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Choose your difficulty — bonus points are added to your total score
Mission rules
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I Assessing the situation Overview Situation · Objectives · Components · Key concepts ›
You are a team of astronauts aboard the Lunar Explorer, a mining vessel dispatched to the moon. Moments ago, the spaceship was struck by an unexpected meteor storm — inflicting critical damage, overheating the mainframe, and triggering the emergency drain protocol.
To survive, cooperate to unlock rooms and navigate the damaged vessel. Your primary goal is to rescue your astronauts by evacuating in the escape pod — but the oxygen module must first be upgraded. Try also to repair communications, and optionally secure dark matter, moongold, and complete a full search of the ship before evacuating.
Objectives
Components
Key concepts
The deck consists of room cards and item cards. Room cards are either undamaged rooms (green border) or damaged rooms (red border), plus the escape pod.
All cards in the deck share the same back — the Drained side. Many room cards will be flipped to this side during the game. Astronauts may never move to a drained room.
Astronauts may upgrade item cards by placing them beneath their astronaut card. Maximum 3 upgrades per astronaut.
II Setup Preparation Room tiles · Cards · Player tokens · Starting positions ›
Setup
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A
In a 2-player game, remove one Mainframe B card from the deck. Deal one astronaut card to each player.
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B
Place one Workshop, one Airlock and one Energy control card on the table. Place all three astronaut miniatures on the Airlock. Place Moongold and Dark matter on the Mineral supply (top of the box).
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C
Set aside the Escape pod and Meteoroid cards. Shuffle the rest and deal cards up to each player's hand limit. These cards are called a player's Hand.
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D
Return the set-aside cards to the deck. Shuffle again and deal into three equal piles — the drawpiles. Place one drawpile face down behind each room card from step B.
III Command brief Rules Play area · Drawing · Draining · Drain protocol · Instant effects · Escape pod ›
Play area (3 × 10)
When a new room card is played using the Unlock action, the card must be played into an open space adjacent to an already unlocked room. The open space must be inside the play area — 3 columns formed by the setup and at most 10 rows.
Drawing cards
After playing a room or item card from hand, draw one card from the drawpile in the same column as your astronaut miniature (or the Solo player miniature in a Solo game). If that drawpile is empty, draw no card and reduce your hand limit by one for the rest of the game.
Draining a room
Draining a room means flipping a room card in the play area to its opposite side — the Drained side. The room is then no longer available for movement. All rooms enter the play area undrained (face up) via the unlock action.
Instant effects
The instant effect icon (⚡) may be found on both room-, item- and mission cards. The Drain Protocol rule also has an instant effect that must be resolved. Full effect descriptions are in the appendix.
Drain protocol
As a safety installment, the Lunar Explorer has been programmed to drain all compartments in case of a hostile takeover — to ensure that valuable technology and minerals are not seized by interstellar rivals. Time is now a scarce resource.
Before the end of the countdown you must drain one Airlock. If you fail to do this, you have been defeated by the game.
Escape pod
The escape pod can only be unlocked next to one specific door in one of the three control rooms — the door marked with the escape pod connection icon.
Once the Escape pod is played, players may no longer draw new cards.
Astronauts may not enter the escape pod without first upgrading the oxygen module to their spacesuit. Once any number of astronauts evacuate, the game ends and victory is declared for all players.
IV Tactical operations manual Actions Move · Unlock · Upgrade · Load/Unload · Special ›
This chapter explains how to play the game, and how to execute the six available actions.
Players take one action at a time, in clockwise order, until Game End.
In a 2-player game only, the third astronaut is the Crew member. On your turn you may act with this astronaut instead of your own — but only two actions are available:
ACTION: Move your astronaut or the crew member to a new room following these rules.
An astronaut MAY MOVE to an adjacent room with a green border OR from an Airlock to another Airlock.
Astronauts MAY NOT move to a room with a red border and the Safety required icon, unless they have upgraded the EVA module.
Astronauts may NEVER move to a Drained room.
ACTION: If requirements in the top-left corner of a room card are met, any astronaut adjacent to an open space may assist in unlocking a new room. Place the room card from hand into the open space, then draw a new card.
Meet the requirements. If the requirement is a drain icon, a room must first be drained. If it is a production icon, the appropriate astronaut must activate production by standing on a room of that type.
Assisting astronaut. Any astronaut adjacent to any open space may assist in unlocking the door. Place the room card in that open space.
ACTION: Place one module (item card) from your hand beneath the spacesuit section of your astronaut card. You may also use the upgrade action for another astronaut in the same room. Then draw a new card.
A player may upgrade no more than three modules to their astronaut.
Modules can never be removed.
Modules can only be upgraded using tools found in certain rooms.
Spacesuit module — upgraded in a Workshop. Provides the astronaut with a new ability and allows hand management after the upgrade action.
Container module — upgraded in a Storage. Provides the ability to carry two minerals per container.
Oxygen module — upgraded in a Cryogenic lab. Allows the astronaut to safely travel with the escape pod.
ACTION: If your astronaut has upgraded one or more containers, you may take this action to either load or unload minerals. This action can also be taken by the crew member.
LOAD one or more minerals from a storage to one or more upgraded containers. A container can hold up to two minerals.
UNLOAD one or more minerals from one or more equipped containers to a storage. A storage can hold any number of minerals.
ACTION: Spend (permanently discard) one moongold from a container equipped by any astronaut in the same room to perform one of the following:
Undrain — Only the Technician T may use this in a Workshop to flip one drained room back to its undrained side.
Discard — Only the Engineer E may use this in an Energy control room to discard one card from hand and draw a new one.
Scry — Only the Physicist P may use this in a Control room to reveal the top card of all remaining drawpiles until end of turn.
V Mission debrief & scoring Game end Victory conditions · Scoring · Game ranks ›
Game End — This chapter explains how to win or lose the game. If you claim victory, this chapter also provides a guide to decide your score and rank your overall performance.
The game has one goal — to defeat you. If you decide to give up, or fail to drain an Airlock before the end of a Drain protocol countdown, you are defeated.
If any number of astronauts evacuate in the escape pod, the game immediately ends and victory has been achieved for all players.
VI Captain's log & appendix Cards & components Reference cards · Event cards · Item cards ›
Content coming soon…
Crew
Assemble your crew — scores log for all members
