Moon Colony Bloodbath

The rockets have launched. The colonists are loaded. The robots are programmed. Everything has been planned in exhaustive detail, and there is no chance of failure. There is, however, every chance of catastrophe, and the deck of Event cards waiting in the middle of the table is going to make sure of it.

Moon Colony Bloodbath is a deck-building game where the deck you're building is shared with the table, and the table has been making bad choices. Every card someone adds to the central deck stays there — including the ones that kill colonists. You'll engine-build with the goal of growing your population on the moon, but every shuffle through the Event deck triggers something, and the something is rarely good.

What makes it sharp is the engine-losing layer. Most deck-builders reward growth. Moon Colony Bloodbath rewards growing while the engine itself decays under you, and the dark humor of watching everyone's colony quietly collapse is the heart of the game. It's a Donald X. Vaccarino design, with the same precision you'd expect from the designer of Dominion, just pointed at a much darker target.

Deck-building groups, fans of darker-themed games, and players who like a bit of bite to their board games will all enjoy this. Plays 1 to 5, with the community calling 4 the sweet spot, and runs 45 to 90 minutes.

It's the kind of game where the table is laughing for all of the wrong reasons. If that's your humor, you'll love it. If it isn't, give this one a pass.