soft landing v1.0 (2009)

soft landing is an abstract strategy game about the global haves and have-nots, with two possible endings: Players either work towards technology that brings about a new era of peace and prosperity, for which only one player gets the credit (and victory points), or it is every nation for themselves, trying to have the most hoarded away when the final collapse comes.

Basically, people are competing for score and each player is a "nation" (geopolitical entity like "North America"). It is designed for 3-6 players, but there is a 2-player variant, and the rules are such that someone who has played it can explain it quickly to new players.

soft landing is a trade and resource management game, but the trick is, different players are going to be trying to end the game different ways, and everyone has a different starting score. The European Union has good production numbers, but only starts with 3VP. Africa, not so good on production, starts with 12VP, and there are regions that start with up to 17VP. Obviously, Africa wants the game to end sooner, while it is still ahead, and may try to force Catastrophes. The EU wants the game to last longer so it can develop New Era tech, and will be trying to abate Catastrophes.

You need to provide for the needs of your people, and if you do not, you generate "stress", which accumulates in a central location. The type of stress depends on your nation.

For instance, on a production roll of "5", Africa generates one Tech, one Industry and one Resources. If it does not acquire some Reserves or Lifestyle by the end of the turn, it will generate (from left to right, Political stress, Health stress and Population stress (fyi, the panda is Environmental stress). Each of these stresses has a little holding area on the score track where all the tokens accumulate until bad things happen...

Each nation also can use its production to buy special abilities, which are generally what you use to mess with other players. For instance, Africa has good production numbers for "Resources" and might have a surplus, but need "Industry". Another player might have Market Manipulation, and use it to drive the "sell" price for Resources down to zero, screwing over Africa. Or, a nation with a Military could take existing stress tokens and rearrange them. When enough stress builds up, bad things happen (minor or major Catastrophes), and whoever has the most of their tokens in that zone takes the blame (and loses VP). Your Military is not actually attacking another player, you're just taking existing global stress and shifting it around to get yourself out of a jam, blame someone else, or both. Your turn consists of production, using abilities, trade, stress and investment, each of which is a very simple action, so turns move pretty quick.

soft landing has some superficial strategies and some more subtle ones. If you play looking only out for yourself, odds are that someone else will pass you by limited cooperation with another player.