Nova Luna Review: Look How the Moon has Turned?
Intent: Inspire you to try playing Nova Luna
New beginnings? Planning the future and watching everything fall into place exactly how you wanted? This game certainly has that. Nova Luna a strategic tile placement game published by Stronghold Games, designed by Uwe Rosenberg and Corne van Moorsel with the art done by Lukas Siegmon. This game plays 1-4 players and takes about 30-60 minutes to play. Will you plan your future accordingly and take advantage of what the moon has to offer?
Overview
A game nominated for Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) this year, Nova Luna is not only a tile placement, strategic masterpiece but moon loads of fun as well! In order to win, you must be the first to place all twenty goal markers on your tiles.
In this abstract game, you will obtain tiles and place them in front of you, adding tasks, which you must fulfill by placing more tiles. Pretty straight forward right? Nova Luna requires you to think ahead and quite strategically as well. Every tile has three distinct features: a number indicating how far you move on the track, zero to three tasks, and a background colour, which there is four of. The neat aspect of this game is that the turn order is not traditional and instead the person who is the farthest back on the moon track will take their turn, which means that based on the tiles you take you can take multiple turns in a row. Will the moon align for you to take the victory?
First Game Impression
We learned about this game prior to it being nominated for the Spiel des Jahres. It looked intriguing right off the bat and being big fans of Uwe, we certainly wanted to get our hands on this game. The day that we got it, it hit the table almost instantly, we were thrilled to try it out and no surprise here, we loved it.
Immediately, we were drawn into the game. The mechanics were so elegant, smooth and inviting. At first we weren’t quite sure the strategies to pursue or how to approach this game, and the first game was certainly an experimentation phase for both of us. As we played tiles, everything just fell in place, the strategies became evident, we started paying attention to what everyone at the table was doing and were enthralled in the experience.
As the first game was done, I lost, saw my markers on the table and really wanted to pursue the victory so we kept playing, excited for the puzzle.
Thoughts After Five Games
If you love puzzles, this is a perfect game for you! This tile placement game is essentially a big puzzle you’re trying to solve. You really have to think way ahead and optimize each piece you grab but not only that, you also have to balance that with what other players are doing and what pieces lie ahead.
You’ll find yourself taking many calculated risks, which keep you at the edge of the seat, and then feel joy run through you if the piece you want is available or frustration if your opponents take what you want. We’ve had many opportunities to block each other and I think that’s what makes the game so wonderful. The player interaction, although not malicious or “take that” style, still often stings when the game doesn’t turn out in your favour, which is something we enjoy.
I’ve learned that I am not great at this game, I have yet to win as Tylor and our friends are just significantly better (or more lucky), however, I enjoy each playthrough nevertheless. It’s a fantastic game, it plays quick, its dynamic and different each time. The theme is really absent but I don’t think I care that much as this isn’t a game you would typically come to for the theme.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: A-
Strengths: Replayability is great, the art is fantastic and the mechanics are smooth and elegant. You’ll want to keep playing as this game is incredibly inviting and dare I say, addicting.
Areas of Improvement: I would have loved to see bigger discs to fill the circles entirely, it feels a bit odd that they are smaller. Quality wise, having marble discs would have elevated this game significantly.
Memorability: A-
How often do I think about the game? It’s not a game that lurks in my brain, but I absolutely love my experience with it each and every time that I find myself reminiscing about our past games. The colours, the design, and the overall feel is just fantastic.
How often is the game brought up by the individuals I play with? Our friends love this game! We’ve played with individuals who are heavy into games and those that barely play board games and both groups thoroughly enjoyed their experience. This is an often requested game at our table.
How many memories can be built from this game? This is a memorable game. You know those stories that begin with “I can’t believe you did that!” Well this game is certainly the culprit for many of those memories. The end game is often SO CLOSE, many players are often a move away from winning. You’ll find a lot of grand moments when your friends either make grand moves collecting many pieces or force you to move six spaces, which no one really wants to do later in the game.
Education: A-
There’s a few educational elements I really enjoy in this. Primarily the relationship between thinking ahead and accounting for what others are doing as well. If you’re playing by yourself, you can certainly plan quite well and hope to achieve various goals you’ve set. However, if you’re playing with others not only do you need to plan ahead but you have to account for what others are doing. If a lot of Tylor’s tiles require red pieces, I likely shouldn’t also be going for a lot of red pieces, or instead try to take as many as I can so that he cannot fulfill his goals.
I thoroughly enjoy when educational elements intertwine, and for a fairly simple and straightforward game Nova Luna does a phenomenal job at this. There’s a lot of skills here that can be carried over to the real world as well. You’ll be assigned a bunch of tasks and you’re on a team, you’ll not only want to pay attention to what your team is doing, but plan your tasks so you get to do the ones you’d rather do and let others fulfill ones that you want to avoid. Yes, board games can teach you to be cunning and devious at times too.
Overall, this game is wonderful for the educational elements because it’s so much fun that you don’t even realize that you’re learning!
Replayability: A
I find really great replayable games often have many levels of variability. For example, different goal cards you rotate through, asymmetrical characters, variation on the board, different scoring conditions, etc. This game has one element of variability, the tiles that are placed around the moon track and after playing this game over ten times, I just want to keep playing! It made me realize that you don’t need a lot of complexity behind variation to create great variability.
The variability in tiles create quite a dynamic experience, you’re always adapting to the environment, the tiles present and what other players are doing. That in itself provides great replayability in this game. Anything on top would just make it messy, but who knows maybe I’m not thinking creatively enough.
Imagination: B+
Well the artwork in this game is wonderful! It’s super pleasing to bring this to the table and as your tile collection begins to grow it almost feels magical putting on the little discs and accomplishing goals.
The moon dial is wonderful as well, as you will enter many moon phases and it’s a just to move the moon token and take tiles from the centre of the field.
The theming in this game is rather quiet, as all you’re trying to do is adapt to the new moon and plan ahead. As this is primarily an abstract game this doesn’t bother me one bit. I do think the game would be elevated if there was a simple paragraph relating why you’re collecting discs, even something along the lines of “collect the moon shards and harness the power of the new moon.”
Target: A-
This game is a wonder as it appeals to many diverse groups of players. I can see myself introducing this game to someone who’s never played boards or friends who are just finishing up their round of Spirit Island.
The colours have been chosen to accommodate colourblindness as well. I know in particular the game certainly accommodates nearly every condition of colourblindness with the exception of monochromacy, although it’s still playable it’s certainly difficult for those folks. The design was definitely thought about and I appreciate that. There is no symbols but the symbols would be tough to incorporate as the tiles are quite small.
Overall this game has a beautiful box, it’s inviting and I think would appeal to mostly everyone. Only folks you’re really missing are those who really don’t care for spatial puzzles.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Nova Luna is a great game for anyone who loves puzzle strategy games! It does not take long to play and the concept is pretty easy to grasp. The complexity comes in the gameplay and strategy itself. You really have to adapt to what the board gives you and pay attention to what other players are grabbing. From my experience, it feels like everyone playing will be close to victory and it will really depend on how the last couple of turns play out. I really enjoy this because the game slowly picks up in intensity and next thing you know you are thinking really hard about your next tile choice.
This was also my first game where the turns were based on who was furthest back on the tracker and I quite enjoyed this idea. It adds this necessary element of strategy that I had never really considered before. Overall, I really enjoy this game!
Final Thoughts: If you love puzzle strategy games, this is a game that will stay on your shelf for quite a long time. It’ll appeal to all sorts of audience and likely be a crowd favorite. Easy to learn, replayable, and inviting. Overall can’t stop raving about how great this game is. However, if abstract strategy games aren’t your forte and you’re looking to dive into the theme more, this game may not be for you.
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: A-