E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Light Years from Home

Designer: Prospero Hall

Artist: Prospero Hall

Publisher: Funko Games

Year Published: 2022

No. of Players: 2–4 (could play solo)

Ages: 10+

Playing Time: 30 minutes

Main mechanic / Theme: Cooperative turn-based / The movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Help E.T. phone home

Find more info on BoardGameGeek.com (hyperlink to BGG)

Overview

You probably know the movie. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you probably know the story. An alien is stuck on Earth, and he needs to phone home. The kids of the neighborhood need to find the bits and pieces of material E. T. can use to create his communication device to call his spaceship.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: Light Years from Home Game is a cooperative game for 2–4 players created by Prospero Hall and published by Funko Games. I received a copy for review purposes.

The game is based on the 1982 movie E.T. the Extrta-Terrestrial (IMDb link). The players are the kids (Elliott, Gertie, Michael, and Greg) who are working together to protect E.T. and helping him to get home. While the players are moving around the board and gathering up what pieces to create a communication device they must keep away from the police and other agents scouring the area.

Setup

The setup for the game is the same no matter the number of players. This is nice if you are hosting a game because you can set up the board without the other players being there. It might seem that by starting the game the same way every time you play you would end up with the same results, but there are several factors that quickly come into gameplay requiring continual adjustment to the strategy you may have started with.

Gameplay

The players start at Elliott’s house. The police have three cars slowly making their way to the forest clearing, and the agents start next to the clearing and are looking to catch E.T. and the kids.

Players have several options on their turn and can take up to three Basic Actions and any number of Free actions. This allows each player to move, gather items, take those items to a place where E.T. can work on the making part of the communication equipment, and move E.T. around the board. When the player finishes their actions, they roll dice that indicate what movement the police and agents (enemies) take. Then it is the next player’s turn.

The players have more options on how they move and what to do with some of the available free actions. While the enemies move only along the roads to get to where they want to go, the kids have shortcuts they can take. When they are carrying E.T. in the basket of their bike, they can also use one of the E.T. Power Cards. And of course, there are also candies that can be used to get E.T. to move from one location to another. The players can also team up on their turn with others if all are willing. This action allows the player taking their turn to use the other character’s ability. (We totally forgot about the characters’ abilities in our first game, and it hurt us.)

The strategy of moving without getting caught by an enemy means the players need to work together. The possibility of enemy movement at the end of each player’s turn means the enemy can move around faster than the players depending on the dice roll. Players can also take Dangerous Actions that add a Danger Die to the other two normally rolled. At the end of a turn, if an enemy is in the same space as any of the kids or E.T.’s spaces, they are caught. This can happen 6 times. The other way the players my lose is if the three police cars make their way to the spaces around the forest clearing and blocking the area off from the players.

To win the game there are several steps the players must complete. I’ve mentioned how players move around the board collecting items. Then they have to drop those items in a designated space so E.T. can make the device. That requires E.T. to be adjacent to the space. Once one item is created, a new die is entered into the game. For the remainder of the game, every turn the communication die, or dice (there are three dice that can be built) are rolled to see if E.T. spaceship is contacted. Signaling the spaceship allows the ship to move closer to the forest clearing.

When the spaceship and E.T. are both at the forest clearing, the players win. It took us several attempts to win, but it was a good challenge and showed there is good replay-ability for the game.

Art

The art in Light Years from Home is reminiscent of the movie. The look is not updated. I’m glad to see they didn’t try to modernize the look. All the enemy pieces are cardboard standup, while the players are modeled plastic. With the colors it made it easy to tell them apart, they avoided using both green and red which is the more common color-blind combination.

The ability to interlock the character pieces was an interesting aspect, but we didn’t really see it as necessary. In fact, it was more of a hindrance because you don’t want to end a turn with two characters on the same space. Some players liked the ability to put the E.T. figure in the basket of the bike.

Light Years from Home is designed by Prospero Hall, which is a group of developers working together. No individuals are listed for the design or the artwork.

Overall

Light Years from Home is a well-balanced cooperative game. It can be won, but don’t expect to every time. There are even rules for making the game easier and harder than normal as you learn your own strategy.

The game is listed for 2–4 players. However, since all players are working towards the same goal, Light Years from Home can be played as a solo game by playing more than one character.

After we remembered the characters had an ability they can use every turn, we did better. It is those smaller details added in that provide the balance to play. Because we missed that it was thought the game was out of balance; the subsequent games removed that notion.

I recommend E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Light Years from Home to gamers who like tougher cooperative games (without any type of traitor mechanic) and those who are fans of the movie.

About the Author

Daniel Yocom does geeky things at night because his day job wouldn't let him. This dates back to the 1960s through games, books, movies, and stranger things better shared in small groups. He's written hundreds of articles about these topics for his own blog, other websites, and magazines after extensive research along with short stories. His research includes attending conventions, sharing on panels and presentations, and road-tripping with his wife. Join him at guildmastergaming.com.