Starlight is live (Starlight, Starbright)
Update: Starlight is live on Kickstarter, and the campaign will run for 24 days. The are two pledge tiers: one for the game with standees, and one for the game plus the Ships of Starlight miniature expansion.
Our preview post below was published on March 14.
Starlight is a 1-4 player cooperative sci-fi narrative adventure game scheduled to launch on Kickstarter on March 17. It will come in two versions, one with minis and one with standees. The game comes with a 50-hour campaign plus extra Raid scenarios that you can replay to gain more upgrades for your character and ship.
You start the game by selecting your character and your spaceship, and taking the character's modifier deck (this is a deck of cards similar to the ones used in the combat system of Gloomhaven). You also take the colony ship standee, the Sparrow, and place it on a map card. This is used for a mini game of space exploration that you get to play alongside the main game. When the Sparrow moves to a new area, it may do a scouting action, or perform upgrades and repairs, or fight an enemy. You have to consult the designated section in the accompanying scenario book.
When you are engaged in combat, your ship will have to face the enemy ships on the main board. Combat is performed by rolling five dice and assigning them to actions. Depending on what you roll, you may attack, move, or move and attack (if you roll 'stress' it acts as wild, but increases your stress level). You place the dice on the appropriate sections on your player board, and if you attack, you draw a modifier card to adjust your attack result. The enemies then perform their own attacks: you flip a card from the enemy deck and execute its instructions (they have a modifier deck for their attack results as well).
Starlight also has world exploration which happens when you send your squad out to explore a planet. Each planet has its own exploration deck that you get to gradually reveal. As soon as your crew moves into a new location, you have to read the equivalent paragraph in the scenario book to see what happens. You will get to investigate the regions, find items, do skill checks or fight to progress the story.
You may check the Kickstarter preview.
I'm hoping the various scenarios don't drag it down too much. This would be my first slightly story driven game. I guess I will be seeing what I think about this type of game play with this one.
It doesn't seem to have a ton of pieces, yes. Combat looks fine. I don't like the choose-your-own-adventure part with the storybook, to be honest. After Tainted Grail, I decided that I don't want another narrative game.
I've been on the fence with this one, I think it goes right up to my limit of how many fiddly pieces I'm willing to deal with. But after watching the gameplay videos, it looks like all the components are put to good use without overwhelming rules. And thankfully, there's an option to buy in without having to get a legion of minis.