Base price: $16.
2 players.
Play time: ~15 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy directly!
Logged plays: 2
Full disclosure: A review copy of Dustbiters: Pocket Edition was provided by Button Shy.
I think this is the first PAX Unplugged in recent memory where I actually played a few games. I’m normally unbelievably just running around, but it seemed like everyone was overwhelmingly tired this year. Wonder why. Things have been going on? But I digress. I often just can’t stop for demos and so I end up missing out on a bunch of things, but I had a spare bit to check out the Button Shy booth and got to learn a game with Suz! This is that game; let’s try out Dustbiters!
In Dustbiters, you’ve got a deathmatch happening on the … well, not Fury Road or Thunder Road. Dusty Road? That sounds more G-rated than it needs to be. But regardless, a dust storm is rolling in and folk want to get out. This excites some people and they start staffing up factions and supplying secret benefits to their favorite racers. Now, it’s time to start your engines. Will you be remembred for your speed and tenacy, or because your car exploded?
Contents
Setup
Easy. Shuffle the cards:
Place four face-up facing each player, in a row. The player sitting on the side with the four cards at the back of the line goes first! Deal each player three cards, as well.
Gameplay
Dustbiters: Pocket Edition is all about survival! Your goal is simple: get your opponent down to zero cards before they can do the same to you. Thankfully, you have a bunch of weird cards with random abilities to help you out on that front.
On a turn, you have three actions to take. You can take any combination of these:
- Draw: Take a card from the deck and add it to your hand.
- Play: Play a card from your hand facing you at the front of the line.
- Move: Advance any car forward or backwards one space in the line.
- Action: Many cars have an action; you may spend one of your actions to use one. You can only use a car’s ability once per turn unless otherwise stated. Some car abilities are passive and don’t require an action; there’s an explicit icon on the card when it does.
That’s it! Once you’ve used your three actions, your turn ends and the car at the back of the line is destroyed by the dust storm. Then, your opponent goes and the same thing happens.
Play continues until one player loses their last car. The other player wins!
Player Count Differences
None for this one! It’s a two-player game.
Strategy
- Drawing a bunch of cards can be handy. The more cars you have in your hand, the more options you have. Plus, once the draw deck is emptied, no more cars can be drawn. If you and your opponent are relatively stalemating, that might be good for you to end up with more cards than them.
- You don’t want a bunch of your cars at the end of the line. You’ll lose one at the end of your turn and at the end of your opponent’s turn, in addition to whatever they do to your other cars. That’s a pretty quick route to losing the game. Instead, try to have one of your opponent’s cars (or more!) at the end of the line when you finish your turn.
- Lean into your car abilities. There are so many different combinations and synergies to choose from; it’s definitely worth looking at what you’ve got.
- The order of operations matters. Sometimes you have, for instance, a car that takes on the ability of the top card of the discard pile. This means you have to pay attention to when you want to use an action, as the discard pile might ultimately change.
- Prioritize taking out certain cars of your opponent’s; they’re not all created equal. There are sometimes obvious nuisances, but you definitely don’t want to leave your opponent with the Ramp that lets them jump any other car to the front or things like that.
- Don’t neglect defensive plays. If you only play offensively, you’re going to miss out on the ability to protect your cars from your opponent. That’s extremely bad, as that often leaves an opportunity for a now-bolstered Player 2 or something, elsewhere. Try to set up guards and blocks so that even if your opponent manages to get out of one, there’s more there that came from.
- The cards may be randomly dealt but some synergies exist. Being able to, for instance, move any car to the front and then immediately destroy the front car is pretty awesome, but finding those synergies can often be a great way to set up later rounds and provide offensive or defensive coverage.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- Love the art. It’s so bright and vivid and colorful! Who knew the wastelands could be so peppy?
- This is a nice, quick play. You’re really seeing a game that hits its 15-minute allotment. Moves fast, too, with short turns with only a few actions for each player.
- Very portable and easy to learn. That’s how Button Shy does it, which is great, but also always worth emphasizing.
- I like how swingy the game can be! You’re in the lead, then you’re on your back foot, then you’re in the lead again. I don’t mean swingy here in that you have no control over the outcome; I mean more that there’s an excitement as you end up closer and closer to actually winning, only for your opponent to have an incredible turn and push you back a bit longer.
- Generally a fun theme. Who doesn’t love the post-apocalyptic wasteland? I always was a Fallout fan, but I think driving around in threatening death matches is also compelling.
- I like that this is a slimmed-down reinterpretation of the original Dustbiters. I think it’s cool that they can do that and still make it work! I wonder if there are other games that Button Shy can wallet-ize. Would be cooler to find out!
- The cards have a bunch of fun abilities. Each one is unique and interesting and potentially dangerous in the right hands. They can move things around, duplicate awards, and even completely redo how you think about biology. It’s all fun!
Mehs
- It helps to review all the cards before you start playing, just because you can get caught off-guard by a card with an ability you didn’t know about. That’s the nature of the beast with any game with a lot of abilities, though; you really do need to read them all before you start because plenty of cards have extremely unexpected abilities or interactions iwth other cards.
Cons
- This one’s on the more aggressive side given the constant negative player interaction, so just make sure you’re cool with that before you start! Some players are looking for a more “unwound” game so that they, too, can have a chill time blowing up other players’ cars. Others think any game they play is incredible and unique and interesting, so they just kind of waste time. Make sure everyone has a basic understanding of how to play and which cards are needy and tough to activate.
Overall: 8.25 / 10
Overall, Dustbiters: Pocket Edition was a lot of fun! I was pleasantly surprised to get roped into a demo of this at PAX Unplugged, and I was initially skeptical. Lots of attacking, some take-that, and a Fury Road-style game? That’s not necessarily going to be for everyone, I worried. Instead, I found that worrying was for naught. Dustbiters Pocket is a distillation of more complicated games into a simple form and presentation. Button Shy, again, knows what they’re doing. So you have a quick rough-and-tumble game now that’s engaging for a ton of players. It’s definitely still an aggressive game, so that’s not going to be everyone’s tea, but sometimes it’s fun to just go after your opponent and wreck their stuff until one of you is dead. Plus, you get fun abilities to do so! Crush their car or light it on fire or just let the dust storm take it. There’s lots of strategic play ready to go, even in such a tiny package. Button Shy maintains high quality standards, and that hasn’t been missed ere either. The wallet is neat, the art style is fun and engaging, and the actual game itself is a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to seeing if there will be more of these kinds of action games n next year. I suppose we’ll see how it lands. If you’re looking for a quick bit of combat with a friend, you enjoy bright and colorful duels, or you just want to yell “WITNESS ME” while playing some cards, I’d definitely recommend Dustbiters: Pocket Edition! It’s zany but always fun.
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