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Blue Moon (game)

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This article is about the card game. For other uses, see Blue Moon (disambiguation).

Blue Moon is a German collectible card game designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Kosmos and Fantasy Flight Games in 2004.

[1]

Genre

Blue Moon is a fantasy-style card game with a total of 344 card sets and designed for two players. Fantasy Flight Games has classified Blue Moon within the Living Card Games (LCG) genre. This classification distinguishes it from randomized card assortments prevalent in chance-dependent card collections found in other collectible card games such as 7th Sea.

Gameplay

The game is played by replicating the challenges various characters face within the fictional realm of Blue Moon. Each character has distinct attributes and mechanics within a 30-card deck, out of 344 cards, accompanied by a designated "leader" card.[2][3]

The Blue Moon game box contains a compact game board and three plastic dragon tokens, used as markers for scoring purposes throughout gameplay. The core box includes two decks: one featuring the Vulca characters and the other highlighting the Hoax characters. The dimensions of the Blue Moon cards measure 120 mm × 70 mm, similar to the size of Tarot cards.

Players can further enhance their experience by buying expansion decks. These comprise 30 to 31 cards and introduce additional gameplay elements and strategies to the game.

Components

The original 2004 base box of the game contains:

  • 2 sets of people (the Vulca and the Hoax)
  • 60 cards
  • 2 leaders
  • 3 dragons
  • 1 game board
  • 2 overview cards
  • Instructions

The selection of individual characters available includes:

  • Mimix
  • Flit
  • Khind
  • Terrah
  • Pillar
  • Aqua
  • Buka (Buka Invasion)

In addition to the core pair of included decks are two supplementary decks, "Emissaries & Inquisitors: Allies" and "Emissaries & Inquisitors: Blessings". These decks encompass additional cards designed for versatile utility. The augmented rules integrated into the foundational set afford players an expanded spectrum of options for customizing their decks. Each of these decks is centered around an individual character, and constructing these decks is constrained by the inclusion of cards from other characters, which is quantified by the metric known as "moons."

A significant portion of Blue Moon cards comprise textual components that explain their impact on the game, sometimes superseding established game rules, emphasizing the crucial significance of language and interpretation within the game context. Other iterations have been produced, with language changes adding English (published by Fantasy Flight Games), German (published by Kosmos), Dutch (published by 999 Games, excluding the Buka Invasion), French (published by Tilsit, though incomplete), and Japanese (published by Hobby Japan). In addition, select promotional cards have been dispensed as tokens of appreciation upon reaching specific milestones at assorted gaming events.

Publication history

Blue Moon was created by Reiner Knizia and published in Germany in 2004 by Kosmos. An English version was published by Fantasy Flight Games. However, as game historian Shannon Appelcline noted in the 2014 book Designers & Dragons: The 90s, CCGs were "a dwindling part of FFG's board game production."[4]

In 2006, Fantasy Flight Games released a Blue Moon-related board game named Blue Moon City. While it is incompatible with the Blue Moon card game, it was a complete German-style board game for 2 to 4 players and set in the same fictional world of Blue Moon.

At the 2007 Lucca Comics & Games convention, Blue Moon creator Reiner Knizia confirmed there were no plans to develop additional decks. This decision was attributed to the publisher's waning interest in producing further expansions for the game. [citation needed]

A new version of the game titled Blue Moon Legends has been published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2014. It contains every card ever published for Blue Moon in a single package. [5]

Illustrators

Reviews

References

  1. ^ Appelcline, Shannon (2006-02-23). "Anatomy of a Game: Blue Moon". Mechanics & Meeples. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
  2. ^ "Review of Blue Moon - RPGnet RPG Game Index". www.rpg.net. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  3. ^ "How to play Blue Moon | Official Rules | UltraBoardGames". www.ultraboardgames.com. Retrieved 2023-08-29.
  4. ^ Appelcline, Shannon (2014). Designers & Dragons: The 90s. Evil Hat Productions. p. 304. ISBN 978-1-61317-084-7.
  5. ^ "Blue Moon Legends on Boardgame Geek".
  6. ^ "Pyramid: Pyramid Review: Blue Moon".
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