Abandon Planet – $42 taxes incluses

4-8 players:

From the creator of The Resistance and Avalon, Abandon Planet is a new game about escaping the meteor apocalypse. It’s an experience of survival, betrayal, and fragile alliances in the moments before Earth is annihilated. Anyone who doesn’t want to die on the soon-to-be-burning rock will have to team up with a partner to outfit their janky rocket transport for the interplanetary jump. But everyone’s looking out for number one, and alliances can change at any time.

Every turn, each player secretly decides which direction to send their rocket. They reveal their choices simultaneously, then take turns collecting resources from the board, or stealing them from each other. This would all be safe and pleasant if it weren’t for the deadly meteor that will strike at the end of the round, drastically altering the map and damaging any rockets in its path. One player knows in advance where the meteor will hit, but depending on who they choose to share that information with … well, friends tend to come and go during the meteor apocalypse.

To win the game, you and one other player will both need to acquire enough resources to launch, prep your rocket, then survive for one more round without getting stolen from or blown up. There’s no limit on the number of teams that can pull this off – it’s even possible for everyone (or almost everyone) to win, as long as everyone plays nice. But once the first wave of rockets launch, anybody left on the planet is stuck. The players who made it to space win; everyone else is obliterated by meteors.