Debtzilla: Review

Debtzilla: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Deck Builder, Co-operative, Dice Manipulation, Simultaneous Play, Economics
Player Age: 14+ 

Player Count: 2 - 4 Players 

Time to Play: 60 - 90 Minutes 

Publisher: Capital Gains Studio
Game Designer: Xeo Lye
Game Artist: Alan Bay, Andy Choo

Year Published: 2018

BGG Weight: 2.00

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Banana Republic is under attack by the crippling Debtzilla. You must effectively increase your debt in order to gain the right tools and conquer this beast. But be warned, every time a debt is gained, Debtzilla will raise in power. To much un-managed debt will be Banana Republics downfall. Can you and your friends effectively manage the debt in your advantage?

Objective:

Your goal is to make yourself a formidable foe for one of the two possible bosses by gaining upgrade gear and building an efficient deck. As expected with boss battles, you will have to defeat basic minions first in order to gain access to either Debtzilla or Inflationsauraus. While taking down these pitiful minions you will also try to prevent the citizens from becoming bankrupt as they would then make the boss more powerful.

In this deck building game, the players win by working together to keep at least one citizen alive and defeat the boss. However, the team will lose if the boss reaches 99 health or if all citizens become bankrupt (defeated).

Card Anatomy:

Income Cards:

These are the cards that will form your deck. There are two types; basic cards and debt cards. Basic cards will give you either money, happiness or the ability to remove cards.

Where debt cards are different in that they may have an ability that activates when drawn or first acquired. When these cards are gained they will increase the bosses health by the amount in the top left (see below). If this card is paid off during the working phase (more on this later) the bosses health will be reduced by the same amount, so consider these cards as a loan. If there is a tool symbol on the bottom right of the card, this debt will be equipped to your character and removed from your deck upon paying off the loan and can now be activated every round. By buying and paying off these debts, you will increase your characters skills and capabilities. By gaining more dice and more income.

Gadget Cards:

These cards come in two types; basic and advanced. Basic are cheaper but are less effective and advanced gadgets are more costly but can often be equipped so more gadgets can be used every round.

Both are used to manipulate the dice rolled in the vigilante phase (discussed later). The card cost is in the top left corner. Any amount of basic cards may be equipped to a player but only one may be used during the vigilante phase. However, there are two exceptions to this rule; the 'Delivery Drone' (a basic gadget) will let you use two basic gadgets, and any gadget with a tool symbol on the bottom right can be used every round.

Villains:

Each villain has two important features; the damage that they will do to the civilians if they stay alive (located on the top left), and the amount of numbers needed to be rolled from dice in order to defeat this villain.

Citizens:

Each citizen has a certain amount of wealth (health). When this is depleted, they will die and the amount of wealth will differ between citizens, you wouldn't expect the rich to have the same wealth as the poor after all.

Boss and Boss Cards:

The health of the boss can be found on the right-hand side of their character card, and they also come with a personal deck. The first time the bosses health reaches a warning sign (starting at 40) they draw a card from their deck and activate the blue effect for the next round.
Besides the blue effect, the boss’ events  have an orange field that is activated when players fight these cards when the boss awakens. Bosses are fought in the same manner as villains, where you win by completing the blue numbered squares for 2 players, yellow and blue for 3 players, and all the squares for 4 players. These bosses will ramp up based on the player count, so you had better be careful!

Hero Cards:

Each hero has an active ability, this can be used every turn as long as the requirement is met. Additionally, there is a special ability that can be activated by spending five happiness (discusses later). On the top left of each hero, there is a cost, this can be paid to summon that hero as an ally for one round where they are not the main characters in the game.

Setup:

- Prepare each hero deck by giving each player three credit cards, 4 luxury cards, and 3 savings. give each player a hero, a meeple and two dice.

- Separate each income card into a separate pile onto the working board.

- Shuffle the basic and advanced gadget decks and place them into separate piles on the shopping board, then deal six basic gadgets face up.

- Shuffle the citizen deck and place three citizens face up on the vigilante board. Put a green cube on the max wealth for each face-up citizen. These are the people you are protecting.
- Shuffle the villain deck and deal villains on to the vigilante board based on player count (2 players = 6 villains; 3 players = 8 villains; 4 players = 10 villains).

- Shuffle the boss deck and place it to the top left of the boss board, leaving the boss in the middle of the board. The boss will start on a certain health based on player count (2 players = 18 health, 3 players = 27 health, 4 players = 36 health).

How to Play:

There are four phases per round; working, shopping, vigilante and the resolve phase. Each of these phases are played simultaneously between players.

Working Phase:

Draw five income cards (if you can't draw five, reshuffle your discard pile into a new deck and continue drawing). Then using the cards in your hand, gain resources such as happiness, money, shields, extra dice or remove a card using budgeting. Also, activate any permanent equipment cards from previous loans. Once this is all done, either gain any one card from the working board into your discard pile or pay off a loan from your hand. If you pay off a loan, remember that they will be equipped (if they're not a credit card) and removing them will reduce the boss' health.

Shopping Phase:

This phase is simple, you may buy ONE gadget from the shopping board then replace that spot with either a basic or advanced gadget. This will be the phase where you are equipping your hero for the vigilante fight phases to come.

Vigilante Phase:

The first part of this phase allows you to summon one additional unused hero with the cost on the hero card (paid by the player summoning them). The hero will come into combat with two dice and fight the same as any other hero for this turn.

Each player then places their meeple on one villain, players may choose villains who already have a meeple assigned to them. Now each player rolls their dice (starting with two dice then upgrades or abilities can add more) and tries to match the villains numbers shown in blue.

The dice can be modified using the players equipped abilities (represented by the tool symbol on the card) or through the use of gadgets.  Keep in mind each enemy’s number can only have one die placed there, so you have to be able to reach that value with one die. For example if the number is 7, you roll your die and modify it using abilities and gadgets.

Once this is completed any villain that has their numbers completed are discarded and the citizen below is safe for one more round. If they are not defeated, the villain will steal wealth (also known as health) from the citizen equal to the amount on the villain's attack. If the citizen has no more wealth they are discarded and the bosses health increases by the citizens starting wealth. If you matched dice but weren't successful in defeating the villain you may leave your successful dice on that villain to be completed later on. Unless you return the dice at any point, you will go into future combat without those dice.

There is one more rule relevant to this phase which is the last villain/citizen standing. If there is only one villain left, that villain will attack all citizens. On the contrary, if there is only one citizen left, all villains will attack that citizen.

Resolve Phase:

Move the boss events from the last round to the awakened pile on the boss board. Then clear all defeated villains and citizens and replace with new cards of the same type. If any citizens died this turn make sure to increase the boss’ health by the citizens starting wealth. If the boss’ health increases past another warning sign, reveal a new boss card that will have an event for the next round.

Boss Battle:

If at any point the villains are all defeated, you begin the boss fight. You have now awakened the boss and the first thing to do is to shuffle the awakened boss event cards together which all instantly become new villains (they will attack the remaining citizens like normal villains). Except now these villains have special effects which activate when attacked (those targeting a player can be blocked using shield tokens). There are three more things that differ; the bosses health will no longer change, all upgrades will now only be sold through a black market which are double the cost, and there will be no more cards added to your deck via the working phase. If you manage to defeat these boss villains then congratulations you have won. However, if all your citizens are destroyed then you have lost.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:
- It fells like victory is earnt
- Have to weigh up gaining debts that will increase the difficulty of the boss, but also benefit you short term
- Fun theme of economics merged with superheroes
- Unique combinations of deck building and dice manipulation
- Simultaneous play leads to a fast deck building game
- Fun art and characters shared between capital gains games

Cons:
- The card quality is average
- High amount of setup and teardown time required

‘Debtzilla’ a great game that combines the mechanisms of deck building, dice manipulation and push your luck. When I first played the game, the significance of pushing your luck was not obvious. However, a large part of the game involves gaining debts to increase your revenue and build a better tableu  for future turns, but, they will also increase the boss’ health. So, you have to monitor the boss’ health to make sure he does not reveal too many event cards that then need to be fought in the boss phase, while gaining an advantage for yourself. Furthermore, with this push your luck aspect, many character abilities will be more beneficial when the boss has higher health such as 'Debt Hulk' who becomes stronger gaining more dice, as the boss increases in strength. Be warned though, this game is hard! You have to start defeating the enemies on turn one to keep your limited amount of civilians alive, but at the same time manage your deck and your upgrades to prepare for the boss fight, as these cards cannot be added to your deck once the boss awakens.

In case you were not moved by my list of pros for this game, I emphatically enjoy this game and highly recommend it and am giving it a Seal of Go to Golden Game. It allows multiple methods for victory by modifying your deck, building up your tableu and pushing your luck. Due to the game being played simultaneously it also lead to a lot of collaboration between players and no boredom waiting for others to take their turns. This game will be added to my collection for many more future plays.

Click...feed the addiction: 

Capital Gains Studio
Debtzilla on BGG
Expand Your Game Facebook page
Expand Your Game Instagram