Designed by Steven 'Skippy' Brown and published by Dead Alive Games, Lunar Rush is a fast-playing worker placement engine-building euro game for 2-4 players (and with a solitaire option). You're sending astronauts and (free) resources from the Earth to the Moon, using them to mine and refine lunar resources, and then shipping the valuable lunar resources back to Earth for sale.
The game is played over seven rounds and it's fast because players all take their actions (primarily their astronaut worker placement and upgrade actions) simultaneously. But tho' you aren't taking turns on the Moon, you do still bid for turn order, and that's the main player interaction in the game. Ships moving between the Earth and the Moon and back again can take a short, medium or long route. The short route arrives that same round but your ship's capacity is small. Ships on the medium route have larger capacity but arrive the following round. Those on the long route have large capacity but take two rounds to arrive. There can be advantage in getting from the Earth to the Moon quickly - especially early in the game when you want to get your astronauts up there, as each additional astronaut gives you an additional worker placement action - but there can be merit too in getting larger quantitites of supplies out there, especially to help you to upgrade your lunar facilities. Bidding for turn order (ie: first dibs on the routes to and from the Moon) is done using cards marked 1-5, and players are paying for their bids with the 'GigaCredits' that function as the game's victory points. The cost of bids increases in the game's latter rounds.
The stock market where you'll be selling the minerals and crystals you mine and refine on the Moon is back on Earth, so players will need to ship back what they want to sell. Earth's market is dynamic tho' in that as items are sold so their scarcity diminishes and the price drops for subsequent sales. It can pay therefore to get your product back to Earth quickly but, as on the outward journey, the slower routes have the greater capacity: as the game progresses and players' lunar engines ramp up production, you may well find it more profitable to opt for quantity over quick.
The team at Board's Eye View have hugely enjoyed our plays of Lunar Rush. It's a satisfying meaty puzzle optimisation game yet it plays comfortably in under an hour. The art from Viktor Kolodiazhnyi and Alex Pei is attractive and the game is well produced, tho' we could've done without the deluxe foil for the gold cards (additional lunar developments that you can vary with each game) because it made it harder to read the text and the icons showing what was needed to buy the card. There are several optional upgrades in the box; in effect, built-in mini-expansions that you can incorporate in the game to change it up, so Lunar Rush has plenty of replay value. We recommend you Rush out to your local gamestore to nab yourself a copy!