Astro Lander

Astro Lander

Designed by: Marceline Leiman

Play as space truckers harvesting resources from asteroids across the galaxy and hauling them home. In an act of friendly competition, you challenge one another for who can deliver the most valuable cargo!

For two players.

Setup

  1. Separate out one set of 3-6 in each colour, and lay them out face-up in a grid. These are contracts.
  2. Shuffle the remaining deck and deal each player 3 cards; place the deck in the middle of the play area to form the draw pile, which is also the port.
  3. Flip 6 asteroid cards creating a circle with the draw deck (port) to form a ring. The centre of the ring (currently empty) is reserved for the discard pile.
  4. Determine a starting player randomly, or whoever last delivered something.

Gameplay

Players will alternate taking turns, starting with the starting player, and continue until the draw deck runs out for the third time.

On your turn, perform one of the following actions:

Lastly, if necessary, draw back up to a hand of three cards. Then your opponent begins their turn.

Build a harvester.

Harvesters must be built before you can harvest resources from asteroids.

Add cards from your hand to your harvesters, following these placement rules:

  • Harvester cards played in a single turn must be the same number.
  • Each harvester is a single column of one colour, placed in front of you.
  • Each harvester must be ordered with cards in a sequence from low to high; the sequence may have repeated numbers or skipped numbers. For example: 1-1-3-4 is an acceptable harvester sequence.
  • If you play multiple cards (remember, they must be the same number), they do not need to be the same colour, but they must all follow the low-to-high sequence rule for placement.

A harvester will generate a number of resources equal to the number of cards the harvester has, each time you harvest an asteroid. In the above example image, harvesting from a red asteroid would generate one resource, white would generate three, and black would generate two.

Harvest an asteroid.

Fly to asteroids to harvest their precious resources, but you must have harvesters to take full advantage.

  1. Discard one or more cards that add up to 6 or less to fly to an asteroid.
    • The total of the cards played will be used to move that number of spaces clockwise from port. Below, we’ve played a 4 to move to the fourth planet.
  2. Gain resources from a harvester matching the colour of that asteroid (if any).
    • For each harvester card you have that matches the colour of the chosen asteroid, take 1 face-down card from the deck and tuck it horizontally under that harvester. Below, our black harvester has two cards, so we take two resources.
    • Each harvester can carry any amount of resources.
  3. Take the asteroid card itself into your hand.
  4. Add a new asteroid from the deck in the empty spot.

Deliver to port.

Fly to port to deliver resources and fulfill contracts!

  1. Discard two or more cards from your hand that add up to 7 or more to “land at the port”.
  2. Discard resources from one harvester equal to the number on a contract of a matching colour to claim it.
  3. Place the contract card near you.

Contracts grant points equal to their value at the end of the game.

Game End

When the deck runs out on a player’s turn, shuffle the discard pile back into the draw deck. The game will end the third time the deck runs out. If you need additional resource cards on that final turn, you may use any cards in the discard pile.

When the game end has triggered, the current player finishes their turn. Then, starting with their opponent, players take turns fulfilling any contracts they can, using their remaining resources, one contract at a time. Then perform the following:

  1. Discard any leftover resources and cards in hand you have not used.
  2. Collect all cards remaining in your harvesters, flipping them facedown; each is worth one point.
  3. Collect your contracts, keeping them face up. Add up their value to total their points.

The player with the highest score is the winner. In the case of a tie, the player with the most valuable total harvester cards wins. Otherwise, share the victory.

More games for the Dice Deck