As a gamer, I’m ashamed to admit that I played only one actual game at Gen Con 2009. Fortunately, that one game was Eye-Level Entertainment’s E.T.I. (which stands for “Estimated Time to Invasion”).

E.T.I. is a science-fictioned themed card/board game in which players attempt to defend against an alien invasion. Players don’t know when the invasion will happen precisely, only that it’s coming and they need to prepare for it. Each player takes on the role of a corporation which is researching new technologies to help it defend against the impending alien invasion. One of the players is actually an alien in disguise, attempting to gather as many technologies as possible to prevent the humans from getting them.

At the start of play, a number of technology cards are placed face-up on the table. These represent the technologies that players may choose to research. There is always one less technology card on the table than the number of players, meaning that at least two players are always in competition for a technology. Each player takes a marker representing their company name and places it on the technology they hope to acquire.

Players then select an “agenda” card indicating which of three actions they plan to take this turn. They may elect to conduct research, submit their findings, or switch projects.

To conduct research, players choose a number of research cards (which varies based on choices made during the game) and keeps them face down while placing them around the outside of their company score card. These cards represent potential “research data points” that can be used to acquire a technology.

If a player is concerned that an opponent is going to research the chosen technology first, they may elect to switch projects instead of performing research.

If a player wants to collect the results of their research activities, they have two options. The “safe” option gives the player 10 points for each research card in front of them. The “risky” option requires the player to flip over all the research cards in front of them and follow them sequentially to determine the outcome of research. The player may get lucky and turn over several research cards with values of 20, 30, or 50 points (instead of the 10 they’d get the “safe” way). The player may also get unlucky and turn over sabotage cards, or cards which negate the most-valuable research cards after them. A good “risky” submission may get you a technology and “scoop” your opponent out of it. A “safe” submission might result in too few points and allow your competitor the chance to scoop the technology from you.

During the course of play, you’ll draw cards and collect research cards that help you. For example, you may develop the “Analysis” quality, which allows you to peek at some of the research cards in front of you. This can help you decide if it’s better to use the “safe” or “risky” option to submit your findings. You may also develop “Creativity” which allows you to swap the order of research cards around to avoid the penalties of the nastier ones. Or you might increase “Staffing” which allows you to draw more research cards on a turn.

At some point during the game, the alien player will announce that they are the alien. It now becomes a countdown until the invasion happens. During that time, the alien will attempt to thwart the players’ efforts. The humans will desperately try to acquire the last few technologies to defend themselves.

Then, it’s invasion time. Point values are assigned to the technologies each human player has accumulated. The alien player also accumulates points which represent ships in their invasion fleet. The alien then sends ships up against each player and attempts to take them out of the game. The point values of the ships are compared to the point values of the defensive technologies each player has created. If the alien’s fleet has a higher attack value, the player is destroyed. If not, the player survives the invasion and is considered a winner. Among the winning players, the one with the most “fame” (a by-product of research) wins.

There’s more to the game than this, but the above gives you a pretty good idea of the mechanics and strategy.

It took about 2 hours to play through a 4-player game, where none of us had played the game before. I would imagine that subsequent plays would reduce that 2-hour figure somewhat, but I doubt it would get below 90 minutes.

It sounded like a very complicated game at the start, but was actually quite easy once it got rolling. My brother and I played it and found it enjoyable. I reminded us of a “light” version of the Fantasy Flight Games “Battlestar Galactica” board game. We definitely recommend checking it out if you get the chance.