According to the Dalai Lama, “the purpose of our lives is to be happy,” and so by the transitive property, it can be argued that the purpose of life is to play board games. Thus, we should play them every chance we get, even when traveling and constrained by limited luggage and/or table space.

Button Shy Games has long endeavored to make gaming more travel-accessible by publishing a series of easily-packable 18-card games. Their latest release, Dust Biters, is a 2-player only game set in a Mad Max-like universe where opponents tactically maneuver their fantastical vehicles to outlast their rivals in a deadly desert race that takes place over 10-15 minutes.

Gameplay Overview:

Dust Biters begins by setting up a caravan of cars lined up to race in a single-file fashion. The first four belong to the 2nd player and the last four belong to the first player. Players will alternate taking any combination of 3 possible actions on their turn:

• Draw a new car(d) from the deck into their hand
• Play a car from their hand to the front of the caravan
• Choose one of their cars already in play and have it drive forward or backward one space
• Choose one of their cars in play and activate its special ability.

At the end of each player’s turn, whichever car is currently at the rear of the caravan gets swept away in a dust storm and is eliminated from play.

Players alternate taking turns until one player has no active cars remaining in the caravan; that player loses.

The orderly starting setup is shown here from the first player perspective where their four cars are in the back of the caravan and their opponent’s four cars are lined up at the front.

Game Experience:

Dust Biters is a perfect example of elegant game design: the rules are simple, but the decisions are deep. Each of 18 cards is unique, and the particular set of 8 cards that start in play, as well as their ordering, very much impacts decision-making.

Five cars have straightforward, albeit positionally dependent, destructive capabilities. For example, “Spiky” destroys the car directly in front of it. “Sniper” can destroy any other car if it’s positioned in the furthermost rear of the caravan. These abilities are clearly useful, but players must first ensure the cars are optimally positioned to take advantage of these abilities. For instance, Spiky is not very useful if your own car is in front of it.

A sampling of the durable linen-finished cards is shown here.

Five other cars allow you to manipulate the position of cars in the caravan. For example, the “Teleporter” can swap positions with any other car. Of course, the simplest way to reposition a car may be to drive any of your individual cars one spot forward or backward.

On most turns, players will engage in some combination of repositioning cars and then destroying one or more of their opponent’s cars, if possible.

The third main type of car that throws an interesting wrinkle into the game is the type that interferes with, copies, or enhances the actions of other cars. The “Jammer” inhibits the active and passive abilities of all adjacent cars (yours or your opponent’s). The “Mimic” functions exactly like the car in front of it. The “Ice Cream Van” lets players use the power of the car directly in front without using an action point. The “Necromancer” takes on the functionality of whatever car is currently on top of the scrap heap (i.e. most recently eliminated from the game).

Thus, doing well in Dust Biters requires keeping track of the abilities and locations of all your own cars, as well as the abilities and locations of all your opponent’s cars, since your opponent’s strength could easily become your own strength if you possess the right cars. You must also think defensively; if your opponent currently controls the “Equalizer,” which lets them move any car at the front to the back, you wouldn’t want to waste any actions moving one of your cars to the front, where it would easily get “equalized.”

A less orderly mid-game state where each player still has three cars in play is shown here. This player will likely want to use their Grappling car at the rear to move an opponent’s car behind them so they’ll be swept away in the dust storm at round-end.

Order of operations needs to be considered every turn. Certain car repositionings must occur before other actions are effective. Further, when given the choice of which opponent’s car to take out, such as with the Sniper, there is often the question of which car to prioritize for elimination first. As short and as simple as this game is, it’s not uncommon for players to get AP with all their various options and the ordering thereof; that’s an impressive feat for an 18-card game.

In your first few plays, it can be a challenge to wrap your head around your many options at any given moment. The abilities of each card are described in text on each card (as opposed to using icons), so you may not always understand at an immediate glance what they do, especially for your opponent’s cards, which will likely be upside-down from your perspective. Nonetheless, each card possesses a unique vehicular depiction that mostly aligns with its function—Spiky has giant spikes on its front, which one can envision shredding the tires of whatever car is in front—so after a few plays, you’ll likely become more familiar with the 18 various cars and can readily connect their visual appearance to in-game ability.

Each car has a distinct appearance that aligns with its function. The Teleporter looks futuristic and the Grappling car has a giant grappling claw.

So are there critiques? I’m not really attracted to the death-metal theming, but I’ll admit the art is well-done, and it makes sense within the gameplay. The card groupings that occur are random, which is great for replay value, but can sometimes leave players with meh options, especially if none of the cars with destructive abilities are in play; nonetheless, this scenario rarely lasts very long.

Finally, although the game is tiny and easily transportable, the requirement of linearly aligning up  to at least 8 standard-sized cards means it may not easily fit on a single plane tray table. Altogether, my critiques are minor, and this definitely rates among my all-time favorite 2-player Button Shy offerings, including that of Skulls of Sedlec, Tussie Mussie, and Forest Sky.

Final Thoughts:

Dust Biters is an absolutely fantastic 2-player only tactical travel-sized filler game. The rules are simple, but the game is impressively thinky. Every card has a unique ability, generally fitting into the functions of destruction, positional manipulation, or ability exploitation, and the particular combos and ordering of these cards results in countless permutations of actions that play differently each game. The sheer number of options, relayed in textual format, may be daunting in the first couple of plays, but players will quickly become familiar with the 18 cards. Unless you’re totally turned off by a punk theme with spectacular vehicular violence of Battle Bots proportions, Dust Biters is a game worth racing to add to your filler collection.

Final Score: 4.5 Stars—A 2-player pocket-sized filler game roaring with big decisions to tactically outmaneuver your opponent in a deadly desert race

Hits:
• Elegant design: simple rules, interesting decisions
• Ample replay value
• Truly pocket-sized

Misses:
• Table presence may be challenging for an airplane
• Textual descriptions can make the first few plays a bit slow