The Stars Align in This Two Player Star Laying Game Played On a Bag

Fill the sky with your stars and put your own stamp on the constellations, to win more shooting stars than your opponent.

The Stars Align is a two-player game that takes up minimal table space and is played on top of the bag it comes in.

Gameplay

To set up the game, take out all the components, flip the bag over, and lay it flat so that you see the seven-by-seven grid of squares. The game is played on this grid. The deck of constellation cards is shuffled and the game begins.

During the first phase of the game, players take turns drawing constellation cards. Each card shows a pattern of connected stars, and you must recreate this pattern by laying down stars in your color onto the grid. You may not overlap the other player’s stars during this phase. This continues until there is no legal way you can place your stars without overlapping. You then move onto the second phase, during which you may overlap up to three of your opponent's stars during your turn. In this case, the overlapped stars are turned over to your own color. If you overlap your own stars, these stars are flipped over to your opponent’s color.

The goal of the game is to fill a column or row with stars of your color. When you do, you take a point token and remove all the stars in the scoring column or row. The first player to five points wins the game.

Review

The Stars Align is a light-weight strategy game, with a beautiful aesthetic laid across its abstract gameplay. The packaging is clever and makes it really portable. All you need is the bag and a little space for the cards and tokens.

There is a lot of player interaction as you choose when to block your opponent or when to push to fill out a row or column. There’s a fun spatial element, as you mentally figure out the best place to lay the stars. As you can only overlap three of the other player’s stars in one turn, you can easily end up having to overlap some of your own — as the grid fills up this leads to fun choices about what to sacrifice.

The components are quite attractive, though the stars are a little too light, and can be easily knocked around on the bag. If they had a little more heft to them, this wouldn’t be a problem, though we did like the fact they were made from wood and the cards are pretty sturdy.

The Stars Align is a fun two-player game, with fast turns and interesting choices. It’s especially good for travel or if you want something to play at a restaurant or small table.

Pros: Great for travel, very light rules combined with interesting choices

Cons: It is fairly easy to accidentally shift the stars on the bag

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.