Ad Astra

About this board game

Ad Astra is a space exploration and development game for 3–5 players, with games lasting about 60 minutes. Guide one of five human factions as you explore the galaxy, exploit resources, terraform planets, and create advanced space colonies.

Each faction represents a human race adapted to different planetary conditions. During your journey, you may also discover artifacts left by a long-lost alien civilization and use them to your advantage.

Every round unfolds through three phases. In the planning phase, players place action cards face-down on empty spaces of a shared planning board. Once every space is filled, the cards are revealed in sequence, and all players may carry out the corresponding actions.

1. Planning: Place action cards face-down on the shared board.
2. Actions: Resolve each revealed card, with all players able to perform its action.
3. End of round: Return the action cards to players’ hands before beginning a new round.

The available actions include production, movement, building, trade, and scoring. Produce resources on matching planets, move starships by spending energy, and use resource cards to build colonies, factories, starships, and terraformers. Resource cards can be traded with other players or the bank, while scoring cards reward particular game elements.

The owner of each action card gains an advantage when it is resolved, such as choosing which resource is produced or which game element is scored. Ad Astra ends when a player reaches at least 50 victory points or all planets have been discovered. The player with the most victory points wins.