This blog was written by author Favouritefoe.

Magic

Okay so a game cannot be just about its gizmos, but they are really cool! And Moonlight Castle is a game from HABA for 2 – 4 players age 5 plus which has a 3D Castle tile holder and super cool slidey mechanism!

In the game, we are playing enchanted heroes trying to recover jewels being stolen by a rather mischievous looking magical owl, Zirroz the Evil Magician! Our plan is to replace them with pebbles of the same colour which we find in the fountains feeding the river running through the castle. The player who has recovered the most jewels by the end of the game is the winner!

A Turn Around The Castle

The game is simple to learn.

Each turn there are only 2 possible actions;

(1) Hide; move to an empty fountain along the river path, paying the matching colour 1 pebble cost to take the indicated number of random pebbles from the bag; and/or

(2) Recover jewels; place the same amount of matching coloured pebbles as shown in jewels on the tile in front of you, and pick up the tile (placing it behind your screen). If there is a magic spell on the reverse (i.e. symbols indicating that the river tiles need sliding along 1-3 spaces or that you get to take another turn), resolve that before finishing your turn.

If you don’t have enough pebbles to do anything, you can move back from the river to a wild fountain in order to stock up.

Sneaky Skills

Balancing pebble collection and payment. Working out where you might be (or want to be situated) in relation to the jewels. Deciding if moving back to a wild fountain to stock up on pebbles is going to play out better for you. Even working out which colours to collect knowing that others could move the river along and change the play-scape just before your turn happens in Moonlight Castle. As such, there is a lot of developmental skills being packed into a simple game. Oh and did I mention the COOL 3D castle and tile slider?? Oh I did? I was just checking!

Little gamers won’t know all of this up-skilling going on of course. They won’t be thinking in terms of “strategy” or “tactics” or “forward thinking”. But that is exactly what they will be doing by playing. Each decision they make will push them closer (or further away) from winning. And how they come back from a move that doesn’t quite work as they had hoped is a marker of just how fast their skills are indeed developing.

Family Fun

Moonlight Castle is a great family game. As we have come to expect from HABA, component quality and game play is top notch. The 3D castle and tile slider are indeed very cool, and the tiles generally move well. The bag to hold the pebbles could benefit from a drawstring but luckily the castle doesn’t have to be completely dismantled each time the game is packed away (which will help with longevity).

The age range and time (around 20-30 mins) feels right, and as our son gets older we will add in the extra fountain powers to up the ante. For younger players (or first games), you can play the game without the screens to simplify things. But most kids will I’m sure like to be sneaky and hide what they are collecting….although that doesn’t stop them trying to take a peek behind others’! Moonlight Castle is a wonderfully adaptable and replayable game, and definitely one that will be staying with us as our son grows up!

Editors note: This post was originally published on 15th March 2023. Updated on 14th March 2024 to improve the information available.