The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars game review

The Little Prince board game — The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars is fun for young kids.

Are you kids familiar with the story of The Little Prince?

If so, here’s a great game for you to check out — The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars.

The modular game board allows players to reconfigure the route among the clouds differently each game. And kids will enjoy moving their plane from cloud to cloud on their way to The Little Prince’s planet.

The game also has a unique way to determine play order which will change throughout the game.

Overall, it’s an intriguing game that’s great to get kids thinking in new ways.

How to play The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars

Pick your color. Get your plane and set of cards.

In The Little Prince, players race to The Little Prince’s planet and compete be the Aviator with the most Stars collected along the way.

Set Up

To set up the game, players first select a color and takes their set of 8 Fox cards along with an Aviator Helmet of their color. The cards are numbered from 1 to 5.

Players then construct the track. The 3 cloud pieces can be placed in any order and can differ from game to game. Separating those cloud pieces are connecting pieces.

Next to each connecting piece, the players randomly add 6 Story tiles. Four of those tiles are placed face up on one side of the track and 2 are placed face down on the other side of the track.

At the end of the track is the Little Prince’s planet with 5 Paper Plane tiles around it (each with different number of stars). The Grand Father’s house goes at the beginning of the track and the player planes are all randomly stacked to begin.

Taking a Turn

Unlike many other games, in The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars turn order is not set. Throughout the game, the player whose plane is the furthest behind is the one whose turn it is. If more than one plane is on the last position, the player whose plane is on top of the stack goes first.

At the start of the game, all planes are stacked. Thus, the player whose plane is on top will go first.

On a player’s turn they will choose one of the cards in their hand to play. Then they’ll move their plane along the route of clouds up to the number indicated on the card they played. They have to move at least one space.

After moving, if that player’s plane is alone on a cloud, they apply the effect of the cloud (if applicable). There are 4 types of cloud spaces:

Blank: Nothing happens.
With a Star: Take the number of indicated Stars from the supply.
With Birds: Take the top card from the Grand Father pile. (These have higher movement numbers as well as special movement abilities.)
With a Telescope: Flip one of the face down Telescope tokens and apply its effect. (These will grant or take away Stars or let a player steal Stars from other players.)

If after moving, a player lands on a space where there is already a plane, they place their plane on top of the other plane/s and take a card from the hand of the player that arrived just before them. Then they hand that player a card of their choice from their hand.

Cloud icons don’t apply when other planes are already on that space.

When a player crossing a connecting route piece they choose one of the Story tiles next to that connecting piece. They can either choose a face up or face down tile. They keep the chosen tile and will score the Stars on it at the end of the game.

The connecting pieces are not cloud spaces so players don’t stop. They continue to the next cloud icon.

Since the numbers indicated on a player’s starting set of cards are not enough to reach then Little Prince’s planet, players must try to gain cards that will grant them more movement during the game.

If at the beginning of a player’s turn they don’t have any more cards in hand, they can either discard one of their Story tiles to move up to 5 cloud spaces or they can simply remove their plane from the race.

Removing it from the race doesn’t necessarily mean they will lose. They’ll just have to wait until the end of the game to add up their Star score.

End of Game

The first player who reaches the Little Prince’s planet take the Paper Plane tile with 6 stars. The next player will take the Paper Plane tile with 5 stars and so on until every player has either reached the planet or removed their plane from the route.

Players then add up all the Stars they have collected from Star tokens, Story tiles, and Paper Plane tiles.

If a player has collected the two tiles with The Little Prince and the Fox will score 8 Stars instead of 2 Stars. This is because when placed together, there will be a central Star with the number 6 on it. Add that to the single Stars showing on each tile for 8 points.

The player with the most Stars wins the game.

Can the whole family enjoy The Little Prince?

The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars is a great game for families with young kids!

The recommended age is 6+ and is a fantastic way to introduce young kids to board games that engage their mind differently.

Yes, it’s a race. But it’s not a simple roll and move. Players aren’t rolling a dice or flipping over cards to see which space they’ll advance to.

Players have complete control on how far the move by which cards they play. Players all start with the same set of cards. So the only variability is when players play different cards.

The turn order is also a new concept to introduce to younger players. Instead of just going in clockwise order, the player with the plane further behind will be the one to play. This is great for kids because they won’t feel like they get left behind. They’ll never feel like they’re too far behind to catch up.

Granted, to get bonus stars or cards, players will want to land on spaces without other planes already on them. Likewise, players who cross the connecting pieces first also get to choose the more valuable Story tiles. So this will tend to have players wanting to be near the front.

While players have control over their movement, there’s still an element of luck in the game because of the Telescope tiles. These are the face down tiles that can either add or take away Stars from players.

So families with young kids can enjoy playing The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars together.

How does The Little Prince score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

The Little Prince: Rising to the Stars doesn’t score high on our “let’s play again” game meter simply because our kids are now all teenagers.

Because of the way players move and take turns, there was plenty of competitive and fun jockeying for position throughout. But there wasn’t a demand for repeated plays.