Solani and The Girl Who Made The Stars are live (Two Pillars of Creation)

Update: Solani and The Girl Who Made The Stars are live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 21 days. You may back either of the games or both.

Our preview post below was published on March 22.

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Final Frontier Games is launching a Kickstarter campaign for the first two games in its new “Pillars of Creation” series, Solani and The Girl Who Made The Stars, on March 24. “Pillars of Creation” focuses on creation myths from all around the world, with each game building on a specific myth. According to the company, cultural consultants have been employed to ensure that the games are consistent with and respectful of the cultures that these myths come from.

Solani is a 1-4 players drafting and tile-laying game, played over 12 rounds. You will be drafting tiles of two types: planets (round tiles) and cross-shaped tiles to fill the gap in between. These cross-shaped tiles show “links” that enable you to connect the planets with each other to form constellations. You get points by fulfilling a variety of conditions depending on the patterns you build on your personal board.

Image source: BGG

The game is inspired by the Navajo creation myth, as presented in the Diné Bahaneʼ. In this story, men decided to place stars in the sky. To do so, they laid a blanket on the ground and placed scintillating mica rocks in it, in a specific, elaborate pattern. Then, they took the rocks one by one and hanged them at the corresponding location in the sky. However, Coyote grew impatient with the process and shook off the blanket, scattering all the stones into the sky. This is why the patterns of the stars are not ordered as was planned. Similarly, in the game, you place the patterns of stars onto boards that are made of textile.

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The Girl Who Made Stars is also a 1-4 players tile placement game. You are drawing constellations to guide the villagers so that they can collect a variety of resources. Resources earn you reputation, that is victory points, that you must gather to claim victory at the end of the game.

Image source: Final Frontier Games Facebook

The game is inspired by the San myths of star creation. The San people are especially renowned for their rock paintings which have been inspired by these tales. According to the myth the game is based upon [1], a young girl was hungrily watching her mother roast !huin roots in the fire. Upon her mother's refusal to give her the tasty roots, she grabbed them and hurled them into the sky. The roots scattered in red embers, forming the stars, while the ash they were covered with formed the Milky Way. In another version, she threw the roots in the sky to make the stars. By some accounts, it seems that the Girl very deliberately threw the roots up in the air to make the stars and the Milky Way, so that her people could safely return home at night, an idea that has been woven into the game.

Unfortunately, not enough gameplay information on either game is available, so we have to award our seal of disapproval.

[1] See Specimens of Bushman Folklore, collected by Bleek & Lloyd, published by Daimon, if you want to know more about it. You can access it for free here.

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