Game: Monkeys on the Moon

Thread: Re: Has anyone ever received this game without the moonstone (turn keeper)?

GaryP — 2008-07-11T18:32:11+00:00

FYI: The Moonstone is just a glass counter with sparkles in it. Nothing fancy. In fact, we don't use it. Instead, we use Lucky Monkey, a cut-out from a child's wooden puzzle that now lives in game box.

Thread: Re: Has anyone ever received this game without the moonstone (turn keeper)?

Rygel — 2008-07-10T17:15:58+00:00

Yes. Now I just use a counter.

Thread: Has anyone ever received this game without the moonstone (turn keeper)?

mrshankly — 2008-07-10T10:03:34+00:00

Just curious if this has happened to anyone else. I bought this game brand new, and either I lost the moonstone within minutes of opening the box - never to be found, or my box was lacking a moonstone. I know the moonstone is not essential to the game - basically it's merely a turn keeper (or button for all the poker afficionados out there), but it'd still be nice to have, given it's supposed to be part of the game. Anyone? Beuller? Beuller?

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l10n0fjudah — 2008-06-08T04:58:25+00:00

Box contents - Cards in Shrinkwrap

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:16:13+00:00

civilization cards

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:14:43+00:00

ship cards

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:13:11+00:00

monkey cards

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:11:22+00:00

monkey scorn cards

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:09:24+00:00

tribe cards

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:07:42+00:00

player aid card, front and back

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:06:33+00:00

hi res back cover scan

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:03:00+00:00

rule book cover

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Rokkr — 2008-06-06T16:00:46+00:00

hi res board scan

Thread: Re: First play with two

GaryP — 2008-03-24T17:47:28+00:00

Late reply, but much agreed that the two-player game loses a lot since, as you noted, you can always tell what favor coins your opponent has available for bidding. I gave it one try with 2P, and will not again. However, I adore it as a three- or four-player game.

Thread: Re: First play with two

Frank Burbach — 2008-02-18T05:49:31+00:00

One of my favorites. Definitely plays better with 3 or 4 players.

Frank

Thread: First play with two

Drew — 2008-02-18T00:43:11+00:00

I played my first game of this the other night. It was a two player game with a friend of mine. We went through the rules and after a couple rounds we got the rules down and were able to concentrate on our strategies.

My friend seemed to be getting out to an early lead. He landed several ships of full monkeys while I just sat and watched. He had at least 6 or 7 monkeys by the time I landed my first ship of three. Being behind I felt I had to bid extremely aggressively on the monkeys which I did but that caused me to not have enough favor coins to avoid taking on some Red Monkey scorn. The game continued on in that way with my friend just about always having twice the moneys landed than I did. By then I felt sure he was just about going to sweep the board.

We aligned the tribe stones on the Tribe Track and started determining victory points. And to my surprise and bewilderment I ended up winning the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th tribes. Even with the points from all the ships my friend landed he wasn't able pull ahead. I ended up with 22 points to his 17. Analyzing our cards showed that although he had more moneys he had a lot of the blue tribe which only finished 5th, where as I was more diversified and was able to advance the civilization of the tribes I had a majority in farther up the tribe track.

The only weak part of the game play was the bidding, but only because there was only two of us. Also it was easy to determine how much he could bid even though we were keeping our favor coins private.

The game provides a great challenge of try to land monkeys while at the same time advancing the civilization of the tribes you have a majority in. I'm looking forward to playing it with three or four where the bidding should prove to be more dynamic. For a relatively easy game to learn it packs a lot of game in the small box it comes in.

Thread: Re: User Review

Schuyler — 2007-08-28T02:50:00+00:00

Great review! I was considering adding Monkeys to my online shopping cart at Funagain Games for eight bucks, and now you've convinced me!

Thread: Re: Scorn if already scorned

EmprDranathi — 2007-08-12T16:49:55+00:00

Not knowing any better we play in a manner similar to the "Mechanical" option - with recursive Scorn. Therefore, One will always be able to "Pay off" the Rival tribe... With one of the coins just earned.

Extreme Example: Tribal alliances (Clockwise) Blue, Green, Red, Black, Purple, Brown, (Blue). I am penniless and already have Scorn from Black Red and Green.

Civ card: I Play Blue Tribe can use Chainsaws (5). Take 2 Blue chips (from Blue). Need to pay off the Rival Tribe: Black. Since I have no Black Favor Chips, I need to get one of Black's Allies to intercede for me with Black. So I turn to Red. Red already has Scorned me, so I need to Get one of Red's Allies to intercede with Red for me So I can appease Black. I now have to Turn to Green. Green has Scorned me, so I follow the circle, and turn to Blue. Blue Likes Me, and I can Pay them off to Intercede with Green. Green will then intercede with Red. And finally Red will intercede with Black.

However, I I ever am scorned by all 6 tribes at the same time, then I am in a deep pit of Scorn. Both of any chips won by playing a civ card will have to be used immediately: One to pay off the Scorn, and one to pay the Rival.

This then allows for a nice House Rule. Rivals should be payed off by the least degree of separation. In the Above example, Since I have no scorn from Purple, I should take Purples Scorn before allowing Green to Pay/intercede.

Thread: Excellent First Time

PinkPiggy — 2007-07-05T09:09:28+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised to sit down to this game with my own mother who plays only traditional games and only on occasion. She was excited to play this, and my brother in law (geek gamer) who brought it out was also excited, so this told me immediately it would be a hit in our family. At the table: Me, Broter-in-law (BIL), Sister, Mom.

The brown tribe received several advancements. I had a nice pile of brown tokens and tokens from allied tribes. This was an accident, because I didn't really know what I was doing. Nevertheless I scored a couple of brown monkeys and a black, but was held up for a few rounds waiting to fill my ship to capacity. BIL made a good showing in this time launching a couple small ships.

I stalled out, not launching my first ship until about 1/3 of the way through the game, while BIL pulled ahead and sis and mom taking a close 2nd. I bid aggressively to finish my ship, but found myself without enough currency to bid on other monkeys without taking on scorn. So for the rest of the game, I took the scorn of at least two tribes and for a short while, three tribes. That crippled my economy. Covered in monkey feces and slipping on banana peels, I struggled to finish one more 2-monkey ships before the game's end.

The brown tribe managed to finish the civ track, so fortunately my early scoring of brown got me an easy 7 points. I had nothing else. Sis pulled an upset, finishing several small ships and getting the highest score of the rest of the tribes. Sis wins with 22. BIL 12. Me 9. Mom 7. Mom was a clever bidder, and won some great monkeys. She would've done better but the dim yellowish light in the room made the blue and green chips look alike and the brown and purple. Next time I'm removing the lamp covers or bringing another white light so there's no confusion.

Thread: Re: Play-by-web version now available

GaryP — 2007-06-14T17:13:38+00:00

Rockin'! I'll have to try it out tonight.

Thread: Play-by-web version now available

BugLaden — 2007-06-14T11:06:38+00:00

You can now play Monkeys on the Moon at Ludoholic.

This is a turn-based, play-by-web implementation.

Enjoy!

Thread: Re: Scorn if already scorned

lemur25 — 2007-05-16T03:57:43+00:00

I was playing in the game with the original poster and he did have 3 tribes
scorn and did not have any coins to pay them. since i was in this game he probably doesn't want my interpretation of the rules but here they are, I thought that he should just pay or take the scorn of one of the enemy tribes allies allies, and the allies allies ally if it got that far.

Thread: Re: Scorn if already scorned

GaryP — 2007-05-14T16:05:06+00:00

We actually had this happen once, too. We agreed with what you did, following a rationale equivalent to Scott's "Mechanical" interpretation. In any case, that much scorn can not bode well.

One side comment regarding Ed's response: It is generally true that you must pay a coin if you have it, however there is an exception. Let's say you need to pay Blue a coin, but you already have Blue Scorn. Blue's allies are Red and Green. You have a Red coin but no Green coins. You are still free to choose which allied tribe to pay: either returning the Red coin or taking Green Scorn. (You might well choose the latter if you expect another player to incur Green Scorn soon or if you have a green ship prepared to launch.)

Thread: Re: Scorn if already scorned

Rulemonger — 2007-05-12T12:57:10+00:00

BugLaden wrote:
I suppose you can look at it like a loan of 1, but in a game where Favor coins are few and precious. You don't want Scorn - you will always be behind the income curve with Favor coins.

With that in mind, in a 2 player game, I was taking lots of Scorn and finally got to the situation where when I played a Civilization card, I already had the Scorn cards of the rival, and both the rivals allies. What to do then?
Not sure if you were playing this right. Even if you hold scorn, if you have the coins, you have to pay 1 favor to the enemy of the tribe you are advancing, or one of its allies.

I find it hard to believe that you didn't have a favor coin from any of the 3 tribes especially in a 2p game. If you have a coin of the enemy tribe, you would have to pay the enemy tribe. If you didn't, your choice of which of the enemy's allies to pay.

Paying is never optional if you have the coins.

Well, he says he had scorn cards for all three (and the question seems to imply that he didn't have the coins), so I find it easy to believe. But whether it really happened or it's a hypothetical, that shouldn't change the answer.

The rules don't address it directly, so I think there are two alternatives: the legalistic and the mechanical.

The legalistic: since you cannot pay what you would owe (using "receive scorn" as a method of "payment"), you cannot play the Civilization card in the first place.

The mechanical: You play the card, you incur a debt. You cannot pay with favor, so it falls to scorn. You cannot pay with (receiving) scorn, so the debt falls to one of the allies (your choice).
Repeat with the ally:
You have a debt, you cannot pay with favor so it falls to scorn. You cannot pay with scorn, so the debt falls to yet another ally (an ally of that ally).
And so on.

I'd go for the second option. (And then, in the case where you have the scorn of ALL the tribes {and no coins}, default to th legalistic {or to an automatic loss, perhaps}).

Thread: Re: Scorn if already scorned

BugLaden — 2007-05-12T03:10:11+00:00

I suppose you can look at it like a loan of 1, but in a game where Favor coins are few and precious. You don't want Scorn - you will always be behind the income curve with Favor coins.

With that in mind, in a 2 player game, I was taking lots of Scorn and finally got to the situation where when I played a Civilization card, I already had the Scorn cards of the rival, and both the rivals allies. What to do then?
Not sure if you were playing this right. Even if you hold scorn, if you have the coins, you have to pay 1 favor to the enemy of the tribe you are advancing, or one of its allies.

I find it hard to believe that you didn't have a favor coin from any of the 3 tribes especially in a 2p game. If you have a coin of the enemy tribe, you would have to pay the enemy tribe. If you didn't, your choice of which of the enemy's allies to pay.

Paying is never optional if you have the coins.

Thread: Scorn if already scorned

fredact — 2007-05-12T02:46:19+00:00

If I understand Scorn, it is not at all bad, except at the end of the game. Basically it is just a loan of 1. In fact it is better than a loan, because if you board a monkey or someone else takes it you never pay it off.

With that in mind, in a 2 player game, I was taking lots of Scorn and finally got to the situation where when I played a Civilization card, I already had the Scorn cards of the rival, and both the rivals allies. What to do then?

(we played I had to pay one of the other tribes).

Thread: Re: Final launch clears monkey scorn?

GaryP — 2006-09-14T17:24:15+00:00

Yes, the final launch counts as any other, causing you to either gain a (now useless) Favor Coin of that color or ridding you of that color's Monkey Scorn.

This is a major consideration during the endgame. It allows you to safely accept Monkey Scorn from whatever color ship you currently own. That, in turn, means that when you get a new ship during the last two or three turns, there is a choice (depending on the available ships) between trying to fill another small ship for VPs or choosing a color that will allow you to rid yourself of Monkey Scorn.

This is addressed on Eight Foot Llama's site as an optional rule, but I highly suggest using it:

At the end of the game, all unfilled ships with at least one monkey onboard launch.

This prevents a player from launching a ship during the final round of Bid Turns and then choosing a new ship to remove scorn without bidding on additional monkeys.

Thread: Re: Final launch clears monkey scorn?

yossarians — 2006-09-14T10:55:23+00:00

yes

Thread: Final launch clears monkey scorn?

i7dealer — 2006-09-14T04:01:51+00:00

According to the rules, you launch the final ship at the end of the game. The rules also say that launching a ship that a tribe favors clears you of their scorn. Should I take this to mean that if you launch a ship at the end of the game, you clear the scorn of that tribe?

Thread: Session Report

Zirak — 2006-09-04T22:50:11+00:00

Players – Frank, Peter, Jason

After Eli had left we decided to play another new game – Monkeys on the Moon. I had played half a game with my wife over a year ago, so I had to read the rules again. There we a few thing which were not covered in the rules, and I generally found the flow of the rules to be quite ambiguous, which may have dampened my feelings towards the game.

We set up the monkey tribes, dealt out the civilisation cards and lay out the monkeys & the money ships. We then began advancing our tribes using our civ cards. Now one thing I had a problem was that when you take out the civ cards depending on the number of players, it automatically means that all the cards you have in your hand are ultimately going to be played at one stage or another. I think to give the players more opportunity to choose a tribe to advance or even hold back, possibly an end card could be shuffled into the bottom set of cards, giving the player the choice to advance or hold back on certain tribes.

Peter started with some early launches giving him some early monkeys. We then went about our bid and advancements. I misinterpreted the bidding process on the monkeys and we just bid on all the monkeys that were available, which worked just as well I thought.

After we reached the bottom of the civ deck and had played our last cards we counted up our monkeys and determined who the supreme leader of each tribe was. I was quite lucky that I ended up being the supreme leader in the first 3 tribes. Frank was very unlucky with his civ cards throughout the game and also with the available monkeys – there were a few times where he was literally unable to bid on monkeys and he & Peter ended up with two monkey scorn cards each, leaving the final score at Frank with 2, Peter with 21(I think) and myself with 25.

Overall it is quite a silly game but it does have good mechanics. I will have to give the game a few more tries as it looks like it has promise and possibly with a few home variants, it could be quite an enjoyable game.

Thread: Viewable Advancements

karat — 2006-06-27T20:00:35+00:00

I recently read a review that claimed that tribe advancement was too random, and I couldn't understand why someone would say that. When I play, I have a pretty good idea of which tribes are likely to catch up and which ones are not. Then I realized that this was because I always played with a trivial house rule that has some interesting consequences. The house rule is this:

When advancing a tribe, place the advancement under the tribe card, with the top of the advancement sticking out such that you can see the name. (This requires a bit more space for the tribe circle because by the end of the game, each tribe has a trail of advancements.)

Originally, this was done primarily to help with counting. If someone miscounts the tribe track or if game is interrupted or if the table is shaken, you can always reconstruct how many advancement points a tribe has. Plus, it's amusing to see the combination of advancements that a tribe has.

After playing several games this way, I realized that I was using the list of advancements to gauge which tribe would do better than the others. Here's the trick:

You now can easily tell at a glance how many cards of what colors have already been played. This gives you a good indication of what cards are left in the deck. Also, throughout the game you are going to distribute nearly all of the civilization cards. If you, say, place a blue card on the brown tribe, you are advancing the brown tribe at the expense of the blue tribe. You knew this before, but you can now see it clearly as open information if this happens systematically.

This simple modification of just keeping the advancements played around as open information helps you make more strategic choices and makes the endgame much less random.

Thread: 2 player (with first time player)

PlanetSmasher — 2006-04-04T04:43:07+00:00

Looking for something new to play, I suggested Monkeys on the Moon. I had only played with my daughter twice and was hoping to get it on the table again since my daughter wasn't taken by it.

This is the kind of game you need to play in order to get. I explained the rules and planned on doing a round or two to have him get a feel for the game. By the time we got to a good cut off where he understood the game, we were only a few turns from the end of it so we decided to play it out.

We each started with a focus on opposing tribes (I had the green side of the board, him the Blue). We were almost always in the situation where one of us would win since the other could not beat the 2 or 3 point initial bid. I was lucky enough to get more low capacity ships, so the extra favors I got from launching 2-3 at a time instead of 3-4 gave me an edge to win the 1st and 3rd place tribes to his 2nd and 4th.

I like it with 2, but he thinks it would be better with more. Either way, I hope to try it with him again (now that he's played, it will be a fair match).

Final Score:
Me: 28
him: 22

After my 3rd game playing, I think I need to just take the scorn early when the right monkeys are up for auction. I lost a few auctions because I went with a less important color for the round just to avoid the scorn. Scorn comes out to the same exact favor cost as paying the one color as long as you get rid of it by the end of the game. A lot of times scorn isn't bad since you have more options on what to offset the advance with by paying one of the 2 allies to the scorned race (so if order is red-blue-brown and you have the blue scorn, you have MORE options since you can now pay either red or brown).

On the same note, trying to dump the scorn as soon as I got it may have also worked against me too. The next game I'm going to try to play more toward what I want rather than to what I can avoiding scorn. It may even work since my opponent may then have to take a scorn card from me (so no cost at all rather than the normal 1 favor).

Thread: Sunday Night Coffee Gaming 2006-03-19

karrde — 2006-03-21T02:31:36+00:00

In attendence: Staci, Lisa, Ken, and myself (Jake)

Ken brought this along with him, and when we dropped down to 4 players we took a spin at it. This was a first time for everyone except Ken. After a quick explination of the rules we proceded to comence.

We imediately screw something up by not putting out the first batch of monkeys before the first civ round. This was followed by a further screwup of auctioning all 5 monkeys the first time around. These errors were realised on the first replenishment however and play proceded.

Arangement of tribes were: Black, Green, Red, Blue, Brown, and Purple. Black took a solid lead after 2 rounds, and remained that way throughout the game. I curred so much favor with them that I was the first to inccur monkey scorn from the blue tribe. Play proceded smothly however with some of us having a hard time launching a ship, being inflicted with a 4 ship right off the bat.

I claimed many a monkey, quite to the detriment of my coin stack. While watching Ken amass quite the stack of favor chips. In the end this seemed to be my undoing and his benifit. The game ended it quite the landslide:

Ken - 17
Staci - 10
Lisa - 10
Jake - 10

While none of us ran screaming (from the game at least) this will take some consideration before I decide to play again.

Game Rating: 5

Thread: Re: Now only $8 at funagain.com

Jeff — 2006-03-03T22:56:48+00:00

Defintely worth the $8. Not sure how much you'd save paying Funagain's high prices, though. But yeah, MotM is a fun little game.

Thread: Re: Now only $8 at funagain.com

fsumarc — 2006-03-03T22:50:45+00:00

It's a good game. well worth $8!

Thread: Now only $8 at funagain.com

mpw182 — 2006-03-03T22:43:31+00:00

If you buy at least $25 worth of stuff at funagain.com you can get Monkeys on the Moon for only $8. The cheap price is the only thing that is making me try this game hehe.

O_O

Thread: Re: Where do the coins go?

lamberss — 2005-07-21T12:26:30+00:00

Each coin bid is returned to the tribe of its own color. There should only ever be coins of one color on each tribe.

Thread: Where do the coins go?

Heimdall — 2005-07-21T07:22:24+00:00

Where do your coins go when you successfully bid for a monkey?

Do all the coins go to the purchased monkey's tribe? This creates a nice and sensible circular economy with tribes building hoards of multicoloured coins but seems to weaken the strategy in the game.

Or is each coin spent simply returned to its own colour tribe?

Thread: Session Report

bwingrave — 2005-04-02T20:24:51+00:00

Players: M, B, S and P (me)
It was my fifth game of MotM, and each of my opponents had played once before with someone who they said didn't know the rules.

S dominated, scoring six ships and winning three tribes -- the most complete performance I've yet seen in this game. I was only able to win a few monkeys and had scorn for nearly the entire game. I think the lesson I'll take from this game is to hoard my influence coins much more carefully. I think I only finished with five or six monkeys...ugh.

Tribe scoring:
Black: S first (7 VPs), M second (4 VPs)
Blue: S first (6), M second (3)
Green: M first (5), B & P second (tie -- 1 VP each)
Purple: B first (4), P second (2)
Brown: S first (3), P second (2)
Red: P first (2), B second (1)

Score summary:
S: 16 for tribes, 0 scorn, 11 for ships, total 26
M: 12 for tribes, 0 scorn, 4 for ships, total 16
P: 7 for tribes, -4 scorn, 4 for ships, total 7
B: 6 for tribes, -2 scorn, 2 for ships, total 6

Thread: Session Report

RPardoe — 2005-04-01T05:29:57+00:00

Jeff, Lawrence, and Dave joined Rich at his house to play the "M" games. With a large selection, we actually had to resort to voting to get our first game selected. Up for the vote were Monsters Ravage America, McMulti, Mexica, and Monkeys on the Moon. In a close selection (9, 10, 10, 11), the winner was Monkeys on the Moon as the other games seem to draw hot/cold reactions (votes).

Monkeys on the Moon
4 Player
~75 minutes

This is at its heart an area majority control game. One is bidding for monkeys hoping to have a majority of those monkeys at game end. Especially if those monkeys have been advanced furthest along the development track and are worth more points at the end of the game. The twist in this game is that the monkey tribes (colours) are arranged in a circle. A tribe (colour) is allied with those next to it, but antagonistic with the tribe opposite it. Therefore, advancing a tribe forward (to gain favour chits) costs the player favour chips from its antagonist. These same chits are used to bid for the monkeys that one wants to have as a majority. As a result, there is a balancing act between which chits to get (for bidding purposes) and which chits to surrender (to pay the antagonists).

There are quite a few decisions to consider on each turn. Which tribe to advance (each card can be applied to 1 of 3 tribes)? Which chits to give up in exchange (again pay to 1 of 3 tribes)? Which monkeys to bid for? Which ship capacity? Which ship colour? All of these come into to play and as a result, I can see the game having replay value as the decision tree expands rather quickly. As only a limited subset of all the cards is in play on any round, I can see the game playing through many different paths.

Not paying carefully attention can get a player in trouble as Lawrence saw finding himself in mid-game with a single chit and inviting the scorn of the tribe (potential negative points) for not being able to pay chit back. Jeff also found himself unable to pay when he could launch a rocket that impressed the brown tribe, but there were no more chits to hand out. Dave also managed to get some scorn, but both Jeff and Dave managed to remove the scorn by launching rockets in the final round (Dave by launching at the end of the game.) One notable move was Rich bidding on and winning 3 monkeys in a single round to fill and launch his ship. But even that move was for naught as neither Rich nor Lawrence really captured any majorities in any of the colours. Dave had the majority of the top two colours while Jeff had the majority of the bottom 3 colours. Dave could only launch 2 full ships, but both were worth 3 points each. Jeff launched 3 full ships, but with a couple of 2 capacity ships, only managed 4 additional points.

The final scores:

Dave 19
Jeff 18
Rich 14
Lawrence 11

The game certainly felt a lot closer than the final scores would indicate. With 6 tribes offering up 1st and 2nd place points there are 12 possible categories to win. Looking at the scoring note, it appears that we divided those points rather equally. Dave did get only 2, but they were the first place points in the top two categories. Jeff did get 4, while Lawrence and Rich scored in 3 each. A bit more attention to monkey's won might have swung some of the points around. Similarly, we all scored between 4 and 6 points for launched Rocket Ships.

The playing time certainly is rather quick (about an hour). We did take a bit longer than that as it was a first playing for 3 of us and we did have some rules explanation at the start.

Thread: Re:clarification: final scoring and tribe monopoly

chaddyboy_2000 — 2005-03-21T22:11:23+00:00

wkover (#458645),

It means that the player with the monopoly gets the first place points for that tribe, and everyone else splits the second place points.

Thread: clarification: final scoring and tribe monopoly

wkover — 2005-03-21T19:53:22+00:00

Hi all. Here's a clarification (from the publisher) about what to do during final scoring when a single player possesses all of the monkeys of a certain tribe (color):

"The official rule is that the player gets all the 1st-place
points. Since zero is a valid score, everyone else is considered tied for
2nd, and splits the 2nd-place points."

This is actually addressed in the rules, but I didn't "get" it as written.

FYI.

Thread: Session Report

bwingrave — 2005-03-20T23:00:43+00:00

J, C, D and P (me) played this game. It was my fourth game of MotM and the first for each of my opponents.

D seemed to be having some trouble with the rules and strategy throughout. Every time I looked, it seemed that C was boarding a monkey or launching a ship. I was pretty sure he was going to leave us all in the dust. In the midgame, I spent nearly all my tokens on one monkey and was unable to board another monkey for a round or two. Then when I was able to board monkeys, they just seemed to be the random ones I was able to win on, rather than the ones I thought I wanted but either didn't have any tokens for or got outbid on.

In the last round, I boarded two or three monkeys from the black tribe and launched the ship but blundered and got caught with a scorn card.

Tribe scoring:
Blue: C first (7 VPs), P second (4 VPs)
Green: D first (6), J second (3)
Brown: D first (5), P second (3)
Black: P first (4), C second (2)
Purple: J first (3), C second (2)
Red: D first (2), J second (1)

Score subtotals:
J: 7 for tribes, 0 scorn, 4 for ships, total 11
C: 11 for tribes, -2 scorn, 3 for ships, total 12
D: 13 for tribes, -4 scorn, 4 for ships, total 13
P: 11 for tribes, -2 scorn, 6 for ships, total 15

My current advice on strategy: Plan your last two full turns so you'll end the game without scorn. Fill ships; they provide VPs that can't be taken away from you. Try to come in first or second in the top few tribes, but don't neglect the other tribes, as they'll also provide some VPs. It does no good to beat an opponent by 20 monkey points for a particular tribe. (This gives people with excellent memories an advantage in this game; for the rest of us, it's best to get some monkey points in several tribes as we don't know how the civilization track will be at the end.)

Thread: Session Report

meshuggener — 2005-03-20T17:27:52+00:00

All four of us played for the first time yesterday and found this game to be incredibly easy to learn. It is a perfect quick fun game.

It was readily apparent that the best way to win was to advance your favorite tribes to high places and get the highest status monkeys in those tribe. Unfortunately, I really only concentrated on getting purple monkeys. I was able to get the purple monkeys as the first place monkeys, but I only had a couple of other monkeys of other colors. The only victory points I received from monkeys were seven for the first place purples and I split two undersecretaries from other tribes for one point each.

The player that won had a good mix of monkeys of three or four different colors with about three monkeys each, usually of values of three or four. Definately you want to have a rather broad mix of monkeys.

Thread: Session Report

bwingrave — 2005-02-15T00:44:56+00:00

M & I played our first game of Monkeys on the Moon yesterday, using the two-player rule (points for first place, but not 2nd place, in each tribe). M pointed out that hiding the owned Favor coins was of limited use in 2-player, as one may learn how many coins of a given color one's opponent has by subtraction ( your blue coins = 5 - (mine + those on the blue tribe )).

It was pretty rough at first -- I incorrectly explained the points for the Ships (thinking they counted in the tribe scoring), then missed enemies boarding the same ship, as well as the freedom to introduce a Monkey for bidding without making a bid -- but we got the hang of things eventually.

Early in the game, we both advanced the brown tribe. I decided to grab as many brown Monkeys as I could and won some early auctions for them. Soon after, I advanced the green tribe and began trying to collect green Monkeys. About this time, M noticed that I was playing Civ cards for allied tribes (not just the tribe on the card) and realized that she could do the same.

Through the middle game, it seemed like she was picking up a lot more monkeys than I was. We ended up retro-ing the enemies-on-the-same-Ship Monkeys back to where the problem started, meaning she had a few one-Monkey payloads without scored ships, which hurt her. During the middle of the game, I managed to get two Scorn cards at once, and then get rid of them.

By the end, we were both passing on Monkeys to avoid getting Scorn we thought we'd be stuck with. A few particularly choice Monkeys went for bids of 9 or 10 Favor points.

Scoring
Pete: 21 = 15 for tribes ( brown(7), green(6) and tied for red(2) ) + 6 for Ships
M: 18 = 11 for tribes ( tied for red(2) and best in the other three colors (4+3+2) ) + 7 for Ships
We both finished without Scorn.

Impressions
M said she was surprised by how complex a game this is, considering the silly theme. I agree: there's a lot going on -- lots of things to consider during each turn. I can't decide at this point whether, as M said, there's too much randomness based on the cards that come up, or whether the tactical choices will become easier as I get used to the game more. We may have to try this again with larger Monkey pools to cut down on the chaos a bit.

M declined to give the game a rating; I rate this game a 7.8 based on this one playing. Hope to play this one again soon, with 3 or 4 players next time.

Thread: Brief Q&A with the Designer

bwingrave — 2005-02-10T00:19:43+00:00

The below is a reformatted version of some very helpful recent correspondence with the Jim Doherty, designer of Monkeys on the Moon.

Q: I think there may be additional interest in this information on the part of members of boardgamegeek.com. Do you mind if I post the info below to BGG?

A: Feel free to post wherever you wish!

Q: Am I permitted to go thru my scoring pile throughout the game, or do I need to leave those cards face down at all times?

A: Yes, you may always examine your own scoring pile.

Q: Any suggestions on how to keep the favor coins private?

A: There are many ways to keep your favor coins private. Essentially, you have to hide them. Lots of people just hold their 2 Civilization Cards in one hand, and shield their coins with the other. Some people use a soda can, or use a folded piece of paper, to build a shield to hide their coins. When we run demos at conventions, we have cardstock that has the game cover on it available for shielding -- perhaps we should make this available on our website for downloading.

Q: What's the role of the players in this game? Does each player have the role of a monkey that is not affiliated with a tribe?

A: Player roles -- great question. We like to think of the players as "monkeys" who control the spaceships. That is, monkeys who know how to drive. Teams of monkey pilots. They decide who gets off the moon and who does not. If a player/team picks the right monkeys, he wins.

Thread: Re:Comment on teaching

GaryP — 2004-01-21T03:46:50+00:00

ukslim (#25942),
Thanks for the good suggestion! I've taught this game a few times now, and people have generally caught on quickly, but there does seem to be initial confusion as to what actually scores them points at the end. This is definitely one where teaching requires a "monkey see, monkey do" example round. (And yes, that popped into my head before I realized the horrid not-even-a-pun.) But I will definitely try your suggestion next time, since I imagine it will be easier for people if they see what they are trying to get, and then learn how to get it.

Thread: Comment on teaching

ukslim — 2004-01-18T14:39:42+00:00

I've only played MOTM once, but based on our experience, this is a suggestion for teaching the game:

Before starting the game, deal out a random collection of monkey cards, giving some players more monkeys than others, and throw in a few ship cards too. Rank the monkey civilisations randomly.

Then do a practice scoring round, so that everybody has a good feel for the status they are trying to achieve at the end of the game proper.

Only then, while you set up the components for playing properly, do you start explaining how the game is actually played.

Thread: User Review

TomVasel — 2003-09-30T13:50:42+00:00

Occasionally there are games that I’m interested in playing, based solely on their names. This is definitely the case with the games that come from the strangely named company Eight Foot Llama. Monkeys on the Moon (Eight Foot Llama, 2002 – Jim Doherty) had such an odd, interesting name that we were anxious to see how it played.

And the verdict? Monkeys on the Moon has one of the silliest themes I have ever seen, yet it has some very good mechanics that warrant additional plays. This is a very fun game , especially with three or four players, and I think it will hit our table many, many times. Let me explain more about the game to you….

Six monkey faction cards (each denoted by a color) are shuffled, and placed in a circle face up. This circle shows basic monkey faction relations: Each monkey faction is allies with the two cards adjacent to them, and bitter enemies with the card that is opposite them in the circle. A stack of Civilization cards (after removing some from the game) is shuffled and placed in the middle of this circle, after having dealt two cards to each player. A Tribe track is laid on the table, with twenty-six spaces on it, and a wooden cube for each color tribe is placed on it at the start position. A pile of tribe favor coins (wooden discs) of each color is formed in the middle of the table, after giving each player one of every color coin. Six monkey “Scorn” cards, one for each tribe, are placed in the center, as well as two shuffled decks – the monkey deck and ship deck. Each deck has a pool of face up cards, with two cards in the ship pool, and one more than players in the game in the monkey pool. Each player receives one ship face up in front of them, and the game is ready to begin. The player with longest hair goes first, and takes a glass stone, indicating this fact.

Each turn is made up of three parts. The first part is the Civilization turn. Beginning with the start player, each player plays one Civilization card, and draws one card. Each Civilization card played moves the monkey tribe’s cube on the track the amount of spaces on the card. For example, the card “Purple tribe can use an Egg Beater” moves the purple cube forward two spaces on the track, or one of the purple tribe’s allies’ cubes two spaces. The player then receives two favor coins from the color tribe that he helped, but must then pay one favor coin to the bank of the tribe who is the rival of that tribe. If the player does not have a coin of that tribe, they then must take that tribe’s Monkey Scorn card. If the player already has the monkey scorn card, then he must pay one coin of one of their allies’ colors. This sounds a bit confusing, but works rather well in game play. If a player advances a tribe of which he holds the monkey scorn card, he loses the card (they like him again.)

After this phase, the Bidding phase occurs. Each monkey in the monkey pool is from one of the tribes, and is worth from three to five points. In turn order, each player picks a monkey from the monkey pool to bid on. Players can only bid coins from that monkey’s tribe’s color, or from its allies. Allied coins are worth 2 points, while the monkey’s tribe’s coins are worth three points. Bidding goes around the table, until all players but one pass. The winning bidder pays those coins to the bank and loads the monkey on his ship.

Each ship has room for a certain amount of monkeys (2 to 4), and is associated with a color. When a player fills their ship with that amount of monkeys, the full ship launches. Every monkey on the ship is placed to the side – they will count towards that player at the end of the game, and the ship is also placed aside – it is worth a certain amount of victory points (1 to 3). Monkeys from rival tribes refuse to ride in the same ship. If a player boards a monkey that is a rival to a monkey already on the ship, then the ship launches, unfull. The player still keeps the monkey, but must discard the ship, getting no victory points. In both cases, the player takes a new ship from the victory pool, and receives one coin of the color of the ship (that monkey tribe is awed at the shiny thing flying in the sky).

In the final phase of a turn, the start stone is passed to the player’s left, the monkey pool is refilled, and another round is started. This continues until the last Civilization card is played. At this point, the monkey tribe that is farthest on the track is placed in the first scoring position, and the second in the second position, and so on. If a monkey cube finishes the track before the game is over, it was to be automatically placed on the highest available spot. Each player then totals the amount of points they have of the monkeys of each color. Whichever player has the most points gets the first number on victory points on the scoring position, and the second most points gets the second number, and everybody else gets squat. Each player also gets bonus points for any full ships they launched, and loses points for each Monkey Scorn they have. Whichever player has the most points is the winner!

Some comments on the game:

1). Components: I was very pleased with the components in this game. The cards are of excellent quality, and have funny, childrenesque artwork on them. The wooden cubes and discs were really nice – the wooden discs look like they came from a craft store, but they are some of the most functional coins I have ever used in a game, and I hope other companies pick this idea up. The board was a bit bland, but it was easy to see the colorful cubes on it, so no complaints there. Everything fits nicely in a small box that has very nice design elements and is very sturdy. Overall, it has very good components, and is certainly worth the price of the game.

2). Rules: The rules are printed on a four-page booklet, and are very easy to read. Many of the rules are repeated throughout the booklet – something more companies should do. I hate missing an important rule because it’s casually mentioned in a small paragraph in the rules. When a rule is important, it should be emphasized, and these rules do that. The game is easy to teach, but knowing what monkey tribe to advance and how to bid does take a while to learn. The rules also include two advanced variants, both of which are excellent, and will probably be played often in my group.

3). Strategy: You only have two Civilization cards to pick from on your turn, but since each one gives you three choices, careful thought must be put into which monkey tribe is advanced. And how should you spend your coins? Should you spend all your coins, willy-nilly, not caring if you incur monkey wrath? Or should you be careful, always keeping coins on hand to pay off the rival tribes? How many monkeys should you bid on, and of what color? The choices are many, and it’s really a lot of fun deciding what to do. In my first game, I put all my energy into green and purple, and both of them did so poorly on the advancement track that I didn’t get many victory points. I lost horribly, but still enjoyed the game, realizing the mistakes I made. I think it’s definitely a play-twice-immediately game, as people really need one game to realize their optimal strategies.

4). Time: The game plays fairly quickly. If players take a long time to bid, the game might drag, but even then, it finishes at a good clip (maybe an hour). The game is easy to set up and take down, and is one that can be played when there isn’t much time. I’m not sure I would classify it as a filler game, but it’s close.

5). Fun Factor: The game is hilariously silly. The theme of the game itself (monkeys being launched from the moon) is funny, but the advancement cards add to this humor. From the brown tribe learning to yodel, to the green tribe knowing how to ride a unicycle, to the blue tribe using deodorant – a lot of laughter will occur in this game.

But of course funniness does not a good game make. There are many games that I have played (like Munchkin), that have made me laugh a great deal, but the game play itself wasn’t really that good, so repeated playings were rare. This game, silly as it is, actually has some great game mechanics, and all who played it were impressed, wanting to play it again. So I highly recommend this game. I think that you’ll get a great deal of fun and good times for your money’s worth. And on top of that, the game has a VERY unique theme, one unlikely to ever be duplicated. So try it out – a funny, interesting theme combined with excellent bidding and positioning mechanics. And don’t forget to have the black tribe learn their Yoga!

Tom Vasel

Thread: Preview

gschloesser — 2003-07-12T20:58:40+00:00

I first saw this game at the Spiele Faire in Essen, Germany, but didn’t give it much thought. Although I found the designer’s first game, Who Stole Ed’s Pants, creative and clever, it was also very chaotic and lacked much control. So, I promptly forgot about the game until I had the great pleasure of meeting Jim Doherty at Alan Moon’s Gathering of Friends. We even managed to play a game together, but it wasn’t any of Jim’s designs. During the flea market, I decided to purchase a copy of Monkeys on the Moon and give it a try.

The premise is weird. Monkey sent into space survive and actually flourish on the moon. They form tribes and struggle to advance in skills and abilities. Several monkeys – represented by the players – have evolved a bit further than their tribe mates and are now committed to learning and teaching new skills to their fellow chimps. Most of these abilities are of dubious value, however (roller skating, riding unicycles, etc.). However, the real benefit is the knowledge gained on how to repair the space ships that landed everyone on the moon in the first place. Now, all of the primates are eager to board the ships and return to nirvana – Earth!

A board is used to track the advancement progress of each tribe. The ultimate objective is to have the most influence in the tribes that have ‘progressed’ the furthest … and to launch ships filled to capacity with eager chimps back to mother earth.

The six monkey tribes are represented by ‘tribal’ cards, each bearing a different color. These cards are laid in a circle pattern and three ‘favor’ coins of the matching color are placed upon each card. Each tribe has two allies, which are the two tribes immediately adjacent to it in the circle. Further, each tribe also has a rival, which is the tribe located immediately opposite it in the circle. These relationships are critical to game play, so care must be taken not to disturb the order of the tribal cards.

There are also sets of cards representing the “civilization” advancements (known as the “civilization” cards), the monkeys themselves (each personalized with a name, tribal color and influence value), space ship cards, and “monkey scorn” cards, which penalize players when they have offended a particular tribe. Yes … monkeys can be offended.

Players begin the game with two civilization cards, a space ship card and a favor coin from each tribe. A turn consists of three phases:

1. Civilization Turn.

Each player plays a civilization card. The card will indicate the color of the tribe, a numerical value and a description of the type of advancement or skill that the card bestows upon the tribe. To add flavor and atmosphere to the game, it is best to read aloud these newly gained skills or luxuries, boasting about the wondrous benefits they have brought to that tribe.

When playing a civilization card, the player can advance the tribal marker the indicated number of spaces on the ‘tribe’ track of either the tribe whose color matches the card, or of one of it’s allies. We missed the “or one of its allies” part of the cards, which caused a player’s choices to be quite limited during our game.

You will gain the favor of the tribe you advance, allowing you to take two favor coins from their tribal card. Of course, if no coins are available on their card, then you can’t take any. Apparently, the monkeys ability to be appreciative goes only so far. However, that tribe’s rival will be understandably incensed at your favoritism. Thus, you will lose some of that tribe’s previously begotten good-will and, as a result, must return one of your favor coins to that tribe’s card. If you no longer possess any favor coins of that tribe, woe is you! You must take that tribe’s ‘monkey scorn’ card. What’s so bad about being scorned by a troop of monkeys? Well, a lot:

a) If you advance that tribe on the influence track on a future turn, you only take one favor coin.

b) You get no favor coin for launching a ship of the tribe’s color.

c) If you anger the same tribe again, you must pay a favor coin to one of its allies.

d) If you are still in possession of the scorn card at the end of the game, you lose two victory points.

Let me tell you, those monkeys hold grudges! Fortunately, you can regain the favor of the tribe (and ditch the monkey scorn card) by either launching a ship that matches the tribe’s color, advancing that tribe on the tribal track, or by boarding one of that tribe’s monkeys onto a ship. It’s a “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” proposition. Pardon the analogy.

2. Bid Turn.

Player then bid favor coins for the right to obtain monkeys, which will be promptly loaded onto their ship. The monkeys available are face-up on the table in the “monkey pool”, with the number available each turn being one more than the number of players.

The bidding process is the familiar “around the table” method, but the value of the coins varies. Bidding a coin that matches the tribe of the monkey you are attempting to obtain is worth 3 points. Bidding a coin of one of its allies is worth two points. All other coins have no value and cannot be bid. Bidding continues until everyone but one player drops out of the process. The winning player returns the coins he bid to the appropriate tribal cards and immediately loads the newly obtained monkey onto his ship. If he was in possession of the “monkey scorn” card of that tribe, he has re-gained the favor of that tribe and returns the card to the monkey scorn pile.

When loading a monkey onto a ship, several items must be considered and observed. First, a ship has a capacity ranging from a low of two monkeys to a high of four chimps. When a ship reaches its capacity, it is immediately launched, sending the excited primates off on a journey back to Earth. The monkey cards are kept by the player and will be tallied at the end of the game to determine which player holds the most influence in each tribe. The ship card is also saved if it was filled to capacity when launched. Otherwise, it is discarded.

Care must be taken, however, not to load monkeys from rival tribes onto a ship. If a player already has a monkey loaded on a ship and subsequently obtains a monkey of the rival tribe, the ship launches prematurely. The monkey card is kept in the player’s score pile, but no bonus points are earned for the ship itself and it is discarded.

Once a player launches a ship, he immediately takes one of the two face-up ship cards. There is another interesting choice here – do you take a ship with a low capacity or one with a high capacity? Ships with low capacities are easy to fill, but earn fewer victory points. Ships with higher capacities are enticing, offering more victory points, but carry an increased danger of premature launching. Interesting choice. In either case, if a newly obtained monkey was left behind by a premature launching, it is immediately loaded onto the newly repaired ship.

Oh … one more thing. Monkeys never cease to be dazzled by the sight of these colorful space ships soaring through the sky. Tribes are particularly pleased if you launch a ship of their color and reward this accomplishment by granting you a favor coin of their color. Monkeys can also be grateful!

3. Wrapping Up.

Each player is dealt a new civilization card and the monkey pool is re-filled to its limit. The moonstone representing the start player is then passed to the player on the left and a new turn begins.

This entire process repeats itself until each player depletes his hand of civilization cards. The number of rounds and game length varies depending upon the number of players, with our inaugural game clocking in right at an hour.

At this point, each player launches any ships he has still in play, placing those monkey cards into his supply. Since the ships would not have been filled, the ship cards are discarded.

The first thing that is done is examining the tribal track to see which tribes have advanced the furthest. The markers for these tribes are placed onto a chart on the center of the board, with each tribe yielding victory points to the players who possess the greatest and second-most influence in each tribe. The amount of victory points earned varies from a high of 7 points to a low of 1 point. For example, possessing the greatest influence in the most advanced tribe earns a player 7 points, while having the second-most influence in that tribe earns four points. However, the tribe that advanced the least only earns 2 points for the player with the most influence in that tribe and 1 point for the player with the second-most influence. Naturally, a large part of the strategy in the game is to advance the tribes in which you possess the most monkeys.

So how do you determine who has the most influence in each tribe? Simple. Each player separates by tribe the monkeys he successfully sent home and tallies their values. The player with the most cumulative points in a tribe receives the primary victory points for that tribe, while the player with the second highest total receives the secondary points. If more than one player ties, the points are split.

Players also earn bonuses for any ship cards they launched at capacity. The bonus is equal to the capacity limit of the ship, so larger ships grant greater bonuses. The player with the greatest total of points achieves victory.

For a game that comes packaged in a small box and is wrapped in a silly theme, there appears to be quite a bit of depth here. There are so many factors to consider and so many choices to be made that it is actually on the verge of overwhelming. A quick scattershot of the factors that must be considered:

· What civilization card do I play?
· Which tribe should I advance?
· How will the advancement of a particular tribe affect my favor coin situation?
· Is it worth advancing a tribe if I’ll get stuck with the monkey scorn card of its rival?
· Which monkey(s) should I bid on?
· Is it more advantageous to obtain a large number of monkeys in one or two tribes, or attempt to grab high valued monkeys from most of the tribes?
· Do I bid on a monkey I don’t want just to drive-up the price for my opponents?
· What monkeys are my opponents attempting to collect?
· Do I secure a ship with a large capacity or a small one?
· What color ship should I take?

The list could go on and on. Lots of choices and decisions to be made here … and usually with limited resources. Sure sounds like a German-style game, doesn’t it? The publisher, however, is Eight Foot Llama, the designer’s own American firm.

Further, the game seems very well balanced. Other than the civilization cards, all other cards and the supply of favor coins available are open, so players can formulate their strategies and plan their moves and acquisitions accordingly. Even though civilization cards are acquired randomly, the ability to use them for the advancement of one of three tribes is very liberal and provides a wide latitude for planning. For folks who find this aspect still too limiting, an easy solution, as suggested by Larry Levy in his review on the Boardgame Geek website, is to simply provide each player with 3 civilization cards or make cards available from a face-up display.

I will admit that I am pleasantly surprised by Monkeys on the Moon. The game is far better designed and balanced than the designer’s previous effort. It is filled with choices, decisions and various strategies. The humor present in the game is admittedly silly and will likely wear thin after a playing or two, but fortunately the strength of the game is not dependent upon the humor (unlike a few other games I’ve recently panned). There is a very good game included in the small box – not just a few “yucks”. I’m looking forward to my next lunar expedition!

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2003-07-12T20:53:09+00:00

Thread: User Review

Larry Levy — 2003-03-17T14:40:33+00:00

Monkeys on the Moon is the latest release by designer Jim Doherty and his company Eight Foot Llama. Doherty's first game, Who Stole Ed's Pants, achieved remarkable popularity for an independently produced game by an unknown designer. Unfortunately, while I thought Pants had some good ideas, players could alter just about *every* aspect of the game each turn; consequently, the game was incredibly chaotic and it was impossible to formulate anything resembling a strategy. The game was quickly dispatched to the trade pile.

So I was more than a little cautious when Doherty's second game appeared. But again, the ideas looked intriguing, so I took a flyer on it. I'm glad I did.

MotM is a card game for 2 to 4 players. The premise is that there are six tribes of monkeys cavorting around on the lunar surface. The players are performing two activities: introducing various products of advanced civilization to different tribes (like Salad Tongs or Duct Tape) and shooting members of the tribes back to earth (which earns them influence with those tribes). Players score points for having the greatest influence with the most advanced tribes and for launching full rocket ships.

Each tribe has a Tribe card. At the beginning of the game, these are laid out in a circle to show the tribes' relationship with each other. Adjacent tribes are allies, but tribes opposite each other in the circle are rivals. Thus, each tribe has two allied tribes and one rival tribe. Each tribe also has Favor coins; the players all begin with one for each tribe and then each Tribe card has three matching coins placed on it. Players also begin with two Civilization cards and one face up Ship card.

There are two parts to each round. First, each player plays a Civilization card. These show a tribe, an advancement, and a point value (from 2 to 5). When a card is played, the player advances either the named tribe or one of its allies the number of points shown on the Tribe Track. Whichever tribe he chooses, he takes two Favor coins of that color, but he has to return a coin of its rival tribe. If he lacks such a coin, he has to take that tribe's "Scorn card", which is basically an IOU to be paid to the bank. Scorn cards can begat other Scorn cards; if you have to pay a coin for a tribe when you have its Scorn card, you must instead pay an appropriate coin to one of its allies, or take the Scorn card for *that* tribe. If, in a future turn, you advance a tribe when you have its Scorn card, you return it, but only take one coin.

Favor coins are used in the second part of the round. There are five Monkey cards displayed (in the four player game--use one more than the number of players). Each card shows the monkey's tribe and its prestige (a value from 3 to 5). Each player on her turn selects one of these cards to be auctioned off. Bidding takes place in turn order. To bid, you use either the coins of the monkey's tribe or one of its allies. Tribe coins are worth 3, ally coins are worth 2. The bidding continues until every player but one has dropped out. The winner returns the coins she bid to the Tribe cards and then puts the monkey on her ship.

Oh yeah, the ships. Each Ship card has a tribe color (which has no effect on which monkeys can board), a capacity (from 2 to 4 monkeys), and a Victory point value (one less than the capacity). If the monkey just acquired puts the ship at its capacity, the player launches it: the monkeys and the ship are placed face down in the player's scoring pile and the player takes one coin of the ship's color (or discards the tribe's Scorn card if she has it). But there's one important exception: rival tribes will not share the same ship. If the monkey you just won is a rival of one of your already loaded monkeys, the ship takes off without the new arrival. You score the launched monkeys, but not the ship (only fully loaded ships score). In either case, a player launching a ship takes a new one from a face up display of two ships.

Once every player has put a monkey up for auction, the round ends. Every player is dealt a new Civilization card, the monkey pool is replenished, and the lead player passes to the left.

The game ends at the end of the round in which everyone plays their last Civilization card (eight rounds in a four-player game). Each player now totals up, by tribe, the prestige values of the monkeys they've returned to Earth. The top two players in each tribe earn Victory points. To illustrate, the VPs for the tribe with the highest Civilization total are 7 for first and 4 for second; the VPs for the tribe with the lowest total are 2 and 1. Each player also adds the VP value for every *full* ship they launched during the game. Finally, they subtract 2 VPs for any Monkey Scorn card they have at game's end. Whoever has the highest point total wins the game.

Unlike Doherty's earlier design, MotM works as a game. The different subsystems (Civ advancement, monkey auctions, and ship launching) mesh very nicely and are, in fact, much more reminiscent of a German game than an American one. The concept of allied and rival tribes is a good one and well implemented here. Many strategies are possible, although I'm not sure which ones might be most successful. It seems that smaller capacity ships are better than larger ones, despite the latter's higher relative point value, because they are so much easier to fill, but properly concentrating on a few tribes might easily overcome this. The penalty for Monkey Scorn seems sufficient, but my one game was won by a player who wound up with three Scorn cards at the end of the game, so it's entirely possible that Scorn need not be feared. More plays will be needed to ascertain the best approaches to winning.

Although the gameplay of MotM is pleasant, the best thing about it is its theme. The civilization advances are all silly ones and play best when announced with much portent and seriousness. The monkey names also add to the game's humor value. The game does a fine job of combining German-style mechanics with the entertaining theme found more often in American designs.

While the mechanisms in MotM lend themselves to thoughtful play, I'm not sure how deep the game is. It's difficult to plan ahead and despite the choices possible when playing each Civ card, it's not that unusual to have no palatable options on your turn. The biggest problem here is the random dispersal of the Civ cards. If you wanted to modify the game to add to its skill level, this is the most likely place to look. One obvious option would be to give each player three Civ cards and not require them to play their last one; there are sufficient cards provided to allow this. You could also draft cards from a face-up display instead of receiving them randomly. Neither of these variants have been tested, but either one might make the game play better while doing little to reduce its charm or add to its complexity.

The game's components in no way disappoint. The cards are nicely made, attractively illustrated, and clearly labeled. They are also a bit small, but given the number in play, this is a good idea. The Favor coins and the tribe scoring markers are good looking wooden ones. The coins resemble large buttons more than anything else, but they serve their function nicely. The Tribe track is nothing special to look at, but it works. Eight Foot Llama has clearly made the effort to produce a nice looking game and they have succeeded.

Monkeys on the Moon is not a great game, but it's a pretty good one that tries a number of things and succeeds with most of them. The game plays swiftly and, with a duration of an hour or less, does not overstay its welcome. Both the components and the theme are quite attractive. And with a little effort, gameplay can probably be made meatier to satisfy the more serious gamer. With all the great designs out there, I'm not sure this one will get a great deal of playing time, but those who like shorter games with an appealing theme could do much worse than gambol with the simians on the surface of the moon.

Thread: Session Report

MisterCranky — 2002-12-13T13:56:43+00:00

Another delightful Thursday night of games at The Soldiery, in scenic Columbus, OH. Attendance was at around the %75 percent mark, perhaps due to the holidays, perhaps not.

Lynne, Kyle, and Josh broke out Monkeys on the Moon, which Josh had been wanting to play for quite awhile. Since Kyle is a natural rules guru, he was quickly designated to figure out what the hell we were supposed to be doing.

Over the course of the game, Kyle seemed to be launching more serious monkeyloads than his competition, but it turned out at the end that he had diversified his tribes a bit further than probably was optimal for this go round--he missed first place in a couple of tribes by several points, but was, as I recall, the only person to have only one tribe unlaunched at game's end. Lynne was slow to get going, but when she started launching in the latter half of the game, she fired off at least two 4-monkey payloads, and assorted smaller ships. Even though I (Josh) won this one and should possibly be more pleased, I really had no clue that I was in the running--My goal toward the middle of the game became simple: Become the Leader of the first place tribe. This was achieved, luckily and I was satisfied. When it was all tallied, however, I turned out to have the very, very close win:

Josh- 20 15 influence/5 ship
Lynne-19 13 influence/6 ship
Kyle- 19 14 influence/5 ship

I might be off on the actual breakdown of Kyle and Lynne's points, but I know that they tied for 19. Games this close are always enjoyable for me, and I thought this game was pretty close to brilliant. I think Kyle enjoyed it fairly well, but I wasn't quite so sure about Lynne's reaction. I hope she'll post a session report of her own!

Thread: Session Report

jdroscha — 2002-11-20T06:57:38+00:00

AMAZON MONKEYS ON THE MOON

Dave (first play), James, and Karol (first play)

HIGHLIGHTS

The brown monkey tribe hurtled forward 13 steps on the evolutionary ladder during one Civilization round by learning to use the yo-yo, mastering the capabilities of the chainsaw, and acquiring a trampoline.

On James' final Civilization turn, he had no choice but to acquire the scorn of one of the tribes, as he held no sway with the enemy of the tribe predisposed toward his ultimate gift of evolution, nor either of said foe's allies. And for that self-same reason, he had almost no possibility of relief from the scorn (because without influence in the tribe or its allies there's no way to board a member of the tribe and assuage their hostility).

THE RETURN TO EARTH

At the end of one and a half hours of primate freefall:

20 Dave (17 influence +3 for ships)
16 James (13 influence +5 for ships -2 for scorn)
12 Karol (12 influence)

All hail Dave, the monkiest of all!

FOND MEMORIES OF MONKEYS I HAVE KNOWN

Inexperienced players should stick to the smallest ships they can obtain. Launching four monkeys on two small ships instead of one large (omitting medium ships for the sake of comparison) nets you one fewer VP, but gains you two influence tokens instead of one, and it is (arguably) twice as easy to launch the two smaller ships full (thus actually scoring the VPs).

We sometimes had difficulty discerning a monkey's tribe due to the gradients used in some of the card backgrounds. If you encounter this as well, just look at the pictures... easy enough to compare with the tribe cards.

Make certain you plan ahead for your last turn so as not to incur the wrath of a tribe!

Thread: Artist's Preview

Yekrats — 2002-11-05T19:31:40+00:00

I did the art for Monkeys on the Moon (without first seeing the rules! ). I received my copies in the mail the other day, and this weekend I played it for the first time. Since I'm a gamer, and just saw the game myself for the first time recently, hopefully I can give you an accurate feel of the game, even if it is slightly biased.

MotM is a card game that plays very much like a board game. It has some nice wooden bits, and the cards seem to be of pretty good quality. I can't really comment about the art, but everyone I know loves it.

The action revolves around six competing monkey tribes living on the moon. Each is vying to get back to Earth and is thirsty for knowledge. The player who brings back the most influential and well-trained monkeys from the various tribes will win. Each tribe has two allies and one enemy.

The action takes place in two phases. During the Civilization Phase, you train one of the six tribes by teaching them a valuable life-skill (like playing the accordian, counting to eight, or operating a stapler) from the Civilization Cards in your hand. Advancing a Monkey Tribe will cause its marker to advance along the Civilization Track. You will also recieve 2 Influence Coins from the tribe you advanced. However, you must pay the tribe's enemy one Coin, since you are now in their disfavor.

Speaking of disfavor, if you ever cannot pay a tribe when you must, you incur that tribe's Monkey Scorn! It goes away when you later pay a coin, but if you have it at game-end, it costs you two Victory Points. Monkey Scorn became a real issue for us at game-end, when the bidding became high for those precious last few monkeys, and our Influence Coins were scarce.

The second phase deals with bidding for monkeys to board your ships, to bring them back to Earth. Each player, in turn, chooses a monkey from the available pool, and starts the bidding for an auction on it. Players have the option to bid or pass on the selection. Influence Coins you've earned from the Monkey's tribe count as 3 points, and coins from allies count 2 points. The high bidder gets the monkey, which is installed into your ship.

If you're careful, you can fill your ships to capacity, resulting in Victory Points later. Watch who you take on board, however; monkeys will not board a ship with one of their enemies. Since you can only have one ship at a time, if a monkey from an enemy tribe starts to come aboard before the ship is full, you'll need to launch that ship and start a new one. A premature launch will cost you valuable Victory Points in the end-game.

At game's end, the most advanced tribes garner the most Victory Points. Players count the points on their monkey cards to see who wins the tribe's points. First place for each tribe is awarded the "Supreme Leader" title with the most Victory Points. The second place winner is awarded the "Undersecretary" position for fewer Victory Points. Third and fourth place get nothing.

Boy, the game kept us guessing right until the very end. The end-game tabulation has a nice tension to it. In the game we played, I thought that I was losing for sure, and ended up winning by a landslide. I think I came out ahead because I filled lots of little ships, thus gained lots of little Victory Point bonuses. I also concentrated on diversity: trying to stake a position by taking one or two from each tribe, if I could. Of course, if everyone concentrated on diversity, then that strategy would probably not work! I imagine the action would be even more fierce in a 4-player game. I'm anxious to try it out that way.