Review: Moonrakers - A Tale of Seven Player Counts
Howdy Clem, check out this new game I got!
Hello Wildcard. Moonrakers. I am to understand that you are playing a board game about space outlaws flying around the galaxy completing missions, while you yourself are in fact a space janitor outlaw that flies around cleaning saving the galaxy?
Yeah, ain’t it cool!
Pathetic?
No, I said “cool.”
Oh, sorry. I thought you said it was pathetic.
…nope.
Overview
Deckbuilding is one of my favorite mechanisms and I’m always on the lookout for new design gimmicks that iterate on the formula. Enter Moonrakers, a beautiful looking deckbuilding game for 1 to 5 players, which sees players outfitting their ships and hiring new crew members in order to complete various contracts. Each card in a players deck is a specific type (Thrusters, Shields, Weapons, Reactors, or Crew), and players will need to combine those types to successfully complete one of the eight contracts available each turn.
The twist? In order to complete many of the more difficult contracts, you’ll need the help of the other players. Yep, you heard right - Moonrakers is a negotiation game.
Building your ship
Before we get to the negotiating (and backstabbing implied therein), lets talk about how enjoyable the deckbuilding here is. Unlike many other deckbuilders, the goal isn’t to continually add cards to an ever growing deck, but rather it’s to craft hands of cards that supplies consistent value every turn, both to you and to potential allies. Players start with a deck of generic cards that provide simple starting options such as drawing cards, adding damage, stopping hazards, etc., and will slowly add very specific cards and effects to their deck. More than most deckbuilders, Moonrakers feels like an engine builder.
Players will only be able to add cards in one of two specific ways. Firstly, hiring crew members provides strong and unique abilities to players decks. Crew cards go directly into your deck, and will be required to complete some contract cards. Secondly, building ship parts allows players to add additional generic cards to their deck. Ship cards add an aspect of tableau building to the game, providing powerful abilities that are available every turn, and even sometimes during other players turns.
This combination of crew and ship parts really makes the game sing. It makes sure players decks don’t get too big, meaning that unlike some deckbuilders you’ll see cards multiple times after you’ve brought them, even as you head toward the endgame.
I do the job and then I get paid
Now we know how to fly our ship, it’s time to take on some contracts and earn what every space cowboy loves: credits and… victory points. There are two major way to earn victory points: Contracts and Objectives. Objectives are simple - meet the conditions on the card in order to score a single victory point. Contracts are where players will score the majority of their points. Each Contract offers between 0 and 5 victory points and 2 and 11 credits (used to buy additional crew and ship parts), and completing them is key too winning the game.
Player complete Contracts by meeting the requirements listed in the bottom right of the card. For example, a simple card might ask for 1 thruster and 1 shield symbol, while a more difficult card will require 5 thrusters, 5 damage, and 2 crew symbols to be played. Players also will have to roll hazard dice for each contact. Each hazard symbol has to be negated by a shield, and for each one that isn’t that player loses a victory point.
On their turn, players will play cards from their hand, resolving their effects in the order they are played. Similar to classic deckbuilder Dominion, players start each turn with a single action. Each card takes one action to play, so you’ll need additional actions on your turn to play multiple cards. Reactor cards, which provide 2 additional actions, and Thruster cards, which draw 2 cards, are key components to any good Moonrakers hand. Without them, being able to draw and play enough cards to make an impact is difficult. And while Reactor and Thruster cards run a players engine (pun very much intended), they are not enough to complete contracts alone. You’ll need Crew and Damage symbols as well, and Shields to prevent hazard damage. It all leads to some incredibly tense turns, in which you can look at the remaining deck and calculate the rough odds of drawing just the right combination of cards to complete the mission.
This is where the deckbuilding really shines. As mentioned, decks don’t get overly large, so in addition to being a negotiation game, Moonrakers often ends up feeling like a push your luck game as well. There is a Blackjack aspect to the card play that’s thrilling most of the time, but that’s still fun if its excruciating. And if that final card draw meant you didn’t complete a contract, you’ll only have yourself to blame. After all, you could have asked a friend for help…
Making (temporary) friends
With deckbuilding and turn structure out of the way, lets take a look at the negotiation. While some contracts are able to be tackled alone, most of the more difficult ones will need one or more other players to assist. On your turn, after you have selected a contract, you can ask players to join your mission. To do so, you must negotiate with those players, splitting both the rewards of the contract (victory points, credits, etc.) and the danger (hazard dice). If you can successfully convince one or more players to join the mission, they may play any cards from their hand (so long as they have the actions required) to help complete the contract. If players are unable to negotiate for the first contract, they may select a second one to complete before being forced to take a secondary action as their turn.
If the mission is successful then players get the pre-agreed rewards - no backstabbing! But…if you are one of the players who joined the mission, you are free to lie about your contribution, meaning that you can lull opponents into attempting difficult contracts and then refuse to help them. I don’t recommend this as sticking one knife in the back of another player is often enough to convince all the other players not to ally with you. In fact, I’m surprised the game allows for purposeful reneging at all as most of the time it ends up being a detriment to the betrayer.
Aside from the normal fun of a negotiation game, there are two fantastic elements that make it truly shine here. First, it expands and intensifies the previously mentioned push-your-luck features of the deckbuilding. When multiple players have multiple opportunities and paths to success, it really escalates up both the tension and the fun. Secondly, because players discard their hand and draw a new one after they ally with another player, it allows players who draw bad hands the chance to redraw before their turn. For example, If a player has no Reactor cards in hand, then they would normally be stuck with one action on their turn - not a good position to be in. But, by allying with another player, even if its just to play a single card to get little (or even no reward) that player can dump their entire hand and draw a new set. Getting a chance to essentially skip a bad turn in a deckbuilding game is just a wonderful feeling.
I’ll note here that once a player gets close to 10 victory points opponents are less likely to ally with them. While some may consider this a downside, I think it’s something that is inherent in negotiation games generally. It’s a feature, not a bug. In most of our games, players nearing victory have built up their engine enough to solo the last few contracts or objective needed to finish out the game.
So. The engine building is interesting. The deckbuilding is tight. The negotiation rewarding. Perfect game right? 10/10? Well…
Houston, we have a problem
Well, we have two problems actually, but one of them I don’t expect the designers to be held responsible for. That first one being that Moonrakers is a great game - for the right group of players. That group needs to be open to the positives and negatives of negotiation. If not, if you’ve got a set of players that won’t step up and negotiate unless the deal on the table is perfect for them, then this game is going to quickly become a chore. However, similar to the "negotiating with the leader” issue, this is not a design flaw, but rather something that is fundamental in almost all games that include negotiation.
No, Moonrakers second, and real, problem is the length. I couldn’t imagine playing this with people not willing to engage in the negotiation, but even when you have a group of players willing to deal, this game is absurdly long. The box states the playing time is 60-120 minutes. That is incredibly generous. At 1 or 2 players, that time is accurate. At 3 players, you might be able to sneak a game in under two hours. At 4 or 5 players the game easily exceeds that playtime in a way that tends to drag players across the finish line.
Other reviewers have mentioned that they prefer playing the game at 4 or 5 players. I couldn’t disagree more - I enjoyed the game a 3 players and, although I understand that adding additional players opens up the negotiation space, the trade off in time added is just too much. I’m happy to play a 4 player game if we have the time, but my one play at 5 players was once enough.
I can sympathize with the designers here. Removing too much of the negotiation (the thing that takes much of the time) would mean a loss of identity for the game. But marketing a deckbuilding game with a 2-3 hour playtime on the box? That’s a tough sell for many casual gamers.
So what’s a Board Game Reviewer to do.
I love the game, I really do, but the game’s score varies wildly based on how many players show up to the table. So…
The Seven Scores
Yep. that’s right. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, so I’m giving Moonrakers seven different scores - One at each player count, one for the app specific game, and one for a house-rule variant we’ve been playing. Deal with it.
Solo
I’m not that much of a solo gamer, but if you are, I think you’ll enjoy this well enough. It’s a simple beat your score mechanism that utilizes a phantom player (called the Mercenary Deck) to assist in completing contracts.
6/10
Two Players
At two players, Moonrakers is a pure engine building race in which the push-your-luck elements really shine. As in the solo mode, both players are able to access the phantom player’s Mercenary Deck. I was shocked how much I enjoyed the game at two. The limited negotiation make the game play much quicker, essentially turning it into a race.
8/10
Three Players
Our first game was at three players and, to be honest, it was rough. But subsequent plays at 3 players felt much smoother and, although there were times in which it felt like no player would (or could) enter a deal for difficult contracts, the game still flowed well enough. More than at any other player count, the player in the lead should expect to have to solo the last 2 or 3 points to victory. Gathering Objective cards early can be key to sneaking that last victory point onto the board!
8/10
Three Players (Using the Mercenary Deck variant)
Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Yep, we house-ruled a three player variant.
Similar to the solo and two player mode, each player can access the Mercenary Deck in addition to dealing with other players. There is a danger here of the game perhaps being overrun by a single player without negotiating with other, but in our experience so far, the other two players are able to make deals between themselves in addition to using Mercenary Deck, and this tends to force the solo player back to the table.
There are some quirks here of course. Difficult contracts that offer a large amount of credits, for example, can more easily be completed, and the crew deck has tended to run low in some games. But generally speaking this house rule has kept the negotiation aspect of the game alive while making the gameplay itself both smoother and quicker.
9/10
Four Players
Here begins our descent into Space Madness. It might not seem like adding a single extra player should increase the playtime by much, but it really does. In addition to there now being four players jostling for points, that forth player adds an extra data point for every step in the negotiation and contract resolution phases. It’s another player to strike a deal with on the first contract you select. and then again if you select a second contract. It’s another player who has to play their cards out during the contract step.
I am hesitant to completely write off the four player game. Some games have ended in a reasonable timeframe, others have pushed close to the 3 hour mark. For a medium weight deckbuilding game, that feels too long. Moving forward, I think I’ll reserve playing 4 player games with groups that I can trust to negotiate and play quickly.
7/10
Five Players
In space no one can hear you scream. But we are on Earth and I will screech while tearing my hair out if I ever play this game at 5 players again. I’m surprised there isn’t a variant reducing the number of victory points to 7 or 8. Unlike my experimentation with the three player variant above, I refuse to boldly go where no man has gone before...
Am I overreacting a bit for comedic effect? Absolutely. Am I ever going to play this again at 5 players? Absolutely not.
5/10
Luminor App (1-5 players)
I had no idea until I opened the box that Moonrakers provided an App. Available on Steam and the Apple App Store (although not on Android for some reason), the App allows 1-5 players to play cooperatively through a short but interesting campaign. I ended up playing through my campaign solo, and really enjoyed my experience. It’s not something I’ll go back to again and again, but I could see myself opening up the app to play with friends who prefer cooperative games.
A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
8/10
Well, that’s it Clem, what did you think?
Surprisingly fun Wildcard. Only one real problem for me really.
Oh, what’s that?
It’s hard for me to play a negotiation game when you humans are so easy to manipulate.
So…when you said you loved me…
Oh Wildcard…until next time.
Note: Moonrakers was purchased from a FLGS. No Review copy was provided.
