Laura-2 (1984)

Two to six family tribes from the planet Laura get bored with their own planet and set off to find a bigger and better home in outer space. Not much later, they all descend on an unspoiled planet which they call Laura-2. The land grab and inter-tribal bickering starts as soon they settle into, and on to, their new home.

A simple abstract placement game for 2-6 players that is played in two phases. In the first phase players scatter their 18 tribe members and 2 item counters (a throne and a private saucer) on to the circular planet's surface. In the second phase the Lauranians will swap places until one tribe manages to get all family members unified into one single group that includes their own flying saucer and chief's throne.

In the settling phase, the first player places one counter in the defined central area of the board, and each subsequent player places one more settler as the previous player next to other Lauranians on the board, until all counters have disembarked. In this phase, no tribes may form a family group larger than 4.

In the relocation phase, in turn, each player will swap two tiles as long as they contain one own family member and the 2 tiles are lying in a straight line on the board. But a family member that is part of the tribe leader's group, including the tribe leader, can only be prized away by swapping it with another tribe leader. When you move your tribe leader more than once, you unnerve the other families, and each other tribe leader will see one of their own people take shelter under the tribe leader's throne, making it much easier for them to keep their family together.

The flying saucer can be used for one of two special moves that replaces the normal swap-2-tiles turn. One is to lift it up and move it in a straight line to land on an empty space besides a friendly tribe member. The other is to beam a family member in a straight line on to an empty field besides the saucer.

Throughout the game, no move is allowed that would leave the entire Lauranian split into two groups at the end of a turn.

Publication history: this game appeared in Spielbox magazine (2/1984 apr-jun), as one of the earlier entrants in the "Spiel zum Herausnehmen/Game to Remove" series.