OBJECTIVE OF STARLINK: Players or teams are trying to win points by getting the other teams to correctly guess what constellation they are drawing. Better still; get the constellation to fit into the telescope to earn extra points.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 3 to 6 Players
COMPONENTS: 1 dry erase board, 2 dry erase felt markers, 100 constellations cards, 1 telescope card, 1 sand timer and a rulebook.
TYPE OF GAME: Party Card Game
AUDIENCE: Ages 8 and Up
OVERVIEW OF STARLINK
Starlink is a game that draws out creativity. Players are astronomers trying to draw constellations using only straight lines to connect the stars on the board while the others try to guess what the drawings are.
SETUP
Place the game board in the middle of the play area.
Place the shuffled deck of constellation cards in a face down pile close to the board.
Place the sand timer close to the board.
The player sitting closest to a window is chosen as the first player.
GAMEPLAY
The first player picks up the first card on the top of the deck and decides which of the two words shown to draw, making sure that none of the other players see the card.
They then flip the timer, choose a star to start from and begin to draw.
They are only allowed to use straight lines to link the stars in the drawing of their picture, no curved lines are permitted.
If the need arises, they can erase all or part of their drawings as far as the timer is still running.
The player stops drawing when the timer runs out whether they have finished their drawing or not.
If the players run out of space to draw, on their turn they can erase a constellation of their choice to create space for their drawing.
SCORING
If in the course of the game, a player thinks they can guess the drawing before it is finished, they indicate this by picking up the timer (without turning it over) and placing it in front of them and then they say their answer.
If their guess is correct, the illustrator stops drawing and writes the name of his choice of drawing beside the drawing. The player who gave a correct answer alongside the illustrator earns the number of points indicated by the encircled stars on the card drawn. Points are marked by pulling out the same number of cards from the deck of cards in play and keeping them face down by them.
If their guess is wrong, they are temporarily frozen from the game until another plays indicates their wish to answer by taking the timer and placing it in front of them.
If the guess of the other player is also wrong, the player who was frozen first is then allowed to try guessing again. This continues until a correct guess is made or the timer run out.
If the timer runs out and no correct guess is made, no point is earned and the drawing is cleaned off the board.
If the drawing can fit entirely into the eye of the Telescope card, both the illustrator and the player who guessed correctly earn an extra point each and draw a card each from the deck to mark that point.
END OF GAME
Once every player has had the chance to be an illustrator twice, the game ends and the cards earned are counted and points totaled to determine the winner. Player with highest points wins.
If there is a tie, the tied players share the victory.
