Moonriver – half the tiles, twice the fun?

Published in 2017 Kingdomino the game of the year in German Pegasus Spiele. The Kingdomino family was gradually expanded to include additional titles: Kingdomino: Age of Giants (Extension), Queendomino, Dragomino (Children's Game of the Year 2021) and Kingdomino: Origins. The latter already included various game modes. This year is with moonriver another title with Kingdomino Game System was released. While all of Bruno Cathala's previous titles (some with a second author) had a "Domino" ending, this one is now missing. And for a good reason.

Create a magnificent landscape in the Wild West

While the previous Kingdomino games consisted of “domino pieces”, there are moonriver half stones that you have to puzzle together. This means you can determine the fields of the domino yourself and have even more options. But let's start at the beginning...

Game mechanics

The Moon River you each build your own ranch. To do this, in each round you choose a puzzle piece that shows a landscape. You are always faced with a dilemma, because if the puzzle piece is rather strong, it will be your turn later in the next round - so the game always balances itself. You place the puzzle piece in your display and as soon as there are at least 2 pieces there, you can use it to form a domino and place it in your ranch. The stones must always be placed on a bridge on the river in your starting area or on an already placed domino in the same landscape; i.e. meadow after meadow, canyon after canyon, etc. But it is enough if one landscape is placed appropriately, the second can then be different. At the end of the game, you get points for each space in an area that has at least one cow. You multiply the number of fields by the number of cattle. You also get points for resources such as gold, corn or beavers. Partner tokens can also provide additional points or effects during play.

Half tiles – double the fun?

Let's get straight to the most important question, how does the game play? What was immediately noticeable during our round of play is that it is much more tactical and time-consuming to play compared to Kingdomino. The two-player mode in particular takes much longer - also because there is only the version with the large ranch (5x10 fields). In Kingdomino, double size was optional.

But the mechanics of assembling the dominoes yourself develop their full potential after just a few rounds, as you can now assemble the dominoes the way you need them - as long as the right dominoes are in the display and you get them. Fans of tactics will definitely get their money's worth here. But if you're looking for a quick game, you probably won't be so happy here, because the new combination options mean I can weigh up much more carefully which stone I could best use when and how. That's fine for an upscale family game, but it still works for me.

Go West – All new to ranch building?

A relatively new element are the partner tiles. With these you can not only improve your own ranch (we already knew a similar element from Kingdomino: Origins), but also actively attack other people and steal cows from them or exchange a tile from your own display with one from the opponent's display.

There are also four new game modes. These do not bring any new elements into the game, such as in Kingdomino Origins, but rather place a special focus on the rating. Depending on the mode you select, you only get additional points if you line up gold fields or houses, for example. The scoring always looks like this. 3 fields in a row give 10 points and each additional matching field gives another 10. So a row of 5 matching fields gives 30 points. It should be noted that it is not just one area, but that you can theoretically go from one field to the next without leaving the fields or having to use them twice. So “dead ends” are problematic.

Even though this focus can earn good points, it doesn't seem quite as exciting because the task remains the same and only the relevant resource has been swapped.

You can also play as one of the four characters. Each of your starting fields has a front and a back. While the front is the same for all of them and has 3 storage spaces and 3 bridges (where you can start), the back brings changes. So there is

• Mary with 1 bridge and 4 storage spaces
• Wesley with 2 bridges and 3 storage areas
• Calamity with 2 bridges and 3 storage spaces
• Big Jo with 3 bridges and 2 storage areas

These characters are randomly assigned, and while playing we noticed that more discard spaces are stronger than more bridges. Ultimately, these often only help in the first few rounds, because as soon as they are built up, you only have to focus on the existing fields.

Conclusion

Moon River creates a good balancing act between the well-known Kingdomino and the new elements. Anyone who has played Kingdomino will get used to the new mechanics and scoring very quickly. If you're not familiar with the games, you'll be a bit overwhelmed because I need a large area and as many cows as possible. Gold and beaver fields give resource points in addition to their territory points, but corn only gives for the resource, because cows are not allowed in the corn fields. Even though the rules are quite straightforward, there will probably be some questions the first time you play, as you have a few opportunities to build a valuable ranch.

In the end, for me Moonriver is the more demanding Kingdomino and an exciting addition to the series! But there's still a bit of a downer at the end because I miss the cool tile tower from Kingdomino! But this is due to the puzzle pieces, because if you stacked them individually on top of each other, the tower would have to be very, very high. In general, setting up and dismantling takes noticeably longer than with Kingdomino. After a game, all parts must be separated and mixed. But that's still within reasonable limits for the game.

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