One of the most-anticipated games of 2015 is Eric Lang’s XCOM: The Board Game. Not just because Lang is a brilliant designer known for innovative mechanics and asymmetrical play, or because the game is based on the widely acclaimed XCOM computer game series, but because it involves the use of a companion app, fully integrated into the game and a necessary component of it, but still retaining the feel and elements of a cooperative board game. A few games have tried this before, but in most cases, either the app has felt pasted on and unnecessary, or the game would have been better if they had just gotten rid of the board and put it on the computer.

So, did he succeed? It should come as no surprise that the answer is...yes! In XCOM, you are the Earth’s last defense against alien invasion. Each of the four player roles requires resource management, careful decision-making and prioritizing, and no small amount of luck. Players take on the roles of the Central Officer, Chief Scientist, Commander, and Squad Leader as they manage worldwide panic, send troops on missions to fight aliens, assign interceptors to battle UFOs in the skies, reverse engineer alien technology, and figure out a way to pay for all of it. 

Each turn is split into two phases: Timed and Resolution. During the Timed Phase, the app (held and controlled by the Central Officer) will notify the players of their tasks and events that take place – crises that will come up, placing UFOs on specific continents, when to assign defense satellites, when missions become available (and when to assign soldiers to missions), etc. Each task or event is given to one player to resolve, and their timing is important – while the Central Officer has an ability that allows them to reallocate previously-assigned units, using it costs valuable satellite resources.

It’s during the Timed Phase that the genius of the app becomes truly apparent. For example, if there are no UFOs in orbit blocking your communications satellites, then the app will assign attackers to continents before the Commander has to allocate interceptors. On the other hand, as UFOs stack up in orbit, more and more UFOs will be assigned after your defenses are. Meanwhile, the Chief Scientist is assigning scientists to research upgrades, the Squad Leader is assigning troops to missions and to defending your base, and the Commander is trying to fit all of this within your operating budget. Each credit you go over your budget causes a continent to slide further into panic, and not only are panicked continents unable to contribute to your budget later, but if two continents slide into all-out chaos, you lose.

The resolution phase uses an ingenious push-your-luck mechanic. Each task resolution die has six faces – four blank, two successes, and most tasks allow you to roll 1-3 dice (plus occasional bonuses for technology or elite troops), and require at least one success, often more. The odds aren’t good. Fortunately, you can have more than one roll…if you’re willing to risk it! Each time you roll to succeed at a task, you also roll the alien die, a normal 8-sider. If the alien die is higher than the current threat level, you can keep rolling to generate successes, but the threat level (which starts at 1 for each task) increases by 1. If the alien die is equal to or higher than the threat level on the task, you don’t just fail, the task is a loss. Troops and interceptors are killed, and scientists and satellites are rendered unusable for the next turn. 

If you make it through a round without your base being destroyed by enemy attackers, or two continents falling into ruin, then the app will determine whether you’ve unlocked the final mission. The more missions you manage to complete, the sooner you get to the final one. The game comes with several different scenario cards, each with its own victory condition. If you can survive long enough to reveal the final mission and complete it, you have fended off the aliens and won the game. 

With several different scenarios, as well as varying difficulty (in addition to determining how much opposition the app throws at you, the difficulty level of a game determines how much pause time you have available during the Timed Phase of a round), XCOM has a ton of replayability. Your first game will take 2-hours or so, as the built-in tutorial walks you through the different roles and events that you need to familiarize yourself with (and very likely kills you all in the process). At a $60 MSRP (the app is free, available on iTunes and Google Play), the game comes with a ton of plastic figures and cards, all made to Fantasy Flight’s usual high standards.