In Reiner Knizia’s Blue Moon City (published by Fantasy Flight in the US), two to four players attempt to reconstruct the ruined city of Blue Moon and claim leadership by making the most crystal offerings to the central obelisk.

They will seek aid from the various races that inhabit the city as well as the three elemental dragons to acomplish these tasks. This board game is a further exploration of a Knizia-designed card game simply called Blue Moon, using the same world and races, but the two games are otherwise unrelated. 

The City itself is laid out using the 21 double-sided tiles; the Obelisk’s courtyard is positioned at the center of a cross-shaped layout, with the palace and three temples surrounding it and the remaining tiles distributed randomly. Players begin on the courtyard, and the three dragon pawns begin off the board entirely. A number of Golden Scale tokens depending on the number of players is set aside, and each player receives eight cards.

On their turn, each player can move up to two tiles (orthogonally, not diagonally), then play as many cards as they wish. Each of the building tiles has from one to four colored boxes, each bearing a number from 2 to 5. Discarding similarly-colored cards of a given total or more allows a player to place one of his ten cubes on the corresponding space. Once all of the spaces on a building have been filled, that building is completed. Each player reclaims the cubes he has placed there are anyone who made a contribution receives the indicated reward of crystals, scales, and/or cards; whoever made the most (or in the case of ties, largest and/or left-most) contributions will receive a bonus reward, and all involved players might also receive an additional “neighborhood” bonus if adjacent buildings have already been completed (this bonus is indicated on the reverse side of the tiles, which represents the completed buildings). If a player moves to the courtyard tile, they can make one offering of crystals and place one of their cubes on the obelisk; the number of offerings required to win the game varies by the number of players, and offerings get more costly as more are made. At the end of their turn, players may discard up to two cards and then draw two plus the number of cards discarded in this way.

In addition to providing effort for reconstruction, many of the cards also have a special ability that can be used by discarding them. Cards can grant additional player movement, an additional offering to the obelisk (at a cost of one or two extra crystals), dragon movement, or change the colors of themselves or other cards for the purposes of contributions to buildings. Once a dragon has been moved on to the board by an appropriate card, any building contributions made while one or more dragons are on that tile award that player one golden scale per dragon (not per contribution). When the last golden scale is claimed, whoever has the most (and at least three) gains six crystals, and everyone else who has at least three scales earns three crystals; if there is a tie for most, everyone just gets three crystals. Anyone who receives crystals in this manner returns their scales, so it can be worth it to trigger a scale-scoring even if you only have one or two as it will probably put you in the lead for next time.

Careful hand management is key to success in Blue Moon City. The cards’ powers can shift the lead in dramatic ways, especially towards the end of the game when everyone is racing back to the courtyard to make the last offering or two they need to win; often being able to move an additional two spaces (or to simply fly to anywhere on the board) can mean the difference between winning and losing. Of course, being able to get to the obelisk isn’t going to help if you can’t afford to make the offering, so the other crucial strategy is to figure out how to get more crystals than your rivals; earned crystals are kept secret, but it often isn’t difficult to keep track of who’s storing up a bunch. Those two tips may be somewhat obvious, but there is one additional resource that must be minded: your cubes. You only get ten, and every contribution you make to a building will tie one or more up until that building is completed; additionally, every offering you make to the obelisk will consume a cube permanently. Spreading yourself too thin can be a recipe for disaster, especially if the other players notice this and do everything they can to not complete buildings that will free up your cubes.

Like most Knizia designs, Blue Moon City combines subtle strategy with easy play. The components are also well-designed, from the colorful cards to the detailed tiles and the plastic dragon pawns. A game of Blue Moon City takes less than an hour; even though there is no actual reading required (the cards use a symbology to explain their powers that is fairly straightforward and universal), the recommended age is ten and up due to the strategy required to succeed. A new copy usually retails for around $30 and is well worth the asking price.

Dutch designer Corné van Moorsel brings Factory Fun to the US courtesy of Z-Man Games. A deceptively complex game, Factory Fun will tax your brain as you struggle to arrange machines in your factory in order to maximize your profit. This is not an easy task; by the end of the game your factory will most likely be a chaotic snarl of pipes unless you plan carefully — and are a little lucky. 

Each player (from two to five) is issued a factory board (each slightly different), three white output reservoir tiles, one of each of the four colored supply containers, and a stack of ten face-down machine tiles. Available to all players are an essentially unlimited supply of connecting pipe tiles, thirteen black end product reservoir tiles, and two spare supply tiles of each color. All players start on the 2 position of the money/score track, and the object is to have the most cash after ten rounds.

Each round begins with all players taking one of their face-down machine tiles and simultaneously revealing them in a central area. Players then get to take one of the available machines to install in their factory, but it’s not quite as simple as that. Any player can take any machine; whoever touches a given machine tile first is the one who is stuck with it, for better or worse, so you have to quickly evaluate the feasibility of actually using each machine before a rival swoops in and takes it from you. If you take a machine and do not place it you are penalized five dollars/points, unless you are the last player to select one in a given round.

Each machine has one or more colored inputs with values ranging from 1 to 3 and one output that is either a similarly-valued color or a black end product. All of these connections must be satisfied in order to install the machine. Inputs must be connected to either a supply container or an output of the same color and equal or greater value; outputs must be contained by a white reservoir, other machine’s input or equal or lower value, or a black end product reservoir. You will often need to use various pipes to meet these requirements, and a given pipe can only contain one color of product, so plan accordingly. Placing any non-machine tile costs you one dollar, calculated after you are finished with the installation; each machine is worth its printed value, with more cash being awarded for more complicated and/or demanding devices. You can also move or rotate tiles relatively freely (a move costs one dollar; you are effectively picking it up for zero and replacing it for one), although you are limited to being able to move only two preexisting machines (at a cost of two each) each time you install a new one.

Careful management of your outputs is critical. The limitation of only getting three of the white catch-all reservoirs is one major reason, as is the fact that it will be all but impossible to have all of your inputs satisfied by your supply containers, but connection bonuses are the most important factor. Whenever you connect an output of one machine with an input of another (bearing in mind that you have to meet the input’s requirements), you earn an end of game bonus of five times the value of the connected input (5 for a 1 value, 10 for a 2, and 15 for a 3). With skilled pipe work you can even combine or split outputs in order to make the numbers work: a 3 output can be split to feed a 2 and a 1 input, or three 1 outputs could merge to satisfy a hungry 3 input. Bonus points are often the difference between winning and losing.

Being aware of what outputs you have available to you is key when determining what machine to take each round, but there are a couple of other factors to keep in mind. Certain tiles award you a bonus supply container of one color (one even lets you choose which color), which can be a life-saver in tight situations. Machines that produce the black end product are often worth a lot of cash, but the trade-off there is the fact that the black reservoirs are dead ends and can’t be combined. Perhaps the most important skill to develop is knowing when to forfeit constructing a machine; it can be worth taking a loss if you’re generating bonus payoffs, but sometimes the cost will simply be too much given your current layout.

The amount of thinking and manipulation required to manage your ever-sprawling network of pipes and machines makes Factory Fun seem like less fun than advertised, but successfully surviving the entire ten rounds often changes the overall impression to that of a good mental workout. My only real complaint is the difficulty in keeping track of the cost of extensive remodels towards the later rounds, but that could jut be relative inexperience. The factory boards are double sided, with the reverse “expert” side containing more difficult layouts for advanced play. Factory Fun retails for around $50, which feels about right for the sheer amount of cardboard contained within. As mentioned, it’s a serious brain burner, but even with all of that work a game still plays out in the space of about forty-five minutes to an hour.