Wastelandia Review - Robots and Mutants? As If!
Transcript
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Dice Tower. My name is Zee Garcia.
And I'm Camilla.
Today we're going to be taking a look at this game right here, Wastelandia. Wastelandia is as it says on the side, a co-op and solo boss battler set in like an alternate 1980s or 1990s um post-apocalyptic bunch of like kids from the neighborhood have turned into like punks fighting the apocalypse, man, and beating down mutated rat people and robots.
It's set in a comic book, I would say.
It really it feels like that. Um it's going to have some dice chucking in it, assigning those dice, and then taking abilities to beat down the bosses, and you're going through progressively harder bosses, trying to win the ultimate fight, leveling up as you do. I'm going to go ahead and show you how this all looks on the table, give you an overview. We'll come on back, we'll tell you what we think of this. In Wastelandia, your objective is to win four battles against the baddies. You begin right here against these Clank Bots. If you defeat them, you're going to go to a loot phase, where you'll get new goodies. There's weapons and items and things like that. And then you are going to roll a die and go to a different battle for your second uh fight, and so on. If you manage to win four of them, then you win the entire thing. You are each going to have a character. I've got Bashin' Blake and Wicked Willow right here. You have a dial to track your fear, as do the baddies. And you're going to have five dice to roll and activate abilities. So, starting from the top, we're going to have uh we're going to have Wicked Willow here go first. You are going to follow the breakdown of the uh the battle. So, the very first thing you do is you reveal a baddie ability. That basically entails grabbing the baggy here that has two A's, two B's, and two C's. We are going to reveal one. It's a C. We're going to put it right here.
It's the first turn. And we're going to use the little active ability goody here to mark what's going to happen. We can do that. We can do whatever we want to. There we go. It's going to be that one. This doesn't happen yet unless it has the word quick. Uh so, we know what the robots are going to do when it's their turn. Next up, we're going to be rolling dice. So, it's going to be Wicked Willow's turn here. She's going to grab her five dice. She's going to chuck them. And she is going to see what she got. A one, a two, a four, two sixes. Um then, from there, she can now decide to reroll things. You're going to be spending these reroll cubes, these power cubes, to reroll dice. You do not get any rerolls normally. And these are communal. So, you want to be careful about doing this too much. These are the things that she has access to right now.
You have room for more of them, or you can even cover these up later on as you get new goodies. But for now, she can put uh let's see. Let's take a look, right? So, the the CD shurikens, right here. She made shurikens out of CDs, and she's going to chuck them. So, it needs a four for this to be activated. So, I could do that. I could activate that, and I'll resolve it once I'm done activating all of these things. Um the the um fear that I'm going to be striking into them is represented by that symbol, and the roll is the fear. I get to target one guy. If it is a two, a three, or a four, I'm going to roll on that. I then I deal one fear. If it's a five or a six, then I deal one fear, and I roll the die again and reuse this ability. What is fear? Every time I deal damage to a character or they deal damage to us, they're dealing that much, like say two right here, plus whatever fear the player or the character has.
And the fear does not decay. It does not cool down. So, you have to be careful about accumulating too much of that because if I have you know, if Bash and Blake here has three fear and gets hit for that, he's actually taking five damage down from 15 to 10. And you want to be careful you don't drop out, okay? So, she's going to do that for sure. Strike a little fear. Let's see, what else do I want to do? This one takes a three. I do not have a three. Healing's good, but I'm she's all right right now. This is to remove fear here. The power cubes give us some cubes back. Um hmm. The stick is good. We could do a stick certainly. So, I'll put something on there.
Boop. And I'm going to do a reroll. I'm going to reroll what I've got left over here by spending one of these cubes and rerolling these dice. I'm hoping to get a three here. So, I'm actually before I put that in there, I'm going to reroll these. I want a three. That is no three there. I'm going to do it again. Come on. Give me a three. There's a three. Okay, sweet. Now, I'll do that one there. And any can go there. And and hmm. Hmm. Maybe I could put one here. Okay. Or I could do it's it's odd. I could do that maybe. That won't matter. Okay. So, now I'm going to activate things with the next step. It's use abilities. And then the baddies will go and they'll use their abilities. So, my abilities I begin with this one right here cuz I want to instill fear first before I go for it. I can pick either one of these guys. I'm going to go for this nerd right here in my way. I'm going to roll. I am targeting one.
The roll is a two. Ah, I'm going to use one of these to reroll and you can do it for this also. Oh, come on. It was definitely going to be a five. It's a four. Do I want to push it again? I'm not. I'm good. So, I instill one fear on this guy. We're going to track one fear there and that's done. Now, I am going to activate this right here. That says, if the sum of all my dice uh showing is 12 or less, uh it didn't quite. So, I might have rolled away from some of these, then I would have done eight damage instead. Um I probably could have done that, but let's say it's just two, okay? I'm dealing two plus one is three on him. One, two, three there. That's done and you do want to make sure these things are only done once per turn, so you can either track that by by taking one of these used tokens and putting it on there or just do what I'm doing with the dice here, put them on there and then when it's resolved, remove them, whatever.
This one over here says, uh it gains you one of these reroll tokens, but if you placed a six on here, you gain two instead. Obviously, I would have done that and gained two. Uh and then this one over here is you roll for the attack and if it's a three or higher, then you deal one damage. It's a one. I could reroll that. Uh yes. Goodness gracious, that's a two. I'm horrible rolling horribly. This one over here says, flip the die placed on this ability to its opposite side, then reuse that die, but again, everything is only once. So, you want to be careful you don't I can't now take this and put it somewhere I've already triggered. Once Willow here is done doing her thing, then these guys are going to go. They're each going to attack for two. They attack everybody, it says. And so, she's going to take two hits.
Blake's going to take two hits. That's the final step of the round and then we go to the top of the round, we pull out a token. It is a C again, but there are obviously, like I said, two A's and two B's, so let's pretend it's an A instead. There we go. This is going to move up here, and so it's going to be It says shin kicks. They're going to kick our shins. Man, they're jerks. They're going to attack us for 2x. Target is you. It'll be Blake's turn now, so him. And it explains what X means. X is the total two and five you have showing. I don't want twos. I don't want fives. These guys hate twos and fives. And so he would now do his thing. I would roll. I would do whatever I'm doing. He's going to have slightly different stuff. Still the stick. Still these three things across the bottom, the healing, the courage, and the power. That's the same.
Uh and then he's going to have his own things. His doggy flea bag. He's a good boy. Uh his stop shield there. Uh a brain helm a brain bucket he calls it. Uh and then the armor there. So different things that those things can do. Once we take these guys both down, we are going to I'll remove all this for now. Go to page 31 32, which is right here. And then we are going to read the setup for the rewards and uh draft some stuff. So basically, some weapons are going to go out. Some items are going to go out. Reward cards going those spots up here. Like this, and they explain what it is that's going on. You have a spot for a reward right here at the top of your board. But then also, turn order is going to go out. Um Let's say, you know, 1 2 3 4 for example. And then your turn order for the upcoming battle is based on where you drafted, what do took. So, you know, if we could Willow wants to take this stuff, she'll be third or or after Blake if he's one and two one or two. And so, with that done, they're going to roll and see what our second battle is. We would take two dice or or a die and roll. It's a three, so we're going to go fight the cult recruiters. If it had been a one or a two, we fight thieves on those pages and so on. Battle three gives you one of these. Battle four
gives you one of those. And if you manage to win the final battle, then you win the entire thing. That's how you do it. So, obviously, the first thing that caught my eye here was the look, the the vibe, the the charming sort of uh There's something about this art style that is kid-like, but not like some kid's notebook, if that makes sense. Like, I love it There's something about it that sort of seems like a child might have drawn it, but there are no kid would have this skill. It's It's very skillfully done.
I agree. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Um
It feels like it's for kids um more than it is by kids.
Maybe that's it. Um I can feel the kids' personalities come out of the artwork. You know what I mean? And then, of course, everything else, the the distressed look of so many things in the game art-wise, the the look of this game is very very charming to me. I find it very, you know, very cute. Componentry, just to switch gears here back and forth, is has some issues. There's some issues with it. The dice are, while really really cool in concept, uh and they seem to roll okay. I cannot imagine them being actually well balanced.
Right.
Uh and they're a little hard to read the pips cuz they're like black pips on on very gray dice.
Right. Now, to be fair, we are looking at the deluxe version here. We've not seen the regular or for retail version. Maybe they're different. Um you know, some other component problems that I have is the the heart the the health tracker is really big. And so, there's multiple times in the game if you're not very meticulous with it and know exactly where it is, it's going to end up fudging a little bit. So, you have to be really careful with that. It fits from number to number.
Yeah.
Um but again, this is the deluxe version and they're very nice wooden pieces. Maybe the retail version is different. So, in this one, those are the two component issues that I think get in the way a little bit. Um but like you said, with the dice uh you know, in my plays of it, I didn't feel like I was rolling a bunch of high numbers or only rolling low numbers or anything like that. They felt pretty pretty balanced, but looking at them, there's no way there it is.
Right. They're messed up looking dice. Uh very cool looking, but you know, if you're going to be a stickler about that um this these are not the dice you want to be rolling. But I'll go one further than that and say if you're going to be a stickler about that, this just might not be the game for you because the game while mechanically robust, and we can talk about a couple of those things in one second here really does live or die based on getting into it, man. Like you got to get into the theme a little bit. Um this idea of like, you know, just these kids rising up and fighting all this stuff, these robots made out of the like toasters and like uh you know, you you cutlery and stuff.
Your water gun that has the rocket launcher on the end. Whatever it may be.
you know, rocket skates and like a shopping cart with a bow on it.
Yeah.
You know, whatever, stuff like this. So, you got to get into that theme a little bit. Now, mechanically, there's a few things here in here that I found really interesting and I know you found a few of them interesting as well. Uh my favorite things are probably a common reroll pool. You can reroll dice, but you're sort of sharing the pool of those rerolled dice and you can you know, replenish that with your own abilities. Uh the fact that we all start the characters start with different abilities, but you can of course level that up, gain new ones, eventually cover up some if you want to. I like that quite a bit. And then I know you really like the fear mechanism as well.
like that fear mechanism. I think that this game has a really nice um trajectory, cadence, you know, whatever you want to call to it where your health and your rerolls
Right.
they are consistent. Your own fear is consistent from episode to episode, I guess what do you call it? Session to session.
It's four you play four fights. So, from one to the next, yeah.
next. You know, and so you are having to manage that as a resource. And you have that ability on your player sheet. But then having that, the bad guys have that fear that you're stacking onto and then that wipes away, it it lends to a really neat balance. That you're balancing yours and you're just trying to stack on them as quick as you can. And the fact that you can do one hit when you roll and you're like, "I'm going to do my weak attack over here with a stick for one damage." "Oh wait, that's 12 damage because we spent the last two rounds really stacking that fear on top of them and he's up to Well, I guess not 11 cuz it only goes to 10. You do 11 damage, whatever." You know, as you can stack that up, that's so exciting. I love that mechanism. And it just it makes those weak hits feel really powerful without giving you these ridiculous weapons.
And it works out because it's only six rounds. Every fight is at most six rounds. If you don't kill him in six, you lose the game, which is good. I would not want it to be like, "You keep going until they're done." And then you get into like the really drawn-out fights. The game already for me is a little on the long side, just a little bit. Um and that's playing we played with two and that's playing with two and that's a little bit on the long side. It's not going to be necessarily longer with more. It's still four fights, six rounds at most each. But you will do less.
You're taking less turns.
You're taking the less or fewer fewer turns. So, yes, yes. So, a little on the long side for me, but I do like the cadence of it, that idea of a dual fight, level up, roll to see who the next fight is. Oh, cool. Okay, this guy now. Fight them, level up. Uh that's that's a good cadence to it.
And that brings up another thing that I really like is that you are rolling to see what that next fight is. Now, as you played, if you have favorites, if you have ones you don't like, of course, you can fudge about that. But, I really like that um in the boss battle, you don't know what's coming next, that you are rolling a dice. It has that feeling on, all right, let's jump on our bike and see what's down the next street. Let's turn the corner and see what's there, you know? Um and I I really like that. I think it does add a little bit of unneeded excitement. It didn't need that.
Yeah.
But, I'm glad, you know, you could have just been like, here are your three campaigns, and
Oh, yeah, too.
which way do you want to go? They didn't. Uh and so, it just leads into the theme a little bit more.
Yeah, yeah. Um clarity-wise, as far as the rulebook goes, it's pretty good. There's a couple of example I I would have liked a couple more examples, let's say. I would have liked a little more uh a little more to it. Once you get it, you should be pretty good. Um there's a there's some growing pains. You can tell that this is, if I'm not mistaken, from a a young company, let's put it that way. Either their first game or early in their, you know, their gaming uh uh trajectory. But, it's pretty good. You You should be able to figure this out for the most part. And I do like, I alluded to this a little bit, the variety of abilities that you're going to find on both the weapons and the items.
Mhm.
I think there's some really neat stuff, some big bombastic stuff that comes with an associated cost you're maybe not willing to pay, some great hits, some just interesting things happening. It's It's fun to go to the um the level up in between moments, you know, the whatever they're calling them.
And how cool is that, too, that there's like a a combination of things you're
you know, what? My character's really kind of stuck in support and I need to get a better weapon or vice versa. I I'm really going to need to get this one. I'll I'll be the fear person that's just putting a lot of fear out. So, you really like the item, but the power that comes with it or you're going to be late game that comes with that. You're going to go forth.
Yeah. Yeah. In a four-player game or whatever. And so, you're having to balance what package of upgrade do you want? I think that again, things that were not needed, but I think are done really smartly to keep these little um moments of happiness, moments of excitement.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So, uh final thoughts. Do you want to go first or should I?
Yeah, I can. Um I'm going to come down at 7.5 on this. I am really charmed. And like you had said, I do think a lot of how you feel on this game is going to come down to how charmed you are by the theme. Um I think it is a good game. I think like I said, there's those little nuggets of excitement that are fun and really well-designed to keep you engaged with your character and also with each other. This feels like a co-op game. It feels like "Okay, I'm going to go in and just refill the reroll pool this time so that you can do your big power move." or, you know, there was one character, "I'm going to do this one and put some cubes on here so you can reuse your dice this turn." Something like that. It feels like you're working together and I absolutely love that. Uh what kind of holds it back for me is is some of those little bit of a production issues, um the growing pains as you said perhaps, uh the the lack of clarity on some of the rules. It wasn't a big deal. We were able to come to find out what everything meant, but for example, there's one that is you can reuse an attack. Um does that mean you get to trigger it for free?
Does that mean you have to have a die? Well, you assign your dice before you activate everything. So, does that mean you have to know you're going to do that when you're in the assigned dice phase? Like there's just a couple little obstacles in the way that you're going to hit. not a big deal. We got through them. We decided what it meant. Um we actually found some clarification on that on a card that came up later.
Yeah, one of the cards has like parenthetical you know, further explanation. It's like, "Oh, okay, I guess that's what that means."
Okay, now we know, but I shouldn't have to have a different card to understand a base rule kind of thing. So, so a couple little nitpicky things keep it down from being like an excellent game, but man, this is one that I'm always happy to try and very happy to recommend. So, a 7.5 for me.
And I'm coming right down at the same score. Actually, 7.5 for me as well. I've already mentioned some of my negatives, but ultimately, this is a fun game that if you all if you do like boss battlers and you like the kids on bikes theme. I don't know why we call it that, but you know what I you know what we mean, the you know, the Stranger Things thing. Um if you like um Dice Throne. This is This has a lot of sort of Dice Throne DNA in it. If you know that game. Yeah, this is a neat one. I enjoy jumping into it. I like the humor in it. I like the silliness of it, but it's not a dumb game by any means. Mechanically, some good production, some good development went into this game and I appreciate that. So, yeah, 7.5 for me as well. And that is going to be it for Wastelandia, everybody. Again, this is a deluxe version, so if anything here doesn't match the components you have something you see later on, it's because we happen to have a different edition.
And some of our complaints may only tie to this edition. We don't know. So, there you go, folks. Thanks very much for tuning in and checking this out with us. My name is Zee Garcia.
And I'm Camilla.
Watch out for the rat kids.
Now, go get them.
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