A Message from the Stars Review

Aliens have made contact with humanity. But are these mysterious visitors here to make peace or war? To find out, the two races must figure out how to communicate with one another through clever clues and code solving.

A Message from the Stars is a cooperative game for 2-8 players, with a playtime of 45 minutes.

Gameplay Overview:

One player will act as the alien while the others take on the role of the scientists. The object of the game is for the alien to solve the scientists’ three-word clue and for the scientists to solve the alien’s three-word clue, along with a six-letter cipher. To determine the mystery words, each side draws a message card and rolls the die three times, which will indicate the three words from the card to be used. To determine the cipher the alien draws six letter cards and places them on the slots of their player screen.

Sides then alternate giving one word clues to each other. When the alien writes a clue they also assign a value to their word based on how many and which cipher letters were used in the clue. After reviewing the alien’s clue, the scientists then write their own clue and pass it to the alien who, in turn, calculates its value based on the cipher letters in the word, and passes it back. Play alternates in this way for four rounds. The goal is for each side to give clues related to their secret words, but the alien also wants to incorporate letters from their cipher, while the scientists will use the feedback on their words to help them solve the cipher.

After four rounds each side guesses the other side’s three secret words and the scientists guess the cipher letters. For each correct guess, the players collectively score one point, with twelve being the highest possible score.

There is also team vs. team variant, in which players split into two groups, assigning one player from each team to act as the alien. Each alien writes their own clue and reveals it to everyone, then each scientist secretly shares a clue with their team’s alien. The game lasts for three rounds and the team with the higher score wins.

Gameplay Experience:

This is one of those games that feels like it won’t work, until you’ve played it. In fact, I think the game is best understood after you’ve played on both sides. That means first plays might be wrought with some confusion as players first get their feet wet, but once everyone understands how the game works, the depth and nuance can reveal itself.

While solving the code words themselves is usually relatively easy, the crux of the game lies in solving that cipher for the scientists, and giving the right clues as the alien. This makes for a mostly balanced experience, with perhaps a little more resting on the scientists. In a two-player game, with only one scientist, this can feel like a lot for the single scientist, but I always felt pressure as the Alien, too, to give helpful clues. So neither side is really carrying things. Both sides need to think in multidimensional ways.

As the scientists, not only are you conveying information, but you’re seeking to glean information from the other side. As the alien, you want to write words associated with your mystery words, but also include certain letters—and not always the same ones—from your cipher. Since each group of letters has a specific score quality associated with it, it’s not just about writing a word that includes those letters, but writing a word that includes the most telling letters. There is information to be gleaned both through process of elimination and inclusion. It’s a word game, a puzzly deduction game, and a math game all rolled into one. But for all it has going on, it still manages to be fun.

Going in, I was worried that there wasn’t enough variety in the words on the clue cards, but since the Alien player is always working with different letters in their cipher, each game is unique and dynamic. This is a gamers’ party game. The problem I see with that is that many strategy gamers shy away from party games, and many party gamers play them precisely because they don’t want to have to think too hard. That could narrow the appeal of this game to a specific subgroup, but I happily belong to that subgroup as a huge fan of both party games and strategy games.

Deduction games themselves can go either way for me. It needs to still feel like a game, it needs to have the right amount of interaction between the players to not just feel like a solitaire puzzle, and it needs to be challenging without being so difficult as to drain the fun out. I think A Message from the Stars accomplishes all of that.

I do wish the game had a more robust scoring system. The rules only tell you that 12 points is a perfect score. Does that mean we still win with a score of 10?  Is a perfect score the only way to win, or does any score above zero win? It would have been nice to have a little score chart as we see in games like Just One and So Clover! Or to have a definitive win/lose condition as found in Codenames.

The team play mode does have a definitive win condition (highest score wins), but also has the hurdle of teams needing to communicate without the other side hearing them. However, these are just small nitpicks and certainly not a detriment to the game as a whole. I also have a slight issue with the design of the message cards; numbers next to the words would have made it easier to determine, at a glance, which words are used, and the plastic holder for the cards also somewhat obscures the bottom two words. I do have the upgrade promo set which fixes this issue, but as far as I know, that’s not included in the retail game.

Final Thoughts:

If you like deduction games with a good dose of interaction, cooperation, and mental gymnastics, then A Message from the Stars for you. It’s a solid design, it’s challenging, deep, and multidimensional without taking itself too seriously. But the mental load can, at times, slow players down and it’s possible to mull over a clue for too long, so it might not be the perfect fit for everyone. Don’t play it if you prefer lighter party-style deduction games. Do play it if you like deduction games with some teeth.

Final Score: 4 stars – A stellar deduction game.

Hits:
• Positive interaction
• Good balance of challenging and fun
• Variability from the cipher letters

Misses:
• Potential for analysis paralysis
• Lack of a solid score structure in co-op play