MLEM Space Agency (Board Game)

In MLEM: Space Agency, you want to place your “catstronauts” on planets and moon throughout the solar system — and if they happen to venture beyond the Oort Cloud to the Milky Way at large, so much the better.

Each player in the game has a team of eight cats, each with a special power. Each turn, one player is the lead and places a catstronaut of their choice from their remaining crew on the spaceship, after which each other player does the same.

The player then rolls six dice, and (ideally) chooses all dice of one value that matches a listed value for the spaceship’s current location. On the starting space, for example, you can choose 1s, 2s, or comets. You move the spaceship ahead equal to the sum of the chosen dice, then decide to either abandon ship — placing your catstronaut on the moon or planet next to your space — or keep moving ahead. Each other player can abandon ship as well, assuming that space exists. (Each moon can hold only one catstronaut, for which that player receives a fixed amount of points, whereas planets can hold any number of catstronauts, with points being awarded at game’s end based on majority scoring.)

If the lead catstronaut abandons ship, the next catstronaut on the ship becomes the lead. Eventually either all catstronauts on the spaceship will have found a new home — possibly even on a comet exiting the Oort Cloud — or the lead catstronaut will fail the die roll, sending everyone on board back to Earth.

When all eight catstronauts of one player have been sent into space, the game ends.