Game Overview: Moving Out (At Last) is a card drafting and collection game where you play over a nine week period by collecting your weekly paycheck and then shopping and purchasing furniture at the available stores.  Your goal is to impress your parents when they visit at Christmas.  If you are able to obtain matching furniture for each room, you will obtain life (victory) points to prove to them that you are able to move out and live on your own.  As in real life, not everything will go as planned and twists along the way may prevent you from gaining the victory. 

Box Contents: The box contents consist of three sizes of cards, wooden tokens, a wooden meeple, and plastic card stands.  The cards are found in an oversized format which are used for the rules, tracking your income, tracking your scoring, and a player aid that includes what furniture groups that are needed for each room along with step by step choices for each day and end of game scoring.  You will also find normal sized cards along with tarot sized cards.  They are all well made.  We especially enjoy the back of the furniture cards, which represent an unopened box.

Clarity of Rules: The rules for the game are very different from any other game that we have reviewed in that they were on six of the oversized cards.  Even though they reside on these cards, they are very well done and provide all of the information needed along with game play examples. 

Game Play:  When setting up the game, as is common with other drafting/collection card games, certain cards are only used based upon the number of players.  Any cards that won't be used are pulled out and the remaining cards create the stores that are available to shop from.  There will always be one more store than the number of players.  Each player is given an income tracking card and life point score tracking card.  A separate tracking card shows which week and which day of the week the game round is currently on.  Each Friday, players earn their pay check and move their income up 500.  If it any time, this pushes their income over 1,000, they must return it to 750 which meant the drinks were on them that week.  They also draw a payday card.  These may be positives where you earn reduced prices on furniture or earn victory points.  They can also be bad where you lose furniture or money from your income.

On both Saturday and Sunday of the week, players can choose to go shopping or build furniture.  When they go shopping, they are looking to build card collections that are of the same range and color.  They must attempt to furnish their bedroom, living room, and dining room.  The cards for each room are color coded to easily identify them.  There are three types of furniture for each room that you will try to obtain.  You can also purchase an accessory to add to each room as well.  To max out on your points at game end, you want to get the same color for each one (white, black, or oak) and the same range (cheapo, standard, or fancy).  On each card, there is a price that you will have to subtract from your income and parent points that will be added as part of the end game scoring.  When you purchase items, you an only purchase one item per day.  However, you can rent the single van that is available for 100.  This allows you to purchase up to three things per day, if you can afford them. 

 

When furniture is purchased, a good memory is needed, as they go into your hallway.  This means that they remain face side down and you are not able to look at them until you choose to do the build action.  If you do additional shopping before you build them, you must remember the room, type, color, and range that you already have.  When you choose to build on a Saturday or Sunday instead of shopping, you can build up to two items that day.  When they are built, you flip them over face up for the remainder of the game.

Another option you have for Saturday and Sunday is to throw a party for either an income of 100 or 300.  These are high risk/high reward choices when made.  When they have a positive result, you will likely see your victory points go way up.  When it goes bad, you can see a drop in victory points as well as potentially losing furniture at the same time.

Once you have progressed through each of the nine weeks, you then determine the scoring for the game.  You include the parent points for each card you have and then you get additional points for having each of the three required types of furniture for each room, if you have an accessory in each room, if each room matches for the color, and if each room matches for the range.

Replay Ability: Because the furniture cards will end up in different stores and each players choices will vary from game to game based on the stores they visit, there is a lot of replay ability here.  The payday cards also throw in some additional replay ability.  Even though there is a limited number of cards, they will impact the game differently each time.

Appropriate Audience: The game suggests 12+ to play the game.  Our eleven year old son easily understood the game.  You should be able to go down to the 8-10 year old age range to play the game.

What We Liked/Didn't Like: We liked the unique card selection in the game which differs from other card drafting/card set games.  With the ability to pick the store and then pick up the entire deck of cards to look through it, was fun.  At first the game moved slow while people looked through the decks.  Then we took the suggestion of simultaneous play where the next player can choose their store and start looking through the cards at the same time that the rules suggested and it really sped up the game.  It really didn't impact the game play in any way, but the amounts are listed as pounds.  Since we are in the United States, when we play the game we would refer to the price in dollars.  The one thing that we didn't like is that some of the pay day cards refer to parent or party points for items that are only available in the four player game.  It would have been better if there were payday cards that were specific to the number of players, the same as the furniture cards, or just refer to the cards that will be found in the two player game.

Add-ons/Other Releases:  n/a