Moon

Gameplay Overview

Moon is a lunar base-building game built around a pick-and-pass hand of cards. It's the designer's third and heaviest entry in a loose trilogy that started with Villagers and Streets.

Each round you're handed a set of cards, you pick one to build into your outpost, and then you pass the rest along to your opponent. Every card falls into one of four types: blue cards generate resources, yellow cards plant flags, pink cards give you an ability you can tap once per round, and gray cards score points at the end of the game.

Building anything costs resources and often needs flags you've already planted, so you're constantly working backward from the base you actually want to build. Your production and flag cards only pay out once per round though, not on demand the way a typical engine builder works, so timing when you cash in matters as much as what you're building.

Everyone starts with two rover tokens, and if you're ever short on a resource or a flag, you can park a rover on someone else's base and borrow what you need for the turn. That rover then belongs to them for good, so raiding a neighbor's outpost means handing them a small permanent gift in return. The game plays out across three eras, with flag majorities and leftover rovers both feeding into scoring along the way. We've only played it at two so far, where the pick-and-pass carries a little less unpredictability, and we're curious to see how it opens up at a bigger table.