Gamehelpastra

In Astra, great gods, legendary heroes and magical creatures live in the night sky’s Constellations. You and your fellow players will take on the role of astronomers to discover and bring them to life.

On your turn, you will collect and spend Stardust to mark stars, discover and collect Constellations, and earn various Boons and Abilities granted by the discovered Constellations. Additionally, you will also gain points for your efforts in exploring the night sky. Whoever has the most points by the end of the game wins.

Gameplay

On your turn, you can activate abilities then you must choose between observing or resting.

At the beginning of your turn, you can activate any abilities depicted on your unexhausted Constellations, in any order. Once you have used an ability, the corresponding Constellation is exhausted.

Note: Exhausted Constellations can be reactivated by the Rest action or with a Boon of Reactivation.

Observing

When Observing, you can spend stardust to mark stars of undiscovered Constellations, spending 1 stardust per marked star.

If there were no marked stars on the undiscovered Constellation you want to observe, you must first mark the Constellation's starting star. If there were, your first marked star can be any star adjacent to a previously marked star. Then, you may mark an additional star that is adjacent to the star you have marked immediately before it. You may continue marking adjacent stars as long as they are directly connected with a single white line to the star you have just marked and you have Stardust to spend.

Whenever you mark a Grand star, you instantly gain 1 Wisdom. Wisdom will allow you to have more discovered Constellations.

You may take additional Observe actions, at the cost of spending 1 telescope token per extra Observe action.

Resting

When resting, first you must take as much stardust from the general supply as you need so that you end up with as much stardust as the current size of your Pouch.

Then, you must reactivate your discovered Constellations which have the element symbol matching the position of the marker on the active sphere.

Finally, the element marker moves to the next element symbol, in clockwise order.

Discovery Phase

At the end of your turn, if you had marked the last remaining star on Constellations, those are considered discovered. If multiple Constellations are discovered, you can choose in which order they are resolved.

Any other player who helped discovering the card, by previously marking stars on it, can pick one of the boons depicted at the bottom of the discovered card, starting from the player who had marked the most stars, then in descending majority order. A boon cannot be picked again if another player already picked it earlier.

You, who discovered the Constellation by marking the last star, do not get to pick a boon. Instead, you place the Constellation card face-up in front of you, giving you an ability to use in future turns. New Constellations are drawn from the deck to replace any discovered card.

If you end up having more Constellations than what your Wisdom limit allows, you must discard down to your Wisdom.

Game end and final scoring

The game ends when the Constellation draw pile is emptied. If the first player triggers the endgame, everyone else play one last turn. If someone else triggers it, you then take turns until it is the first player’s turn, finishing the current round. Then, every player takes one last turn in one final round.

You then score points for:

• Pouch size: score points equal to the number above the rightmost marking on the Pouch size track
• Card limit: score points equal to the highest number marked on the Wisdom track
• Leftover Stardust: score 1 point for every third stardust remaining in your Pouch
• Marked stars: score 1 point for every second star you have marked across all the undiscovered Constellations
• Active Constellations: score points equal to the Final Scoring value shown on each of your Active Constellation Cards
• Element sets: for each element type you have constellations for, score 2/6/11 if you have 2/3/4 cards with the same element symbol. Also, score 6 points for each set of 4 different elements or 3 points for each set of 3 different elements
  • Note: you start the game with 2 random elements for final scoring purposes, represented by the +

Additional Rules for 2 players

When you play Astra with 2 players, a dummy 3rd player (Dreamer) is added, which marks undiscovered constellations when a player rests.

Rest

On the round marker, there is a number from 1 to 4. When a player rests, they must mark with the Dreamer color a number of stars on an undiscovered Constellation equal to the round marker number. The logic for selecting the stars is as follows:

• If there is a Constellation that has no marked stars yet, you must mark that one (if 2 or more are tied, current player picks).
• If all the undiscovered Constellations have at least 1 marked star on them, select the one with the highest number of stars (if 2 or more are tied, current player picks).

Discovery

If a constellation is is discovered, and the Dreamer dummy player finished the Constellation, no player receives the card. If the Dreamer did not receive the Constellation but had more stars marked than the player who did not receive the Constellation, the Dreamer always takes the 2 left boons.