Moonshine

Moonshine is a game about running a speakeasy in the prohibition era. You roll dice to generate resources. You have some casual customers who can help you generate resources or roll more dice. You will spend resources to recruit your casual customers to become loyal customers. Some of these give permanent benefits. Some give points. When you reach 12 points, the game ends and you win. 

Your speakeasy card is your player board. It offers some abilities, but you need to commit  moon tokens to enable these abilities. Casual customers have such abilities too. Moon tokens are an important resource to manage. You have to decide how to use them. Abilities on cards can be in the form of producing a specific resource, allowing you an extra dice, giving rerolls, or giving more slots for casual customers. In the top right corner of a casual customer you can see the cost to recruit them to become a loyal customer. This cost includes moon tokens. This is often a tricky decision. When you need to pay moon tokens, it means you are removing them from some card abilities which you are currently using. You need to decide which one(s) to sacrifice.  

In your play area, the speakeasy card is on the left, and to the right you have the casual customers. Loyal customers you recruit are tucked under your speakeasy, showing the point values and any abilities. 

There is a little engine building in this game. You want to improve your ability to generate more resources and recruit more customers. One thing I learned the hard way was you have to be deliberate in which customers to recruit. You shouldn’t just recruit anyone you can afford when you can afford them. Recruiting costs valuable moon tokens. In the early game you probably want to recruit customers who give you useful powers. You want to build your engine. In the late game you’d be pushing for points. Some customers create synergies, for example scoring points based on customer type. These combos are good. You need to recruit purposefully. 

I feel this is a race game. You are racing towards 12 points. You don’t interfere with one another much. This is a peaceful light strategy game. You need to plan wisely. I did not find it captivating. It works and offers meaning decisions, just that it wasn’t very memorable to me.