Players: 2-4
Time: 60 minutes
Difficulty: 4 (of 10)
The Components
Blue Moon City comes with:
- 21 building tiles
- 1 obelisk
- 40 crystal tokens
- 15 dragon scales
- 4 player figures
- 40 player markers
- 80 cards
- 3 dragons
Building Tiles: The 21 building tiles form the board of this game. Five of the tiles are always placed in the middle of the board, while the other 16 are randomly placed around them. Each tile shows, on the front, a blueprint of the building, with costs and rewards all clearly noted. The back of each tile conversely shows the building after it's completed, plus some additional rewards that can be won when nearby buildings are completed.
Generally the tiles are all very attractive. Both side--the lightly sketched out blueprints and the fully detailed buildings--are quite nice.
There's also good iconography on the tiles. The building costs are all clearly color coordinated (though some players have problems with two colors, gray and blue). The general and winner's rewards are both shown with clear iconography. Each tile also depicts the reward that nearby buildings will get when the tile is flipped over--which is a great bit of utility.
The only downside of the tiles is that you have to pull verything off a tile to flip it, which is mildly annoying, but the cost of having a dynamic board.
Other Cardboard Bits: There are also a number of additional cardboard bits: the obelisk is where players place their markers when they earn victory points. Crystals and dragon scales are each rewards that players get in game.
These additional bits are printed full-color on solid, linen-textured cardboard. None of them are terribly exciting, artwise, and I actually think the scales look silly, but they're good quality and get the job done.
Wood Bits: Each player gets 1 wooden pawn and 10 wooden cubes in his color. The colors are unusually: white, gray, blue, and brown. They're all good quality wood, as is typical for German games, and the weird colors add to the otherworldly atmosphere of the game.
Cards: The 80 cards are medium weight and non-textured. There are 10 each for 8 different Blue Moon people, and each individual card shows a unique piece of artwork. The art is all drawn from the Blue Moon card game, though it's cropped much tighter in this game, usually just showing heads and shoulders. As with the original game, the art is all high-quality and generally beautiful.
Each card has a value of "1", "2", or "3", and the "1"s and "2"s have special powers marked by icons. Again, the iconography is well done. Most people figure out most of the cards the first time through, anven for a first-time game, there tend to be only a few queries as to what does what.
Dragons: Three plastic dragons in green(ish), red, and blue. They're the same molds from Blue Moon, and look nice.
Overall, Blue Moon City has good quality components that are generally quite beautiful, and are all easy to use. As such it earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style: great.
The Gameplay
The object of Blue Moon City is to gain crystals by rebuilding Blue Moon City, and ultimately use those crystals to rebuild the obelisk at the center of town.
Setup: The 21 building tiles are laid out: the courtyard in the center, four specific buildings around it, then the rest randomly laid in a 5x5 grid, minus the four corners.
9 to 15 dragon scales are set to the side of the board, depending on the number of players, as are the obelisk, the dragons, and the crystals.
Each player receives 8 cards and the game begins.
The Courtyard. The center of the city is where all the players start the game, and it's also where they'll return to build the obelisk.
Other Buildings. Each other building has several characteristics. Most importantly each one has one, two, three, or four boxes, all in the same color and each with a number inside. This shows what total value of which colored card is required to rebuild the building. All of the boxes must be built before a building is done.
Rewards are also listed on each building, both for everyone who contributes and for the top player. These rewards are usually crystals, but may also be cards or dragon scales.
The Cards. Each card has a value of 1, 2, or 3, and comes in one of each colors. Each color has also a special power: the 1 cards have a powerful verison of the power, the 2 cards have a weaker version of the power, and the 3 cards don't have the power.
Order of Play: On his turn a player takes the following actions:
- Move
- Reconstruct a Building
- Discard and Draw
Optionally, he may also use cards for their special powers.
Move: A player may move his pawn up to two buildings, counting spaces orthagonally.
Reconstruct a Building: Next a player may fulfill the requirements of one or more of the boxes depicted on the building he landed on. He does this by spending the appropriate valued and colored cards, and then placing one of his markers in the space he built. This might be a single card or multiple cards, but each box must be built separately, and the player doesn't get "change" back for any cards he overspends.
Watched by Dragons. If you worked on a building in a space with the dragon (and more on them momentarily), each dragon in the space rewards you with one dragon scale. As we'll see, these can be later turned in for crystals.
Finishing a Building. When all of the boxes on a building are complete, the building has been rebuilt. Every player who helped in the construction gets a set reward, listed on the building.The player who has the most markers on the building (or the player who built the most expensive parts in case of a tie) gets a special bonus. For example the "water temple", one of the more valuable buildings, gives everyone who participated three crystals and the leader a bonus of two crystals.
Orthagonally adjacent buildings which have already been completed give further rewards to everyone who participated. This additional reward is listed on the back of each building (which is revealed when you complete it). For example when the "iron foundry" is completed, each adjacent building completed thereafter will be worth one extra crystal for everyone who participates. This can make some buildings particularly valuable if a few adjacent buildings have all been completed.
Building the Obelisk. If you ended your movement in the courtyard, you may instead work on the obelisk at the center of the city, which is what you need to do to achieve victory. Each space on the obelisk has a crystal cost. The first ones cost 7, the last cost 12, and everything else lies in between. On your turn you may only build only one space on the obelisk (unlike buildings where you can fill several spaces at once). You'll win the game after you fill 4-6 obelisk spaces (depending on the number of players).
Discard and Draw: At the end of his turn a player discards up to two cards, then draws two more than he discarded.
Special Cards: Each of the 8 card colors has special powers for the 1 and 2 cards.
Two of these directly affect building:
- The green Khind are all 1 wild cards (which can thus be used to work on any building).
- The brown Mimix let you combine any pair of Mimix 1s and/or 2s to form a 3 wild card.
The other 6 colors have special powers which may be used instead of using the card for building. In each case there are two variants of the power, a stronger 1 and a weaker 2:
- The blue Aqua move the blue dragon.
- The gray Flit give your pawn extra movement.
- The white Hoax change the colors of other cards during building.
- The yellow Pillar let you build extra spaces on the obelisk in one turn, for a crystal cost.
- The red Terrah move the green dragon.
- The black Vulca move the red dragon.
Dragon Scales: Dragon scales are given out during the game by voyeuristic dragons and through rewards for completing buildings. Whenever the entire dragon scale supply is used up, each player who has at least three scales turns them in for three crystals, and whichever player has the most gets three extra crystals. Players with less than three scales get to keep them for the future.
Ending the Game: The game ends when a player has made his fourth (for four players), fifth (for three players), or sixth (for two players) contribution to the obelisk. That player wins.
Relationships to Other Games
Blue Moon City is primarily a resource-management game with a minor element of majority control. It reminds me slightly of last year's Reiner Knizia game Tower of Babel, another game where you spent colored cards to build stuff, and got some value from majority control on the back end, however Blue Moon City is generally a deeper and more colorful game. Overall Blue Moon City is pretty unique, both among Knizia's output and among games generally.
Blue Moon City is set in the same fantasy background as Blue Moon The 8 races of Blue Moon City were also the first 8 decks of Blue Moon; historically this new game is set after the war at the center of Blue Moon. Other than that (and the shared artwork on the cards), the games are entirely distinct without any shared mechanics. However, the theming is really nice. I can easily see and understand how many of the powers in Blue Moon City correspond to the deckplay of the Blue Moon peoples (and was generally delighted by this correlation in my first game).
Relationship to Other Games
Blue Moon City is one of Knizia's light-to-middle-weight games, the general class that he's been offering up to gamers in the last few years, and it's clearly one of the best of that genre.
There are a lot of moving parts in Blue Moon City, between the crystals, the scales, the high-value cards, and the low-value cards, and they all work together quite well, as you try and balance just how much of each you need. This allows some long-term strategy, but you can also make some fun tactical moves as you suddenly use a card's special power for a surprising result.
Overall the special powers are great, and really make the game. They introduce a lot of variety and thoughtfulness to the game without overdoing it. Choosing to have low-value cards have the best powers was really an interesting way to balance out card draws.
You can occasionally get hosed by bad luck in the game, moreso if you're not managing your cards well than if you are, but the level of luck is just right for a game of this weight.
My only real concern with the mechanics is whether the dragon scales are really necessary, but considering they only tend to befuddle players for part of the first game, I won't really complain about them.
Generally, Blue Moon City is a lot of fun. it's colorful, well-themed, quite replayable, and has good gameplay. You can't ask for much more, and so I've given it a full "5" out of "5" for Substance. It's already racked up four games to date.
Conclusion
Blue Moon City is probably Reiner Knizia's best game of 2006. It's an enjoyable resource-management game with a ton of color and interesting gameplay.
