Moon: Deluxe Edition

Moon depicts an almost plausible rush to construct lunar bases that are attractive places to live and work for the people of Earth. The most prestigious base will become the new lunar capital!

The game employs the familiar ”pick & pass” or ”hand drafting” mechanism for players to select a new structure cards to add to their base. Each hand of cards represents a convoy of experts and equipment travelling between the players’ outposts, giving the player the choice of one new construction each turn. In a new twist on the genre, each hand always contains one of a number of ”Expedition” cards that grant a special free action every turn before passing on to the next player.

Wooden lunar rover tokens are a neutral resource that add a worker placement element to the game. They are also used to break ties and so must be used with care.

Over the three distinct eras of the game, players compete for majority in 5 aspects of their bases: housing, transportation, science, industry, and food production. At the end of each era, the leader in each of these areas as determined by flag icons on their constructed buildings, collects bonus victory points.

Each game also features a number of randomly selected ”Reputation” cards which provide one-time or ongoing bonuses for the player who meets the requirement and claims the card.

Moon is a game of pick & pass card drafting where you’ll develop infrastructure & resource production as you build up your base over three eras. The aim is to have the most popular base by the end of the game.

You’ll compete with the other players (or the solo AI) for valuable Reputation cards, and for bonuses at the end of each era. To aid your endeavours, Expedition cards move around the table giving a free special action to every player each turn, and your moon rovers can visit your opponents’ bases to gather extra resources for you.

In a game of Moon, players will choose one card from their hand and then pass the remaining cards to the player on their left. Each hand of cards represents an expedition travelling from one lunar settlement to another, offering blueprints and expertise along the way.

Moon is played over three rounds or eras. Each era represents about 30 years of lunar settlement. Every Era has three phases:

•  Production - your structures generate resources and other useful things.
•  Construction - the main part of the game where you expand your base.
•  Scoring - collect bonus points for being an awesome base-builder!

Each hand of cards contains an Expedition card that grants an optional free action. Expedition cards stay in the same hand and are passed from player to player. They are refreshed from a new deck every era, so the opportunities they offer constantly shift around the table and through the eras. You’ll use a different mix of Expedition cards in every game.

Structure cards make up your base, and they require a combination of resources and flags. Some basic structures like Ice Vapers and Solar Panels are free to build, but most require that you spend resources and/or have certain flags in your base.

There are five types of structures, defined by the colour of the card border. Yellow and blue cards provide resources and flags. Pink structures give you a powerful once-per-era action, and grey cards score end-game points. Flags represent five different categories of permanent infrastructure. Many structures require you to have certain flags in your base, and flags also play an important role in the scoring phase at the end of each era. The player with the most flags of each type gets a popularity boost, and the reward for flag majority increases each era!

Hearts measure the popularity of your base back on Earth, and the most popular base at the end of era three will become the capital city of the moon, winning the game!

As the eras progress, bases will grow and diversify. There’s a lot to do and no one player can excel at everything. Perhaps your base can’t generate enough energy to construct a Workshop? Maybe you lack the industrial infrastructure needed to start up a Robot Factory? These problems might be solved by sending a rover over to one of the other bases as a trade for what you need...

Rovers are used to break ties for flag majority in the scoring phase, so sending them away is not always the best option.

Reputation cards are up for grabs in every game, each one setting a goal and offering a reward. If you meet the goal for a reputation card, you can claim it on your turn and reap the reward. When you gain a reputation card you’ll either get a one-time bonus or an ongoing effect. They’re also worth points at the end of the game so ignore them at your peril! Moon comes with 24 reputation cards so you’ll see a different combination of them in every game.

Moon comes with a solo mode straight out of the box. A deck of cards pits you against General Universal Recursive Profit Systems (GURPS), a challenging AI opponent.

Moon is the third game of a loose trilogy, preceeded by Villagers and Streets, from Haakon Hoel Gaarder and Sinister Fish Games.

—description from the publisher

Moon is available in Retail and Deluxe editions. The Deluxe edition has 200 wooden tokens, printed rover meeples, and three storage boxes which double as component trays. The Deluxe edition is exclusive to Kickstarter and Sinister Fish Games. Every pledge includes the Valkyrie expansion, which will also include any gameplay stretch goals, meaning that Retail edition backers don’t miss out. 

COMPONENTS:
Cardboard:
1 Flag Reward board (220x65mm; identical on both sides)
8 Card Dividers (64x102mm; white Era I, II, and III Structure cards; yellow Expedition cards; gray Reputation cards; blue Setup cards; red Solo cards; dark blue Unused cards)
3 Storage boxes for wooden tokens (75x94x32mm)

Cardstock:
187 cards (65x100mm):
104 Era cards (white; 34 Era I, 34 Era II, 36 Era III)
18 Expedition cards (yellow; 6 each Era I, II, III Expedition cards; 2 blue First Expedition cards)
24 Reputation cards (white; 8 each Bronze, Silver, Gold Reputation cards)
5 Base cards
5 Player Aid cards
30 Solo cards (red)
1 Solo Player Aid card

Wood:
50 Rovers (15x10x8mm; white with printing on both sides)
70 Heart tokens (3mm thick, dark pink with white numerals on one side):
35x value 3 (15x13mm)
5x value 4 (18x17mm)
5x value 5 (18x17mm)
15x value 20 (20x17mm)
3x value 50 (25x20mm)
7x value 100 (25x20mm)

80 Resource tokens (disks 18mm dia.x 3mm; printed on both sides value 1/value 3):
20 Energy (yellow 8-pointed star)
20 Water (blue bubble)
20 Biomass (green leaf)
20 Metal (gray hex)

Rulebook (36 p.).

1-5

604565354211

Sinister Fish Games

60

2023

14+

2023-09-01 17:52:29

~$49.00

2026-04-12

2023-09-01 17:52:29