Planepita
- Board's Eye View
- 24 hours ago
- 2 min read
As is hinted at by the title, the design for Planepita from Eisuke Fujinawa and Kazunori Hori involves planetary conquest. There are rocket-shaped pieces and a board designated as a black hole but, in all honesty, the theme is incidental in this dexterity game where the 2-4 players are flicking wooden discs to land in the concentric circles into which the target planet is divided. In each of the four rounds of play there is area control scoring for the three areas of the planet.
The basis disc-flicking gameplay is obviously a variation on Crokinole but there is more in this game from SzpiLab... For starters, all of your discs are magnetic on their flip side. After you've flicked your disc, you can decide to flip it to its magnetic side provided your disc isn't in the same circle or ring as the black disc that starts off in the centre of the planet. Flipping your disc to the magnetic side effectively locks it in position and can create a barrier blocking other players but the trade-off is that a flipped disc has an area control value of just 1 whereas unflipped discs have a value of 2. At the end of each round tho', before scoring, all unflipped discs in the same area as the black disc are removed from the board and placed on the black hole - the zero-scoring board to which any pieces are relegated if they overshoot the planet completely or are sent flying by a subsequent disc.
This scoring system adds both strategy and excitement to the game. If your flick gives you the option to flip your disc to its magnetic side it becomes a push-your-luck decision on whether or not to do so. In our plays at Board's Eye View we've found players tended to be more willing to take the gamble of leaving their disc unflipped if it's their last or penultimate disc and so with less prospect of it, or the black disc, being dislodged by opponents' discs.
We also liked the scoring mechanism that carried forward scoring tokens for areas where no player scored and/or no player had an area control majority (eg: two players tied in an area with the same total value of discs). At the start of the game, area control of the inner circle is worth 5 points, with 4 points for the middle circle and 3 points for the outer circle, but if there is no area control in the middle circle, it will be worth 8 points in the next round - which may very well affect players' actions.
Since picking up the game at Spiel Essen 2025, Planepita has become our favourite dexterity game because of its clever mix of dexterity and strategy - and with magnets! If you have difficulty finding a copy at your local games store, you can order it direct from SzpiLab at https://szpilab.myshopify.com/products/planepita.
