Moonlight Peaks: How To Play Nokturna & Get Cards

I'm a sucker for any game that has an additional game baked right into the bread. I loved Gwent in The Witcher, I loved Wheels in Sea of Stars, and I love Nokturna, the card game most popular in a little place called Moonlight Peaks.

It's a game that's pretty easy to learn, but takes a blend of card-collecting and strategy to master. Something that we are more than happy to help you get your head around.

Here's a guide on how to unlock Nokturna, who plays the game, and how to obtain extra cards to bolster your deck.

How To Unlock Nokturna

For all you card game obsessives, it takes a little while before you are able to play Nokturna, as this will only become available about 20-25 days into your playthrough. This will vary from player to player based on quest progression.

Eventually, you will wander into town and be inducted into the world of Nokturna with a cutscene involving Dragan, the most Nokturna-obsessed player in town.

He will give you your starter deck and ask you to play a tutorial game with him. This will show you how each round plays out and how scoring tends to work. But why listen to him when you could read it courtesy of yours truly?

How To Play Nokturna

To put it simply, and I mean this with a great deal of love and affection. Nokturna is effectively Gwent for dummies.

Each player is able to create a deck consisting of 20 cards, and points of each card are capped, meaning you can't just stack your deck with high-value cards.

Each card typically has a value between 1 and 6, and you can play 3 cards per turn. Your goal each round is simple: you need to place three cards that outscore the other player to win the round, and it's a best-of-three situation.

However, what you need to understand is that your hand doesn't restock at the end of each round. So if you go hard in the early rounds, you may be working with low-value cards in the final round, or vice versa.

This means you need to make use of cards that have special effects, such as being able to stay on the field of play between rounds, allowing you to draw cards when played, or synergizing with other similar card types to buff their scores.

There's no way around it, no matter what you do, there is a certain level of gamble that goes into every round, but if you lean into a specific card type or strategy, you'll find that you win more consistently.

How To Get More Nokturna Cards

This begs the question: how do you get more cards to make your deck better and win more consistently?

Well, you can get cards in Moonlight Peaks in two ways. One less frequent option is to explore the world, break rocks, dig holes and fish, and you may randomly get a card along with your haul of resources.

However, the more consistent option is to play games with town residents, as winning against them nets you a new card and can be done daily if you wish.

You can play each NPC that plays Nokturna twice, but you can only win one card per day. So, essentially, you get a do-over if you lose.

Here is a complete list of all the NPCs within the game that play Nokturna:

• Luna
• Evan
• Elvira
• Dragan
• Ludo
• Tae
• Winston
• Moon Goddess
• Noel
• Death
• Pumpkin Head