Packaged to look like a retro Space Invaders arcade machine from the 1970s, Camden Games' Shape Invaders is bound to trigger bouts of nostalgia from older players. The design of the plastic mothership and other pieces also offer a nod to Taito's classic arcade game. Slightly younger players will have come across the same iconic designs in the blocky graphics of early console games: even those not old enough to have played Space Invaders on an arcade machine will have encountered the game in one of its later Atari or Nintendo console versions.
Camden Games previously published Asteroid Dice, which was only very loosely inspired by the Asteroids arcade game, but with Shape Invaders they have gone further in the direction of transcribing Space Invaders into a tabletop dexterity game. The rules for this two-player game couldn't be simpler: flick your pieces at those of your opponent with the aim of eliminating your opponent's pieces.. Players each have a mothership, six aliens and four shields in their own colour. They lay these out in whatever positions they choose within their third of the table. Players then take turns flicking either one of their aliens or their mothership to hit an opposing piece to try to knock it off the table. Pieces displaced from the table remain out of play, except that if a mothership comes off the table it can be swapped back in place of one of your remaining shields. When an opponent's shields have all been eliminated, knocking their mothership off the table wins you the game.
That's the entire rules, so Shape Invaders is a game that's immediately playable and by anyone old enough to flick the plastic pieces. There's scope for tactical positioning as you try to use the shields to give some protection to your mothership and avoid leaving your pieces perilously close to the table edge, and if you're reckless or brave, rather than protect your mothership you can go on the offensive with it to use its additional mass to hit out at opposing pieces. At the end of the day tho', Shape Invaders is a frenetic flickfest. And if you want to make it even more frenetic, you can try our chaotic 'house rule' variant of abandoning 'turns' and allowing players to flick any of their pieces at whim, with the only restriction that you can't flick a piece that's already in motion.
Either way, Shape Invaders is a super fun dexterity game. Do you think Colonel Sanders would object if we described Shape Invaders as 'finger flicking good'? We featured Robert Murelli's Four Elements on Board's Eye View back in 2017. That was a very similar dexterity game where you were flicking various shaped plastic pieces, tho' that was primarily played with four competing players. We suspect that, in addition to the Space Invaders nostalgia boost, there's more mileage in a two-player head-to-head dexterity combat game. And if you do want to involve more players, then you can easily organise your own local Shape Invaders league or knockout cup...
Shown here on Board's Eye View is a preview prototype of Shape Invaders ahead of the game's launch on Kickstarter on 8 October. It's a 'travel edition' in that it comes with a little zip bag to take all the plastic components. The Arena edition will include a net to fit around your table to catch pieces before they fall to the floor. The Table Topper neoprene play mat is an optional extra: it's certainly much more finger flicking friendly than a hard tabletop and the KS is due to include an option with integrated UV lighting! Click here to check out the Shape Invaders KS campaign.