Moon Colony Bloodbath

Gameplay Overview

Moon Colony Bloodbath hands you an engine to build and then spends the rest of the game trying to kill it. Every player is quietly growing their own lunar colony (mining for money, farming for food, researching for cards, putting up new buildings) but the deck driving the game is shared, and everyone is building it together whether they want to or not. Each turn flips one card from that deck. Work cards let everyone act at once. Trouble cards add a new disaster into rotation forever (hunger, glitches, paperwork, power failures) so once something bad joins the deck, you're bracing for it every time the deck cycles back around. Twist cards do something different every game. On top of all that, players can add their own cards into the shared deck: perks that only help them, or developments that hit the whole table. So the very engine trying to end everyone's colony is one you all had a hand in loading. The game ends the moment someone's colony runs out of people, or the deck runs dry, and whoever still has the most survivors wins. You are not really building toward victory here so much as watching how long you can avoid catastrophe.

Published

2025

Status

owned

Players

1 - 5 Players

Our thoughts

This game is pure rage bait, and we mean that as the highest compliment. The first time we played, Ollie was adamant he didn't like it. He felt it stripped away too much player agency and took real joy out of engine building the moment the shared deck turned against him. Madeline, meanwhile, was giddy. She thought the whole thing was hilarious. Since then, somehow, this has become one of Ollie's favorite games in our collection, and the turnaround makes sense once you've played it enough times to relax into what the game actually wants from you.

Like Zenith, this one carries a real emotional charge. It's easy to get swept into genuine disappointment when the game refuses to reward you and starts dismantling your colony early, especially when the luck of your starting cards was never on your side to begin with. But once you loosen your grip on the idea of winning and lean into the spirit of the thing, it becomes a genuinely great time. You don't really play this to win. You play it to not lose, which is its own kind of funny place to sit in for an entire game. It's an emotionally triggering, occasionally polarizing experience, and that's exactly why it works: everyone building the shared deck together, all of you knowing your own engine will eventually get wrecked and just hoping it isn't hit harder than the person next to you, keeps this feeling fresh every single time. We call this a personality-forward game. The game has its own personality, sure, but just as much of the delight comes from the personalities and attitudes sitting around the table. Not one for anyone delicate, but absolutely a good time.

Try this if you like...

Games with real teeth

This one is willing to tear down what you've built, and it does so with real relish rather than politely.

A group with a strong sense of humor about chaos

The game rewards a table that can laugh at its own colony collapsing rather than mourn it.

Playing not to lose rather than playing to win

The goal shifts from "build the best colony" to "please, anyone, let someone else get hit worse than me," which is a genuinely funny headspace to be in once you settle into it.

A shared sense of dread

Because everyone is building the same deadly deck together, there's a strange camaraderie in watching the whole table suffer through disasters you all helped create.

A strong table personality driving the fun

The game itself has a dark sense of humor, but how delightful a session is depends heavily on the mood and attitude everyone brings to it.

Follow the same spark

What to play after Moon Colony Bloodbath

Not just games that look alike—these are the specific connections we felt at the table.

Zenith
2025 · 2 - 4 Players
Why it connects
Not mechanically close, but emotionally close. Both games have a way of getting under your skin, where the highs and lows hit harder than the rules on paper would suggest.
Our thoughts
Furnace
2020 · 2 - 4 Players
Why it connects
Shares that engine-building backbone, though where Furnace rewards careful, forward-looking investment, Moon Colony Bloodbath seems to actively resent you for trying.
Our thoughts