Leaving Earth in Review

I just don’t make it to game night very often...

Read more...

Yeah, their online page is a strange patchwork of stuff.

I've seen two people indicate that their copies have just sent a shipping notice, leading me to believe that Lumenaris has gotten new stock in to sell. So the game may not be as difficult to pick up as it was.

Sounds a lot like High Frontier. I love the board in High Frontier, but I found playing the game to be a slog. It sounds like Leaving Earth might have a cleaner rule set that is easier to learn.

Yeah, let's not dig too deeply into High Frontier. I wrote a 10,000-word diatribe on its rulebook that is best left where it lies.

But -- the quick response to this is that at times Leaving Earth can be downright hilarious. In spite of the sanguine theme and setting there's a real opportunity for things to go wrong in ways that a lot of gamers may not be comfortable with. Each launch is a risk. If it's not, you're not doing it right. You have to press your luck, and the rules specifying that your funding is use-it-or-lose-it puts a pretty solid incentive on going earlier than you're ready for. That's all well and good, but it means shit is going to blow up, and you have to be comfortable with that. Some gamers won't like this. I hope that comes through in the article.

So there's a lot of arithmetic in this game and I'll recommend a notepad for each player just to help them keep is straight. But there's still a lighthearted aspect to it because failure is baked into the design. You're going to fail and fail plenty. That's ok. When you make the big run and pull it off it's that much sweeter.

I played this years ago. It can be hilarious and I’d definitely give it a try (but just one) while I will never play High Frontier.

We use the word “pure” in this hobby from time to time. Ascension is a pure deckbuilder, Intrigue is pure negotiation. Leaving Earth is pure math. Yes, that’s pretty thematic and it had some hilarious moments, but I also spent the afternoon doing more scribbling arithmetic than anything else. It’s certainly interesting and no doubt has an audience, but it was more of an “experience” than a game for me, and not one I want to return to.

So Josh, what's your opinion of Terraforming Mars or Scythe? Similar? Less math but equally procedural from my perspective.

I’m very much not a fan of Terraforming Mars. Scythe, that one is a bit more complicated. I didn’t like it, then I did, but the micro-turn ultimately did it in for me. Just sold my copy off, I’d be happy to never see it again.

To clarify, this isn’t a game that I failed to see the appeal. I totally get it, and as I said, the math is immersive. But that math dominates the design. It’s like 90% math, 10% playing the odds, if you’ve left any odds to play. That’s going to be fine for some people and it still had entertaining moments in my case. But I’m in no rush to spend my precious little fun time doing it again.

Are we talking addition? Multiplication? Or something more complicated?

Space Ghost wrote: Are we talking addition? Multiplication? Or something more complicated?

Addition and multiplication of very small numbers, but a lot of them. It's not hard math, it's about organizing your thoughts on a ten step process.

RobertB wrote:

Space Ghost wrote: Are we talking addition? Multiplication? Or something more complicated?

You're talking to the wrong guy, that's probably well within Space Ghost's skillset.

Damn sure not in my skillset anymore. Only higher math I know now is ∫(1/cabin) dcabin = log(cabin).

It's a houseboat. Don't forget the "+ C".

(a math dad joke notable for being in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, too)