Moonrakers Review: The Deck Builder That Teaches You About Trust

Review by Lincoln Hoppe: The Game Bard

What Makes Moonrakers Special

What if I told you there’s a board game that lets you practice one of the most dangerous things we humans do in the most fun possible way? Moonrakers promised deck building, negotiation, and fulfilling space missions. But what it actually delivered was something far more valuable.

Review copy provided by the publisher. All opinions are my own.

Welcome to the Universe of Moonrakers

Moonrakers drops you into the boots of ship captains, leading crews of mercenaries through a universe where your reputation determines everything. This is a negotiation-heavy deck building game for 1 to 5 players that typically runs 75 to 150 minutes. Published by IV Studio, it’s all about taking on increasingly dangerous contracts while managing your crew, upgrading your ship, and most importantly, deciding who you can trust when the stakes get higher.

On your turn, you can either attempt to complete a contract or stay at base, and either way, at the end of the turn, you can spend that well-earned space cash to upgrade your space-faring bucket of bolts or add a plucky specialist to your crew.

The Deck Building Core

Stripped down, Moonrakers is a deck building game. Your deck starts weak with ten cards, including reactors, thrusters, shields, damage, and that card that nobody wants—a miss. Boo! Who wants their deck gummed up?

You start with only one action to play cards to complete a contract. But playing a reactor gives you two additional actions, which really opens up the possibilities. You can push your luck and play a thruster to draw two new cards to hopefully get the cards you need. It’s tight and shares galactic DNA with Dominion, the granddaddy deck builder of them all.

The Negotiation Twist That Changes Everything

But Moonrakers goes supernova with a brilliant twist under the spaceship’s hood. Instead of just building your deck, Moonrakers adds contract negotiation and temporary partnerships and alliances that make this a wonderfully socially engaging experience.

You see it first when your deck, ship, and crew are starting out—you can’t do much on your own. Each round, players bid on contracts and you can invite other players to join your missions. Everyone can work together to get ahead. Which player will assume which risk and which reward, and any combination of those is negotiable.

The contract display in Moonrakers becomes your job board, and on your turn, you can become the mission leader with any or all of the other space humans at the table.

Engine Building and Meaningful Decisions

The engine building comes through crew cards and ship parts to specialize and modify your deck. Every turn you have the opportunity to build your crew and upgrade your ship. Every decision ripples outward.

Do you go for the safe solo contract or risk everything on a massive group heist that could catapult you ahead or leave you stranded if your partners betray you? Because depending on your friends, betrayal might be a delightfully juicy part of your game.

The Mystery of Private Objectives

The private objectives add so much mystery to every negotiation. As you approach ten prestige, you may be able to fill one or two on your last turn, snatching two additional prestige for the win. Everyone’s motives are always in question.

At first, it helps everyone to work together on a contract. You just can’t do it on your own. But as the game’s arc reaches its zenith, you can’t help but doubt and reconsider everything. It doesn’t slow the game down. It makes it more dramatic and full of spicy decisions.

My First Big Betrayal

I’ll never forget my first big betrayal in Moonrakers. Three of us had formed this beautiful alliance—in my mind, I was even calling it the Nebula’s Syndicate—and we’d successfully pulled off several major contracts together. Trust was building.

My niece, part of our alliance, invited me to join her contract. I agreed. I offered I could pay for almost everything, but should receive most of the spoils. She reluctantly agreed.

I played out my cards, after which she announced with an evil grin: “I’m not going to play any cards and choose to fail this contract.”

I was stunned. Shocked. She had used her turn to fish for information about my hand and discovered I could literally win the game on the next turn—something I, in my own classic nature, had not yet seen. I had been brazenly boasting about how much I could do with all of my upgrades. She got rid of my cards from my hand and wiped away that contract I could have completed.

Well played, Emile. Well played.

That’s when I realized Moonrakers had done something truly special. I had formed an emotional investment at the table with the group I had come to trust. Betrayal or not, it was thrilling.

Playing Past Bedtime

My son was in town last weekend and we ended up playing way past my old man bedtime. We started at 1:00 AM because it was his last night in town, and as the arc of the game ramped up to the end, we all expressed that we could literally play all night—right before my final betrayal and subsequent revenge.

Production Quality and Components

IV Studio doesn’t cut corners on production quality, and even in the base game, the Hazard dice are fun to roll and just add the right spice of luck to most contracts. The contract cards are beautifully illustrated with this gritty, space Western aesthetic that perfectly captures the mercenary vibe in a minimalistic way.

The reputation track uses these great little ships that could have easily been cubes or something else. The Titan Edition comes with amazing metal coins and a bunch of expansions I can’t wait to dive into.

My favorite—it’s so simple it’s stupid—but it’s the player boards that thematically organize your game: cargo spots for your coins, draw pile and discard pile on the sides of your board, and little slots for your ship upgrades. I love upgrade spots!

The Titan Edition comes with a comic that made me say, “This is so freaking cool!”

The IV Studio Magic

IV Studio has beautifully crafted a unique flavor as a publisher, from their art, production quality, gameplay, variety of games, and the very vibe of their games. Every IV Studio game I’ve played adds something magical to the gameplay.

Mythic Mischief, Veiled Fate, Fractured Sky, and Moonrakers all grab me in a very different but specific way. They all offer an element that lifts the gameplay experience off the table and into my mind, where I just can’t forget how good it is.

Mythic Mischief looks simple on paper, but the mechanics of moving and manipulating the walls creates a spatial puzzle that just seems to dance. Veiled Fate has me constantly covering my tracks and trying to deduce my ally and enemies at every step. Fractured Sky’s blind bidding plays with the thrill of risk every round, and the magnetic ships are crazy awesome, right?

And while Moonrakers has less visual razzle-dazzle with its minimalistic graphic design and art, it packs the punch right where it counts.

Who This Game Is For (and Who It’s Not For)

Moonrakers is perfect for groups who love deck building and negotiation games, but want something meatier than pure social deduction. I don’t enjoy games that feel mean, but Moonrakers seems to say you’re welcome to trust and open yourself up as much as you want. It’s your choice. So if you’re betrayed, you earned it.

If you like the interaction like in Arcs or the shifting alliances in Dune, you may love Moonrakers.

However, if your group struggles with analysis paralysis or gets genuinely upset about betrayal in games, Moonrakers might create more tension than fun. But your group can decide. The more you trust your group, the easier it is for someone to violate that trust to get ahead. So trust wisely, and remember—it’s your group.

Every group will play this game differently because of the negotiation built in.

What Moonrakers Taught Me

Moonrakers taught me something I didn’t know about myself. It taught me something I didn’t know about the risk of trust, ambition, teamwork, and betrayal.

I like it because in life, like in games, sometimes great mechanics aren’t enough. We need people. We need people to connect with, trust, and love. And deeper connections always come with deeper risk. And board games let us play with that risk. Games give us a safe space to try new things, and they make it fun to risk, safe to risk, thrilling to risk in this cardboard imagination world.

So when my backstabbing niece says with an evil twinkle in her eye, “Would you like to play Moonrakers?” my answer is always yes.

Video Preview/Review Link

by Lincoln Hoppe

Original Music by Lincoln Hoppe: The Game Bard

Paid Kickstarter Preview
Review Copy Provided by IV Studio

Publisher: IV Studio

Designed by: Max Anderson, Zac Dixon, Austin Harrison

Art by: Lunar Saloon

Board Game Geek Page: Moonrakers

My Board Game Geek Page: Lincoln Hoppe