The main goal of Crafting the Cosmos is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. The game is played in a series of rounds -- each player takes a turn (Energy Phase + Crafting Phase), then a cleanup/end phase happens where universal goals are scored.
Goals
- Surround each nebula with its requested stars (on its corners)
- Surround each nebula with life tokens (on its sides)
- Collect time crystals and discharge them when you get 6 time crystals
- Collect cards of the same type, and trade sets for a special ability of that type, or points
- Complete special objectives (universal goals) that are different each game
Energy Phase
Shift Energy
A player can gain resources by moving marbles ("energy tokens") around 4 board sections ("controls"). They must make 1-3 clockwise moves (moving one section a time), using a combination of your own marble or the neutral black marbles. You must move your own marble at least once, but moving the black marbles is optional. (A marble must skip over a full section, and this still counts as one move.)
Collect Resources
Each section has an "active reward" on its left side, and you gain the reward for the section your marble landed in. (Put stars next to your player board, and increase DNA/Supernova on the track.)
- Light (Red) : Get 3 Red Hydrogen stars
- Time (Green): Get 1 Green Oxygen star + 2 DNA
- Gravity (Blue): Get 2 Blue Helium star + 1 Supernova conversion later this turn
- Chemistry (Purple): Get 1 Purple Carbon star + 1 nebula from the top of any stack
Then take "passive rewards" -- For all marbles (yours, opponents, and black), you gain the resource they're next to -- so in a 4 player game, that's 7 resources. (The order you get them starts with the section your marble is in.) It's possible you won't get any of a particular resource if the section ends up with no marbles.
- Light (Red): Take a card ("energy card")
- Time (Green): Gain a time crystal (or slide an existing time crystal up)
- Gravity (Blue): Gain a graviton
- Chemistry (Purple): Gain a protolife
NOTE: You must finish this phase (taking resources) before you start crafting or taking actions.
Craft phase
In this phase, a player can spend their resources from the Energy Phase to build up their galaxy board. They may take placement actions, scoring actions, energy card actions, and resource slider actions in any order.
NOTE: Any unspent nebulae, stars, and proto life will be lost at turn end.
Placing resources
Nebulae
Turn the nebula elements side up and place it on your board in the hexagon shaped regions. Note nebula with more elements will be worth more points.
Stars
Place stars on the corners of the hexagon region.
Proto Life
Place proto life on the side of a hexagon region, in between the corner spaces that stars use. It must be purple side up, and adjacent to an existing life if possible. (If no life exists, place it on the starting life space.)
Upgrading and moving resources
Supernovas
Decrease your Supernova slider by 1 to upgrade a star into a supernova. Supernovas count as wilds when checking the Nebulae's requirements.
DNA
Decrease your DNA slider by 1 to upgrade a proto life to a stable life. Stable life do not get consumed when constructing advanced life. (See next section.)
Graviton
Decrease your graviton slider by 1 to move a life or star, but not a supernova. Note if that space is occupied, you can continue to an adjacent space (of the same type) for one movement.
Actions
Complete a Nebula
If a nebula's adjacent stars fulfill its requirement, score the nebula's points, discard an adjacent star (including a supernova), then flip it over to indicate it's been scored.
Note: adjacent life tokens are not used in completing nebulas -- see next section.
Create advanced life
If there are proto life or stable life tokens in any combination on all six sides of a nebula's hexagon, you can create advanced life there. Discard the proto life (but keep the advanced life) and place an advanced life token on the nebula. This will be worth extra points at the end of the game.
Discharge Time Chamber
If you have a time crystal on space 6, you can discharge it:
- Gain any basic star token and place it on a star space.
- Move the time crystal to the right most space, and score that many points -- 3, 6, 10, 15, or 21.
- If all spaces are filled, you get the star but not any additional points.
Trade Energy Cards for a Power
You can use any slot on the left side of your board to trade energy cards for a power. To do so:
- Discard an amount matching set of energy cards listed on the slot
- Draw a number of power cards from the corresponding deck.
- Pick one to keep and discard the rest.
The right side of the power card lists additional resources it gives during the Energy Phase. Note you can keep up to 10 energy cards from round to round.
Trade Energy Cards for Points
You can discard 5 matching energy cards for 6 points
Active a power by discarding energy cards
Energy cards can be used to activate many powers, though this depends on the power
End of Turn and Round
At the end of each player's turn, they can take a nebula or stabilize one proto life.
At the end of a round, each goal slides over, and is scored and discarded when it reaches the end. The player with highest of the specified goal gets 6 points, and the second highest gets 3. (Players tied for first each score 6 points and no players score second place. Players tied for second place each score 3.)
Note: A player must have at least 1 of the mentioned item to score a goal; the goal is still discarded if no one has it. Also note supernovas count as a star, but not any particular star.
Game End
The game ends after the end phase if the time crystal tokens in the supply are depleted or if the last universal goal card is scored. Each player flips over their advanced life tokens and adds those victory points to their score track. Whoever has the most points wins. In the case of a tie, whoever has the most energy cards left in hand is the winner. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.
