You are a young astronomer that has been tasked with charting the various constellations in the night sky, but... you don't know what a Cassiopeia or an Orion are, so you decide to create your own!
This game was developed to accompany my Master's Dissertation, where the objective was to start the design from the illustration and to incorporate astronomy in the gameplay. The game was a BGG (Board Game Geek) page where the files can be downloaded from, alternatively the games can be downloaded from here, a Portuguese version of the game can be found here.
The goal of the game is to compete with other players and be the first one to complete their Celestial Chart. There are different sizes of charts and each requires a different number of constellations to be te complete, both a pattern recognition game and dexterity game, since it works on the players fine motor skills.
First iteration of Hydra's "Sky Cards" with the idea for Stitch the Stars
Instead of the starting point for this game being an illustration in the traditional sense, it started from the Sky Cards from Hydra's Voyage. After looking at the component for a long period of time and being stressed with the task of writing a dissertation, a new game started to appear in the illustrated component, one where the players had to create their own constellations.
From the Sky Cards it is possible to come with ideas for a game where the players use starts to create constellations, but for this to work there are two main changes that need to be happen, add more stars and remove existing clutter.
The gameplay and the mechanics
The objective of the game is compete with the other players to be the first one to complete their Celestial Charts. If playing solo there are two ways to play, the first one is trying to add as many constellations as possible inside their Celestial Chart with the constellations sharing stars, and the second possible way is using a timer to still have a sense of competition.
There are three difficulties that are translated in the sizes of the Celestial Charts in which the players can use, the small one that hold one constellation, the medium one that holds two constellations and the large one that holds a minimum of three constellations.
At the beginning of the game the players choose which size they want and distribute the corresponding one to each of the players, shuffle the Constellation Deck and draw the corresponding number of cards to the complete the chart. After that the players do a count down and start stitching at the same time!
The game aims to work on the players fine motor skills by having the players thread a needle and performing small movements to stitch the constellations. Originally the game was only going to be played with a needle and embroidery thread, but that brought up the situation if children would play the game they could easily chock on the needle, to combat that issue, the Celestial Charts were adjusted to be allowed to be played with a shoelace or with a plastic needle and yarn. Since the idea of the game was to be print and play, the players also have the option to use a pen if they don't want to prep the components for stitching.
Draw a card
The players draw the corresponding number of cards from the Constellation Deck to the number required by the Celestial Chart. The same card s used by all players to keep the game fair and balanced.
Small Chart: 1 Card | Medium Chart: 2 Cards | Large Chart: 3+ Cards
Stitch!
The physical action that the players are doing to complete their charts. With this action the players are also managing a finite resource, in this case a shoelace, yarn or embroidery thread.
Add to the deck
The game has the option for the players to draw their own constellations and add them to the Constellation Deck. The decision to add this to the game was to invite the players to be part of the design process and create a feeling of a more personal game.
the art
The illustrated component that kicked off the design process had a simple black and white style, and that was transported to the final product, not only to represent the origins but also because it added to the narrative of the game. If the narrative is about young astronomers filling their own Celestial Charts with constellations that they created, it made sense to attempt translating to the visual language of the game.
This is represented with hand-drawn illustration featuring imperfect lines (that some times is shaky), and a manuscript type of on the written elements of the game (expect the rules).