Wouter & Ymke 
Far beyond Earth, different alien factions are fighting over control of a drifting planet somewhere in space. Players launch their little alien crews onto the surface using cardboard launch pads, trying to control the most valuable areas before everyone else ruins their plans. Some aliens stay exposed for more power, others flip over and magnetically attach themselves to the planet for protection. Meanwhile, the jammer slowly moves around the board like some angry space vacuum cleaner, pulling exposed aliens into a black hole at the end of the round.
That little jammer causes way more problems than we expected.
Planepita is a small dexterity game for 2 to 4 players that mixes flicking, area control, and light tactical decisions into short rounds full of tiny disasters. At first, it looks like one of those games you casually pull out between heavier titles, and to be fair, it still kind of is. But after a few plays, we realised there is more going on here than just flicking discs around and hoping for the best. Even people at our table who normally zone out during rules explanations were already launching aliens after only a couple of minutes.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 15-30 minutes
📝 Designers: Eisuke Fujinawa & Kazunori Hori
🎨 Artwork: Mizuki Toyama
🏢 Publisher: SzpiLAB (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The setup is pretty simple. Every player gets four alien discs and a launch pad. The planet board itself is divided into three scoring areas worth different amounts of points, and over four rounds players try to build the strongest presence in those regions.
Each turn, you launch one alien disc onto the board by flicking or swiping it from your launch pad. Once your disc lands, you decide whether to leave it face up or flip it face down. That choice becomes the centre of the game very quickly. Face-up aliens are worth more points during scoring, but face-down aliens magnetically stick to the board, which makes them harder to move.
There is one important restriction though. If your alien lands in the same area as the jammer, you are not allowed to flip it face down. That means those regions become naturally risky because everyone is forced to stay exposed. The jammer itself also moves around the board during play whenever discs collide with it, so the dangerous areas constantly shift during the round.
At the end of each round, every face-up alien in the jammer’s area gets removed and dragged into the black hole. Which means sometimes you spend an entire round carefully building up a scoring position just to watch your aliens disappear into space five seconds before scoring.
After that, players count power in each region. Face-up discs count as two power, face-down discs count as one, and whoever has the most power wins the scoring tokens in that area. If players tie, the tokens stay there and become more valuable next round. That part works nicely because tied regions slowly turn into areas everybody starts fighting over.
After scoring, the discs come back, the jammer returns to the middle, new scoring tokens are added, and the next round starts.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
Planepita has a very clean look on the table. The whole game uses bright blues, turquoise colours, rounded shapes, and simple alien designs that make everything easy to read during play. Some people may prefer highly detailed sci-fi artwork with giant ships and explosions everywhere, but the simpler style works better here because the board never feels cluttered or difficult to follow once discs start piling up.
The planet board itself looks like a glowing world floating through space, with coloured rings clearly marking the scoring areas. It catches attention immediately without trying too hard. The alien discs are probably the most important part of the production, though. Each disc has a colourful alien sticker on one side, with a magnet hidden underneath that sticker. When you flip a disc face down, the magnetic side connects to the board and suddenly becomes much more difficult to move. Not impossible, but difficult enough that you instantly notice the difference while playing.
The magnets also matter far more than we expected. We have all seen games where a “cool feature” feels more like a gimmick than an actual gameplay system. Here, the magnets genuinely change how you approach positioning and defence, so they never feel unnecessary. Flipping a disc over feels like committing to that position and hoping nobody finds a way to ruin your plans anyway.
The launch pads also deserve a mention because they are oddly charming. They look like little cardboard rockets surrounding the planet, which gives the whole table a playful look without becoming childish. Then there is the jammer itself. A black disc with one giant eye that basically spends the entire game annoying everyone equally. In a way, it might actually be the most relatable character in the game.
Nothing in the production feels cheap or unfinished, which matters a lot for a game where every flick depends on physical feel. If the board surface had too much resistance, or the magnets felt weak, the entire experience would probably fall apart pretty quickly. Luckily, the copy we played felt smooth straight away, and after a few rounds everybody at the table was already trying increasingly risky shots they absolutely should not have attempted.
Our Experience
Planepita became more interesting after the first couple of rounds. At first, we mostly treated it like a chaotic flicking game where funny accidents matter more than strategy. But slowly, the positioning decisions started standing out more, especially once everybody understood how important the face-up and face-down choices really were.
What surprised us most is how much restraint the game rewards. Big aggressive flicks look exciting, but careful shots usually worked better at our table. Small nudges, tiny adjustments, and soft collisions ended up deciding scoring far more often than wild attacks across the board. There were several moments where somebody tried to completely clear an area with one huge flick, only to accidentally launch their own alien off the planet instead. Those mistakes usually became the funniest moments of the session.
The jammer also changes the flow of the game more than we expected. Nobody ever feels completely safe because exposed aliens can disappear right before scoring. We had several rounds where somebody looked fully in control of a region, only for the jammer to wipe out half their exposed aliens at the last second. What we liked is that this uncertainty keeps players involved the entire round. Even when it was not our turn, we kept watching every shot because one small collision could suddenly change the whole board.
The scoring system deserves some credit too because tied regions slowly become huge targets as extra scoring tokens pile up. That naturally creates contested areas without the game needing extra rules to force conflict. One round, everybody completely ignored the outer area early on, only for it to become the most valuable place on the board later. Suddenly all four players were fighting over the same tiny section of the planet while the centre area barely mattered anymore. We did not expect the scoring structure to create those shifts naturally, but it worked really well.
Player count also changes the feel quite a lot. At three or four players, the board becomes crowded and messy in a really fun way. There are more collisions, more interference, and more chances for plans to collapse unexpectedly. At two players, the game feels more controlled and positional. Not bad, just different. The game has more personality with higher player counts because the board changes more often and players interfere with each other constantly.
We also ended up appreciating the last player token more than expected. Going last is genuinely useful because you get the final adjustment before scoring, but the restriction attached to that alien keeps it from feeling too strong. It is one of those small rules that quietly stops turn order from feeling unfair.
Nobody spends long staring at the board trying to calculate ten moves ahead. People react immediately, plans change constantly, and the game naturally creates those moments where somebody celebrates too early before watching their entire scoring position disappear seconds later. That is where the game worked best for us. It kept the table involved from beginning to end without becoming exhausting or overly chaotic.
Our Thoughts
Planepita never feels confused about what it wants to do. Everything stays focused on positioning, timing, and deciding when to take risks. That clarity helps a lot because new players understand the core idea almost immediately. Face-up discs are stronger, face-down discs are safer. After one round, most people already understand how risky they want to play.
What really helps the game stand out is how naturally the mechanics and theme fit together. Launching aliens onto a planet, attaching them to the surface for protection, and watching exposed crews disappear into a black hole all feels surprisingly coherent for such a small dexterity game. It never feels like the game added extra rules just to sound more interesting on the back of the box. Everything points back toward the same central idea.
At the same time, some players will probably bounce off it. The game still depends heavily on precision, and sometimes tiny movements decide everything. If somebody already dislikes dexterity games, this probably will not suddenly convert them. Some groups may also end up wanting more variety after repeated plays, especially players looking for deeper long-term strategy.
Still, the game benefits from understanding its own limits. It feels completely comfortable being a small interactive filler instead of trying to stretch itself into a larger strategy game. The magnetic system helps the game stand apart from most other flicking games, the jammer keeps rounds unpredictable, and the scoring carry-over helps each round feel connected to the next one instead of resetting completely every time.
What surprised us most is how often people wanted ‘just one more round’ after the game ended. Even players who normally do not care much about dexterity games kept trying to line up better shots and fix mistakes from earlier rounds. We can easily see this working well for groups who enjoy flicking games and do not mind a bit of friendly interference and ruined plans along the way.
Even if your aliens occasionally decide that floating endlessly through space sounds like a better life choice.
📝 We received a copy of the game from SzpiLAB.
