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Discount Dive: Come On, CMON – Blue Moon City Board Game Review

Hot
W Updated July 20, 2022
 
2.0
 
0.0 (0)
6431 1
Discount Dive: Come On, CMON – Blue Moon City Board Game Review

Game Information

Publisher
Players
2 - 4
There Will Be Games

Welcome to another edition of Discount Dive where I review games that are “on the cut” or deeply discounted. In the case of Blue Moon City, I found a copy on the shelf of my local game store for $20.00. Thinking about Discount Dive’s non-existent guidelines, I picked it up. Hell, it's a Reiner Knizia game, can't really go wrong with the good Doctor, right? (See my upcoming Discount Dive into Glenn's Gallery to find out exactly what can go wrong when picking up a random Knizia title).

Little did I know that CMON's version of Blue Moon City is apparently a Color Blind simulator to give game players a chance to see what it is like to play boardgames while visually impaired. The tiles are bland (Which I get, they all start as ruins so the grey color choices make sense in that respect). But when you rebuild a structure and flip over the tile, it should really pop. It doesn't. On the front of the tiles are the required number of points needed to contribute to rebuilding the structure against the background of the card colors. The card colors are Grey, White, Black, Blue (but not a bright blue, a muted brown blue), Red (but not a vibrant red but a subdued brown red), and Yellow (Not a sunshine yellow, but a dingy brown yellow). Now slap those on a grey background to really wash them out. Have you ever had to literally pull our your cellphone and turn on the flashlight to try to discern what color that background/card color is supposed to be? Well, you certainly wouldn't be able to figure it out by the light of the Blue Moon.

Bland

I've played more than my fair share of bland looking games. Thurn and Taxis, Nations, and Shogun immediately come to mind but I can't say I have ever played a game like Blue Moon City where it thoroughly impacted actually being able to properly play and enjoy the game. I've found myself actively avoiding picking this off the shelf because I can't be arsed to fight with trying to make out the colors on the tiles.

Cards are bearable

And the thing is that I really think I might really enjoy this game if it wasn't for these physical shortcomings. It's is a tight action efficiency game, where you want to optimize every single move you make to claim crystals and, in turn, Obelisk points before other players. Like many of Reiner Knizia's other titles, the basic actions you take hide an, at first, unseen depth. On a normal turn: you move, spend some cards to rebuild part of a ruin, hopefully gain some crystals to rebuild the obelisk (the true goal of the game) and draw some more cards. You'll find a suit that works as wild cards that you can play as any color. You will also find powers on the lower numbers of various suits (The ones and twos) that let you manipulate what is in your hand or how you move yourself or the Dragons on the board. So, each turn is weighing how many cards you want to spend on restoring the ruins versus how much you want to hold others and use those special powers. You'll also want to build in the sight of the Blue Moon City's Dragons, which ends up feeling like exhibitionists kinking it up with voyeuristic dragons. “Watch me rebuild this temple. Oh, you like that don't you? Dirty little beastie. Give me some scales.”

It wouldn't be a CMON game if it didn't have at least some miniatures. And the player markers are some of the most mundane miniatures I have ever come across: a hearth, a hammer, a bellows and a bucket. Pretty sure these fall heavily on the side of the “Or Not” portion of Cool Minis Or Not.

or not

Will I be keeping Blue Moon City in my collection? Not this version. Hopefully my copy finds a home with someone with either better hallway vision or more patience for sorting out which of the bland colors the tiles are supposed to be representing.

Photos

Discount Dive: Come On, CMON – Blue Moon City Board Game Review
Discount Dive: Come On, CMON – Blue Moon City Board Game Review
Discount Dive: Come On, CMON – Blue Moon City Board Game Review
Discount Dive: Come On, CMON – Blue Moon City Board Game Review

Editor reviews

1 reviews

Rating 
 
2.0
Blue Moon City
Will I be keeping Blue Moon City in my collection? Not this version. Hopefully my copy finds a home with someone with either better hallway vision or more patience for sorting out which of the bland colors the tiles are supposed to be representing.
Wade Monnig  (He/Him)
Staff Board Game Reviewer

In west Saint Louis born and raised
Playing video games is where I spent most of my days
Strafing, Dashing, Adventuring and Looting
Writing reviews between all the Shooting
When a couple of guys reminded me what was so good
About playing games with cardboard and Wood,
Collecting Victory Points and those Miniatures with Flair
It’s not as easy as you think to rhyme with Bel Air.

Wade is the former editor in chief for Silicon Magazine and former senior editor for Gamearefun.com. He currently enjoys his games in the non-video variety, where the odds of a 14 year old questioning the legitimacy of your bloodline is drastically reduced.

“I’ll stop playing as Black when they invent a darker color.”

Articles by Wade

Wade Monnig
Staff Board Game Reviewer

Articles by Wade

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WadeMonnig's Avatar
WadeMonnig replied the topic: #334380 21 Jul 2022 07:26
Are there any games you avoid playing or
got rid of because of physical components?
Jackwraith's Avatar
Jackwraith replied the topic: #334382 21 Jul 2022 10:39
Not to my knowledge. Don't know that I've run into as poor a situation as you found here. Blue Moon City was never that great a game to begin with (had it, traded ir) and certainly nowhere near its namesake: the brilliant two-player card game. But I've never run into a situation where the components actually made it difficult to play, except perhaps with a couple of FFGs tiny cards as I've gotten older and the vision has faded.

I did experience a converse situation, where I stopped playing games like 40K, not only to escape the money pit, but also because I was burned out on painting and yet couldn't stand playing with unpainted models.
Ah_Pook's Avatar
Ah_Pook replied the topic: #334388 21 Jul 2022 17:59
I've got this version, I think it's fine. I mean it's not the best re colors but it's certainly playable imo. Also it was $10 and available, rather than $100+ when this game was oop for years :laugh:
WadeMonnig's Avatar
WadeMonnig replied the topic: #334400 22 Jul 2022 11:09

Ah_Pook wrote: I've got this version, I think it's fine. I mean it's not the best re colors but it's certainly playable imo. Also it was $10 and available, rather than $100+ when this game was oop for years :laugh:

I'm glad it worked out for you. I literally got rid of it because I had to play it with full overhead lightning to discern the colors and other players still had issues. Granted, We are all at the wearing glasses stage of our lives.
drewcula's Avatar
drewcula replied the topic: #334406 22 Jul 2022 14:44
I got rid of the first edition of Summoner Wars because the components were FUGLY. I have a long history of this criticism on F:AT...

I also got rid of Tiny Epic Kingdoms (1st ed? I KS'd it) for the same reason. The illustrations were alarmingly bad.
jpat's Avatar
jpat replied the topic: #334414 22 Jul 2022 17:07
I did a little writeup here some time back about FFG's Arkham Horror: Final Hour, which is practically visually unreadable. Another that comes to mind, that I still have (have Final Hour still too) is Marvel Legendary, whose card text is so small and the opacity of the background so problematic that I find the cards barely readable. Tannhauser, which probably few remember, had major readability issues with the paths characters were supposed to travel, enough so that they printed map aids.

Anyone recall how this compares to the FFG edition of Blue Moon City? I remember liking it and thinking it was pretty decent looking (at least for the time). Blue Moon in general has great art--that's part of the appeal--so why deemphasize that?
UniversalHead's Avatar
UniversalHead replied the topic: #334447 24 Jul 2022 17:06
I've got the original edition and it's quite attractive. Good little game, though I haven't played it for yonks.
stormseeker75's Avatar
stormseeker75 replied the topic: #334465 25 Jul 2022 07:57
Ah, Tannhauser. Where's Sag to relive Bambi with the shotgun from the WBC?
Vysetron's Avatar
Vysetron replied the topic: #334480 25 Jul 2022 10:49
I like original BMC and was excited for this when it was announced. Not joking when I say that in most lighting conditions it's rendered unplayable. The fuck, CMON.