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Moonshine is a dice-based engine-building game in which players play simultaneously. On each turn, each player exploits the dice results obtained by the active player for their own purposes, in order to enhance the appeal of their speakeasy. The aim of the game is to attract enough customers to reach 12 prestige points. When a player achieves this, the game ends and the player with the highest score wins.
A game consists of a succession of rounds, all of which take place in the same way: first, the active player rolls - and possibly re-rolls - all the dice to which he has access, to validate a pool of dice. Each player then disposes of the resulting icons as they see fit. These icons represent prohibited resources prized by potential customers (each player has their own potential customers). By satisfying a customer's specific needs, they enters the bar and benefits from the permanent bonus: prestige points, resource icons, access to other dice (blue and red dice), to raises, to other potential customers, etc. If ever a player doesn't want to or can't exploit the dice result, they is not stuck! They can either pick up a Moon token to place on one of their cards to unlock a temporary bonus; or replace one of their potential customers with a new one.
The game also includes an asymmetric start variant: each speakeasy has completely different abilities and temporary bonuses!
—description from the publisher
Moonshine 2 Player Full Game
- Stunning artwork
- Good options available
- Enjoyable gameplay once the engine gets going
- Takes time for the engine to get going
- Running an illegal establishment
- Speak easy era
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Attracting valuable customers and satisfying them unlocks permanent bonuses.
- dice-based engine building — A dice-based engine building game where players exploit dice results for their own purposes.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Jazz, liquor, and points. That's what I'm all about.
- This game is mean, but in the best way possible.
- It's a mean gardening game with placing all these workers out in different parts of Paris.
- This takes the thinky puzzle of Trek 12 and adds a battleground.
- This game is beautifully produced with lots of decisions to make.
- Man, this game looks silly fun.
- A massive old west/horror/portal jumping themed cave crawl adventure.
- This is such a hoot.
- It's the silliness that we need right now.
References (from this video)
- Balanced gameplay relative to Nar
- Engaging engine-building through card and dice synergy
- Beautiful or appealing components and aesthetic discussions
- Supports variants and flexible play styles
- Some card abilities feel underpowered or not immediately useful
- High end-game luck can dramatically swing the outcome
- Component quality issues (bends, humidity effects) noted
- Complexity and multiple variants may hinder new players
- Array
- Prohibition-era tavern economy
- Competitive engine-building through card and dice combinations
- NAR
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card Drafting — Players draw, view, and select cards to keep and use for future turns.
- card drafting / hand management — Players draw, view, and select cards to keep and use for future turns.
- Dice Rolling — Players roll colored dice to determine actions and resources; orange and blue dice unlock different active effects.
- Engine Building — Cards provide ongoing benefits and enable stronger future actions; players try to chain benefits.
- Resource Management — Moon tokens and other tokens are earned and spent to perform actions and acquire cards.
- resource management with tokens — Moon tokens and other tokens are earned and spent to perform actions and acquire cards.
- Set collection / color matching for scoring — Points are earned based on color cards and color-based bonuses.
- Simultaneous Actions — After initial rounds, actions are performed simultaneously rather than strictly sequentially.
- Simultaneous Play — After initial rounds, actions are performed simultaneously rather than strictly sequentially.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Nar is a great game.
- I did not like Nar. I mean, it's very unbalanced, runaway leaderish. This was much more balanced.
- This is Elus's galaxy blue. It's so pretty.
- What a ridiculously sized box though.
- I think this game is better with more people.
References (from this video)
- Nominated for best dice game
- Great theme
- Mitigates bad dice rolls through engine building
- Speaker admits to being terrible at rolling dice.
- Speakeasy in a forest
- Splendor
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dice Rolling — It's a dice game.
- Engine Building — Building your little engine to mitigate dice rolls.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Strange World Above the Clouds because who doesn't love a cuddle monster?
- Temple Code because I was terrible at it and I decided I need to do something about it because I was really embarrassed to play it with other people.
- hydrate, bring a bottle of water, refill it.
- don't put a lot of pressure on yourself to try and play all of the games. It is impossible.
- It's the people, right, that make the show somehow
- this whole hobby is about the people we play the games with rather than just the games.