a fun and accurate extrapolation of the space race and worth shopping the used and out of print market if you are interested in space. Liftoff is also the singularly most difficult board game I have ever played as winning it is a challenge but the rules remain accessible to most gamers.