Outpost Luna Review
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Outpost Luna Review

Our Review by Campbell Bird on January 27th, 2014
Rating: starstarstarhalfstarblankstar :: PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
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Outpost Luna asks players to plan moves in advance in this sci-fi themed worker placement game.

Developer: Ariton
Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
App Reviewed on: iPhone 4S

Graphics / Sound Rating: Rating: starstarhalfstarblankstarblankstar
Game Controls Rating: Rating: starstarstarstarblankstar
Gameplay Rating: Rating: starstarstarblankstarblankstar
Replay Value Rating: Rating: starstarstarhalfstarblankstar

Overall Rating: starstarstarhalfstarblankstar

Outpost Luna is a game that plays like a mash-up of a card game and worker placement games like Agricola. In this title, players are competing to colonize the moon with the winner being the first person to build three cities on the lunar surface. While its not the best game to look at, the game itself is quite fun - particularly for players in the market for a new board game experience on their phone or tablet.

A game begins with a randomized board that is hidden from the players' view. As players place work units, tiles on the map are revealed. Each of these tiles represent some kind of biome, and each biome yields a different resource - each of which is essential for building structures, protecting workers, and constructing cities.

As simple as this resource gathering process sounds, Outpost Luna has some strict rules in place to keep players from simply min/maxing their resource gathering and ending the game super quickly. For example, opposing workers cannot be placed on any tiles that are already occupied or are directly adjacent to any tiles that are already occupied. On top of this, moving, attacking, and gathering resources from these tiles are tied to cards which are randomly drawn into a hand and then have to be sorted in order to be used.

The sorting mechanic of Outpost Luna is probably its most interesting feature since it asks players to plan all available actions three turns in advance. Every new turn players can only use the leftmost card in their hand, and have to choose a card on the right side of their hand to enter into a queue of three cards. This makes the game particularly interesting simply because players can thwart other players' strategies for success by carefully reading their opponent and planning attacks or swiping blueprints in advance of their foes.

Despite looking somewhat bland, and being a relatively simple game otherwise, Outpost Luna weirdly works. It's not going to set the world on fire, but it is a very solid board game that is replayable because of its randomized environment and city blueprints.

iPhone Screenshots

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Outpost Luna screenshot 1 Outpost Luna screenshot 2 Outpost Luna screenshot 3 Outpost Luna screenshot 4

iPad Screenshots

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Outpost Luna screenshot 5 Outpost Luna screenshot 6 Outpost Luna screenshot 7 Outpost Luna screenshot 8
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