Stella: Dixit Universe

To set up Stella: Dixit Universe, first assemble the two parts of the game board and place it on the table. Shuffle all Dixit cards and deal three rows of five cards face-up next to the board, forming a grid. Place the remaining Dixit cards in a face-down deck. Extract four word cards from the deck, numbered 1 to 4, and form a face-down deck next to the board. Place the four round tokens in their corresponding positions on the board, numbered 1 to 4, with the numbered side face-up. Each player takes a personal board, a marker, and a cloth. Form a stack with the lantern tokens, illuminated side up, ensuring there is one token for each player, matching their chosen color. Place this stack on the starting position at the bottom of the board. Give the scoring board to one player to keep track of everyone's scores. Finally, randomly choose a first player, who receives the first scout token.

The objective of Stella: Dixit Universe is to be the player with the most points at the end of four rounds. Players achieve this by correctly associating Dixit cards with a common word clue, aiming to match the choices of other players to earn sparks and super sparks, while avoiding falling into darkness by making too many unique associations.

Each round in Stella: Dixit Universe consists of four phases: association, announcement, revelation, and scoring. In the association phase, players secretly associate Dixit cards from the grid with the current round's word clue by marking them on their personal boards. In the announcement phase, players announce the number of cards they associated with the clue. If a player has the highest number of associations alone, they 'fall into darkness' and flip their lantern token to the dark side. In the revelation phase, the current scout reveals their chosen cards one by one, and other players confirm if they also selected those cards, earning sparks or super sparks. If the scout reveals a card that no one else selected, they 'fall' and cannot score further sparks this round. The scout role then passes to the next player. The revelation phase continues until all players have fallen or no more cards can be revealed. The final phase is scoring, where points are calculated based on sparks and super sparks earned.

In the scoring phase, players calculate their points for the current round. Each player earns points equal to the number of stars they have completed on their personal board, including any bonus stars. The player assigned the scoring board notes down each player's score. If a player is 'in darkness' (their lantern token is dark), they do not receive points like other players. There are two scenarios for players in darkness: if they did not fall, they calculate their score normally. If they did fall, they receive only one point for each spark instead of two, and must erase one star for each spark or super spark they earned before calculating their final score for the round. However, bonus points from super sparks are still received even if a player is in darkness.

The game concludes after four full rounds. At this point, each player calculates their final score by summing up all the points they accumulated from each round. The player who has the highest total score is declared the winner of Stella: Dixit Universe. In case of a tie, the tied player who has the most remaining lantern tokens (illuminated side up) wins. If there's still a tie, the tied player with the most sparks on their personal board wins. If the tie persists, the tied players share the victory.