Ok. I think that today's morning insights and the recent events in my life gave we a wider understanding of this dream and how to interpret it.
Universe = board
The cross (as the board's 4 refererral points) corresponds to the 4 universal (cosmic) directions.
The 4 directions emphasis the 4 sun "states" seen from the horizon when on the earth: culminative (south), absent in the lowest point (north) when it's invisible, rising (east) and declining (west).
While we on the Earth usually think of them as inherent to our planet, it is actually the cosmic order: 4 cosmic horizontal qualities. (There are also 3 vertical qualities, in total giving 12 areas known as the zodiac signs in our solar system, but the dream didn't relate to those, so I won't speak of them).
On each level of our being we are shifting towards one of those 4 qualities, having some concepts in our "playground" that attract our attention, moving here or there, toward certain direction. All of these are reflected in the cosmic records, and put into a proper context: the cross reflects this context. (It's important to not judge and compare these 4 qualities, all of them are absolutely equal, these are just we who may value in one time one over the others).
In other words, a lifetime on earth, and the existence beyond it (in the astral soul body), doesn't stay in vain. It has a direct and vivid effect on what's happening in the universe. Our choices from our physical limited perspective seem to be limited only to us: when we do this or that, when we chose this or that, what we do with our lives, all seem to be our independent choices. We don't think about how they affect the universe. But they do. The side-effects of our incarnations go far beyond a single incarnation: they affect the whole existence (the universe, but essentially the other "players")...
Hence that game in the dream presented in the way where "players" were affecting each other.
Our incarnations are just a part of this never-ending (as it was emphised in the dream) "game"...
(And a comment here: the cross is NOT a representation of the zodiac signs circle. The zodiac belt is related to the Earth and the solar system (our local astrological environment). Cross is referring to the universe - the cosmic order.)
Incarnation = game
Before the dream I wanted to know my life purpose. The dream seemed to explain my life in a very wide (i.e. cosmic) context.
The placement on the east at the beginning of the dream surprised me. I recall now that when I was once checking my Chinese astrological data, I had the eastern trigram there. The energy that I have in this life-time seems to confirm that.
This was my birth, and the originally planned way.
The further events and choices in my life have thrown me out from my originally planned life-path. What actually happened, and what cast me off of my true way?
The correspondence with IA56 shined a new light on what happened. The dream explains it clearly: the influence of the northern in quality energies (particularly related to yin and the matter) caused that I've lost a focus on the original two qualities (represented as a tarot-like archetypical cards in the dream). The woman (queen) on the north wasn't a coincidence: this represented women of that material type both in my birthchart and in my life (generally, represented as earth zodiac sign).
Cards = life choices resulting in qualities gained on the higher level
This reveals that there is no destiny as such. There are only "planned suggestions" and "incentives" in our incarnations. We can totally mess this all up, and live totally different way than what was chosen before incarnating into a new life-time.
While dealing with the material world, I got interested in a new subjects. I also moved from intuitive (east) more to logical and concrete (north) approach to the reality. This resulted in loosing my original two cards (archetypes I was willing to develop my personal power - represented by archetypes - in this life time), and interested in another one, which unexpectedly took my all interest recently.
Our minds (egos) are not aware of those pre-birth choices. We have free will to choose the planned life-path - or not, i.e. to do something different from it.
Each important life choice has a hidden universal meaning - the concept or archetype behind it. These life choices are recorded and reflected on the universe's "board", affecting not only our next life-times, not only others' next life-times, but also the existence in the universe as such. They remain with us as the new qualities (powers), which we may (temporary) loose... until we choose differently!
In other words, our life choices do not stay in vain, as I mentioned - in the cosmic sense. Hence whole this "game" with incarnations (roles played - not necesserily exactly the same way as was planned, as is in the theatre), and creating an illusion of time (to be more accurate, actually the time-lines from which we can choose, as our lives go on - and these are infinite in number!).
When we "move" in the universe "board" (the cross), this means that we have cosmically changed our orientation: toward one of the 4 archetypical directions, by making an important shifts in our life-times.
(I wonder whether these 4 directions correspond to the 4 archetypical angels - in brackets I put the directions references found in the internet: Raphael (east), Micheal (south), Gabriel (west) and Uriel (north). In the dream there were 4 figures, each on one corner of the board: I think they were archetypical, symbolizing a pure quality of one of those 4 types, and known under different forms in different mythologies, one of these being 4 angels at 4 corners / world directions)
When we make an essential choice in our life, we are not aware of how it affects (alters) the time-line we then move into. But from such perspective, they do...
Giving the example from my life: when I got more involved into the business and material matters, this was reflected in the cosmic sense - so I moved from my original position at the east into the one closer to the north direction, which represented the material world in the dream.
Our life-time (chosen time-lines in a particular incarnation) depends on our choices in the cosmic sense, and we have the power to change them any way we want to. Lack of awareness of this fact however makes us blind: so we move here or there (reflected as moves on the board in the dream), without understanding the wider context to our lives. I did so in the dream: moving to other spot on the board as a "noobie", not understanding what happened and why did it happen.
The astrological birthchart reflects and suggests the biggest powers playing role in our life-time in the cosmic sense: thy are activated because of the planets' transits, providing mostly this way the cosmic power to alter the time-line (jumping into another time-line - which we from our limited perspective see as an important change in our lives).
The 4 directions (essential 4 elements) and the archetypical concepts act then as a good reference sheet - the criteria against which we may evaluate our lives so far. If we're not happy, we should trust this feeling. The time-line can be changed anytime, and we can start working on this alternate version of our life-path anytime.
My general conclusion is that we cannot make essential life choices blindly. We should first contemplate them thoroughly in order to move into a proper time-line. We cannot base our choices purely on reasoning and logic (as I did in past). We need to trust more our feelings and intuition, as they exceed the restrictions of our daily perspective and go beyond limitations of time and space, as we know them...