Astraios Starlight
- Board's Eye View
- May 4
- 2 min read
In Astraios Starlight, from Phantom Lab in Japan, players are creating constellations in a night sky. Designed by Kotori, this is a tile-laying game for 2-4 players, albeit that with four players the rules suggest it's played as a 2 vs 2 team game. Astraios Starlight is a reworking of an edition of Astraios that was first published in 2016.
The 60 tiles in the game variously show one or more small stars, a larger named star or just the lines connecting stars. Players always have a hand of three tiles and, on your turn, you play one of these to the central tableau representing the night sky. Tiles can be orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to those already in the tableau but the lines must always connect. Players are trying to create constellations by enclosing areas. Do so and you can place one of your eight 'nebula' tokens to mark your ownership. At the end of the game, when all the tiles have been played, players score their constellations according to the the number of stars in them: 1 point for each small star and 3 points for a larger named star. The only additional rule is that after an opponent completes a constellation, you have the option to reposition a previously placed tile instead of placing one from your hand. Obviously you can't move a tile that's already in a constellation.
Gameplay then is intuitively easy, tho' it's relatively unusual for a tile-laying game to allow diagonally adjacent placement. It's not unusual for a tile placement to result in two enclosed constellations being formed, in which case you're at liberty to claim both. Watch out tho' because you only have eight nebula tokens so you want to make sure you have them available to claim higher scoring constellations: it's easy enough to close off areas comprising just a couple of tiles but it's unlikely these will have stars in them that score you more than 1 or 2 points.
The game is played with open hands, in that each player's three tiles are laid flat on the table so you can always see what tiles other players have. That means you can play tactically, knowing whether or not another player can take advantage of your tile placement to complete a high-scoring constellation. That's particularly the case if you're playing with just two players, which is where Astraios really shines.
Oh, and this game really does shine - quite literally! The tiles are printed in luminous ink so that the stars glow in the dark. It's entirely incidental to the gameplay but it's a nonetheless rewarding bonus at the end of the game to be able to dim the lights and see your constellations glowing.
