Moonlight: The Land of the Wolves, is a 2-player head to head game, designed by Alexandre Aguilar and Thomas Favreliere, with art by Noemie Chevalier. This game was published in 2025, by French company La Boite de Jeu.
In this game, players are taking on the role of opposing packs, battling for the control of the mountain territory through the use of card play. The goal is the have the most points to win a round, and the first player to win two rounds wins.
Players each have their own matching deck of eleven cards, with strength values 1-5, used to claim position in a 4×3 or 3×4 card tableau. On their turn, players will play a card out into the grid and then draw a card into their hand. Once the first card has been played, players must continue to play adjacent to an existing card, or they can cover up one of their opponents card, if the strength value is exactly 1 higher than the card in play.
The round will continue until the grid is full or players run out of cards. Then the grid is scored on several aspects. Some of the cards have moon symbols on them, the player with the most moon symbols visible, will score 2 points.
Then, each row will score the value of cards in each row for each player. The player with the higher total value wins the row and will score the value of their cards in that row. Whoever has the most points wins the round.
There are a couple of special cards. The number 1 card, has a strength value of 3 if it is one of the 4 corner cards of the grid, but can easily be covered. Also, any row with one or more 3 value cards will score 1 bonus point each for the winner of the row.
After each round, if no player has two victories, the winner of the round will gain a Lone Wolf card, which add a higher value card or an additional ability to the players hand. The loser of the round will gain an Alpha Bonus card, that will affect the rules of the game to the advance of the player holding the card.
Moonlight was added as part of the Winter of Games event. This is the second game without a tutorial available to learn the game, but the rulebook is only 2 pages long and the rules are very straightforward and easy to grasp.
Once players know what they are doing, the game is simple to play, but has engaging and interesting decisions for them to make. Out of the 3 cards in a players hand, they have to decide which to play and when. Higher value cards are harder for your opponent to cover, but if you play all your high value cards early, it’s harder to manipulate the outcome of the rows during scoring as well. If you play your low cards too early, you might not be able to get the corner bonuses for the 1 strength cards because your opponent covers them or manipulates the grid to prevent them from being on the corners.
I really enjoy this one and the interesting choices you have to make each round. The Lone Wolf and Alpha Ability cards add more variables after the first round, changing the way in which players approach strategies. In the first game I played, my opponent had an Alpha Ability that made it to where I was not allowed to cover their strength 1 cards.
I am rating this one at a 8/10 on Board Game Geek. I enjoyed the quick and thoughtful game. I am likely to pick up a copy of this as it is all cards and could fit in my convention bag.
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