WELCOME TO DARK MOON. The Noguchi Masaki interplanetary mining corporation welcomes you to its outpost on Titan, the dark moon of Saturn! You will be joining an experienced crew of miners, technicians, and adventurous souls who live to experience all the wonders that our solar system has to offer. Purpose, loyalty, camaraderie, friendship, and sacrifice all await you as a new and valued member of the Noguchi Masaki family!
DARK MOON (formerly known as BSG Express), is a game of deception and betrayal at the cold edge of space.
You are a crew member on a deep space mining expedition to Titan, the dark moon of Saturn. During a routine excavation, an “incident” occurs whereby some of the crew become infected with an unknown virus, and become paranoid, deceitful, and violent, trying to destroy the others.
At the start of the game, players are divided into two teams: Uninfected and Infected. The Uninfected team simply needs to survive until the end of the game, while the Infected team secretly attempts to destroy them. Each player knows which team they are on, but does not know which team the other players are on! Who is your teammate and who is your enemy? Can you trust your best friend? And why doesn’t anyone trust you when you tell them you’re one of the good guys?!
Roll dice, overcome traumatic events, throw your friends in quarantine when you don’t believe them, and (if you’re Infected) betray everyone at just the right moment to secure victory!
- Excellent social interaction, tense ending
- Great for getting to know people at conventions
- Thematic fit may be niche for some players
- Hidden traitors and sabotage within a crew
- Think of a Battle Star Galactica-like scenario on a Moon base
- Battlestar Galactica (lite)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- social deduction and traitor mechanics — Players lie or assess truth to identify saboteurs.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I can't wait to chat to you all again at next year's Expo or Essen in October
- this is easily the best game that I played all weekend and it wasn't even a board game
- meeting the actual viewers... I had so much fun chatting to you all about your favorite board games
- I make these videos in this flat on my own and it makes it so much better to get out there and meet people
References (from this video)
- Engaging, openly deceptive play that encourages discussion and persuasion
- Relatively lean playtime compared to larger hidden-traitor games, offering a satisfying but not overwhelming experience
- Clear thematic throughline connecting the dice mechanic with suspicion and social interaction
- Sufficient tension from open sabotage and high-stakes choices to sustain interest
- Component quality issues noted (fragile player screens/screens and potential durability concerns)
- Task and event decks can feel repetitive; potential desire for expansion or varied card content to keep sessions fresh
- Visual/artwork on character cards could be strengthened to better reinforce mood and theme
- trust, suspicion, betrayal, and survival under pressure
- A moon-based outpost under threat from saboteurs and infected crew
- public deception with visible manipulation via dice, social interaction, and voting
- Battlestar Galactica
- BSG Express (print-and-play)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Commander role and event management — One player takes the Commander role to select event cards that shift the game state and introduce new pressures and choices.
- Dice-driven task resolution — Each player submits dice behind a personal screen to determine success or failure of repairs and actions; dice results influence uncertainty and perception of innocence.
- Hidden traitor/deception — Some players are secretly infected or aligned with the saboteurs; players must deduce who is who through actions, dialogue, and outcomes of dice-driven tasks.
- Public sabotage and risk management — Infected players can sabotage repairs or tasks, often by selecting high-stakes or dire task cards, increasing tension and distrust among players.
- Quarantine and voting mechanics — Players vote to quarantine others, diminishing their powers; the quorum and votes add strategic pressure and alliance-building dynamics.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Dark Moon is a really fun game that offers accusation arguments deception all the things that games like this should have in a streamlined format
- the sabotage is out in the open
- I highly recommend it
- Battlestar Galactica is a beast of a game and takes 5 hours to play with many moving parts
- you should get Dark Moon
References (from this video)
- murky tension and deception
- strong thematic fit with betrayal dynamics
- cooperative survival with hidden traitors
- Mining outpost on the Moon
- murky and paranoid social deduction
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- dice-driven tasks — dice outcomes drive success/failure with negative bias
- hidden traitor — some players secretly work against the crew
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- there are many different paths to happiness and nothing's necessarily the right or wrong answer
- the dice are weighted towards being negative
- this game tells a story unlike any other board game I've ever played
- you can't talk to each other during this game
- it's a simple clean auction game which you just come to expect from Ronnie comitia
References (from this video)
- Originally Battlestar Galactica Express fan mod
- Streamlined version of BSG
- Host curious about game
- Traitor detection
- Space station
- Battlestar Galactica
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- hidden roles — Traitor/secret role game
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I used to call this a shelf of shame that was a pretty common thing to call it back in the day and I don't never really liked that term because I don't feel shame that I haven't got to these games
- this is mostly work like this is just a backload of things I probably should get to
- people will still be looking for it
- it doesn't matter if the game is like 20 years old people will still be looking for it
- I've painted this one and I spent a lot of time doing it
- there's no point putting them on the channel I think both of them have been out of print for like a decade
- one of the worst kickstarters by one of the worst studios in board gaming history
- Golden Bell Studios did everything wrong you could possibly think of
- purely toxic company run by incredibly terrible people
- it would be kind of a joke that I'd be able to do a three minute video of feudum
- this game has a tutorial video online that's like 40 minutes long
- The Rose explanation video feels like a parody but it's actually how the game is played
- nothing personally to me puts me off playing a game that then sitting down unboxing it and having a craft assignment
- stop making me spend hours assembling your damn games
- this is an uncontrollable mess right now
- I'm a full-time dad and I'm really doing this in the evenings
- I have a finite space and also it just puts pressure and stress on me having a whole bunch of crap there that I know I'm not going to get to
- I'm going to do a big cull
- I will be published by this company but that doesn't mean I'm going to be slavishly devoted to every single game they put out
- I am a sucker for cute animal games like I really am