Knizia, despite being an undisputed master of the modern two-player card game (amongst a multitude of other accolades), is not infallible. It’s not that Blue Moon, his take on the kind of 1v1 card combat game typically relegated to CCG territory, is bad. Far from it. In fact, when viewed solely as a work of product innovation, this is one of his most groundbreaking achievements. Remember, Fantasy Flight’s LCGs(™) did not exist at this time, so Blue Moon positioning itself as an alternative to Magic: The Gathering that didn’t require the hoop-jumping and wallet-draining of mediocre-by-design starter decks and randomized booster packs was an attractive proposal. Furthermore, the game is easy to understand, fun, and each playable deck is tactically distinct. So what holds it back from greatness? Unfortunately, Knizia’s highly European, minimal approach to game design — which serves him extremely well when designing, say, Euros — does him few favors when working in the high fantasy, direct conflict space. Of course, he’s much too talented to reduce its system to the point of meaninglessness, but Blue Moon is still lacking in the sort of flavor and dynamics you’d want from a game about appeasing powerful dragon lords by proving your worth via magical warfare. Most games of Blue Moon will be played with the prebuilt “People Decks” provided in the base game. Deck customization is allowed, of course, though is quite restrictive unless you really go wild with all the expansions. Besides, the original release only came with two decks: the “Vulca” and the “Hoax”. Thankfully, a more recent…
My first Reiner Knizia review and it’s a negative one. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. You know what else I don’t like? Ra. The appeal of this game is beyond me. You spend three quarters of your turns drawing a tile from a bag to no immediate effect. Pretty much the entire game is down-time. Its theme is pointless, its cadence is awkward, and its decision space is tiny. Honestly, this is probably my least favorite design of Knizia’s that I’ve played, and I’ve played a lot. I really do not understand why this is considered one of Knizia’s classics. His earlier titles Modern Art and High Society are significantly better auction games and laid the groundwork for many systems we see in games today. Knizia is practically a master of the auction genre. So what’s the deal with Ra? Why does it completely ignore everything that made both of those games work? Gone are the tempestuous economies, careful value assessments, and creative twists on pacing and scoring. Ra has no economy or valuation dynamics that I can see, and its scoring system is rote set collection of the blandest kind. What happened? First, let’s touch on Ra‘s overall structure. Before the game begins, players are each dealt a hand of “Sun” tiles, numbered between 2 and 16, and a starting score of 10 VPs. Another Sun tile with a value of 1 is placed in the center of the game board. Players then take turns drawing random tiles from a…