Stargazers

Ages: 5 to 8
Players: 2 to 4
Time: 10 to 20 minutes

Components

• 16 Board Tiles -- red, orange, blue & green colored shapes of crescent moons, ring planets, stars & comets.
• 48 Cards -- 3 of each color/shape combination
• 30 Glass Beads

Setup

Shuffle the tiles, face-down, on the table. Arrange them in a 4x4 grid, then flip them over. You'll have a board that looks similar to this:

Put the beads near the board, where everyone can reach them.

Shuffle the deck and deal three cards to each player, face down. Then place the deck near the board, leaving room for a discard pile.

The youngest player goes first with gameplay proceeding clockwise.

Rules

During your turn, you play a card from your hand and then draw a new card.

Playing a Card

When you play a card, lay it in the discard pile then find the tile on the board with the matching shape and color. If there is not a bead on that tile, place one there. Otherwise, skip to Drawing a Card.

Placing a Bead

Take a bead from the pile and put it on the empty tile that matches your card. If that bead makes three or more in a row on the board, you get to score! You may claim any row horizontally, vertically or diagonally. If you are able to make more than one row with the same tile, you score for all the rows!

When you make a row, take all the beads off of those tiles and keep them near you. Your score is kept by the number of beads you capture. Note: it doesn't matter who places the beads on the other tiles you claim. All that matters is what you are able to claim when you play.

There is a bead on the Orange Planet and Green Comet. If you play a Green Moon card, you'll be able to place a bead on that tile and capture all three beads!

There are three places where a player can score here! If you place a bead on the Red Star tile, you'll capture that bead as well as the beads on the Red Comet and Blue Moon. Placing a bead on the Orange Moon means you'll get to capture the beads on the Blue Moon and Orange Planet. Finally, placing a bead on the Blue Planet tile means you collect that whole diagonal!

Placing a bead on the Green Moon makes two rows! You get to collect all the beads from the Red Star, Orange Star, Orange Planet, Green Moon, Green Star, and Blue Planet -- for a total of six beads! Note that even though the Green Moon counted for two rows, you still only get one bead for that tile.

Drawing a Card

At the end of your turn, draw a card. If you run out of cards, reshuffle the deck.

If you scored during this turn, you get to take another turn! Otherwise, pass the play to the left.

Winning

The first player to capture ten beads wins!

Variations

• If adults are playing as well, try letting the children have one more card in their hand than the adults.
• Stargazers is a game that plays quickly. Consider playing to a number of won games, or change the number of beads needed to win.
• Very young child version: Instead of having a hand, just flip the top card of the deck over and play that. Redraw if there is already a bead on that tile. Otherwise, the play continues normally.

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