G@mebox author Ralf Togler writes about the game :

Fans of the fabulous card game Blue Moon can be happy (and indeed I am one of those). Reiner Knizia fulfilled himself another dream and created a big game around the new Blue Moon world. At first sight, the game has not much to do with the card game, except of some elements like the dragons and the races like the Khind, the Flit etc that were also present in the card game. But after a while you become more familiar with the story around the games and then the new game fits into the context. Of course, you donīt have to be a real fan of the Blue Moon world, not to mention to have to read the book. Blue Moon City can be played without any background and is in fact a very good family game.

The game is set up by arranging various building tiles around a central market place. In the game the players try to rebuild these buildings that were once destroyed in the dark times. All building tiles consist of one to four minor tiles that must be rebuilt separately. Not until the last of these minor tiles are completed the complete building is finished and then can be flipped to the other side. Players who helped rebuilding a building are rewarded by additional cards, scales of the dragons or crystal pieces. Dragons figures walk around the cards and can give additional rewards while completing a building. The aim of the game is to make sacrifices to the Obelisk on the market place with the help of the crystal pieces. The first player, who makes the predefined quantity of sacrifices (depending on the number of players), wins the game.

The rules actually can be told very quickly. There are three phases in a players turn. First a player can move his own piece one to two steps (horizontal or vertical) on the buildings. Then he may help rebuilding a piece of a building. To do this, he must discard cards from his hand with an equal or higher sum as it is printed on the building piece and these cards also must have the same colour as the building piece. At the end of his turn a player draws two new cards from the pack of cards.

Considering this basic outline of the game which can be given in just a few sentences, you can see that it is really no complicate game. However, there are some more rules influencing gameplay, so some of the cards have specific additional functions that give players the ability for example to do another move or to move the dragons on the buildings.

What seems to be a little bit too simple after reading the rules develops into a fine tactical game while playing. Although Blue Moon City is not too complex, the players always have to decide which building could be more valuable in the end. The design of the buildings and the cards is very similar to the traditional card game and as I said at the beginning the story of the Blue Moon world fits to the game. Maybe Blue Moon City in the end is not the very big surprise, but it is clearly a game that will find his fans.