Colossal Deathblow

Description from the designer:

In Colossal Deathblow, players are would-be Heroes charged with defeating a mighty Colossus plaguing their City. Wielding a deadly weapon and pure elemental energy, each Hero brings his own unique abilities to bear on one of the monster’s vulnerabilities while distinguishing themselves from the other Heroes.

As Heroes unleash their spectacular attacks, the people of the City marvel from across the river. After the battle, Heroes burnish their reputation--and increase their silver--by visiting among the people to increase their renown. After all, real Glory comes from the adoration of the people!

Between the unpredictable attacks, Heroes have downtime to visit the bustle of the City and buy new weapons, learn new abilities, and replenish their elemental energies in preparation for battle.

The Soothseers foretell that the Heroes will vanquish the Colossus after five grueling battles. Though all contribute, only the Hero with the most Glory in both deeds and renown can take credit for the Deathblow and be declared Savior of the City!

Gameplay

Colossal Deathblow is a rules-light, Euro-style, majority control game with unique placement eligibility mechanisms. There are three main phases in each of the its five rounds.

First, while preparing for the Colossus attack during each round (and while the outcome of each battle is still uncertain), players must make hard choices about which of the majority-control areas on the board they might want to use in a later phase.

Second, during the attack, players secretly choose which vulnerability of the Colossus to target using one of their weapons, and which type and how much elemental energy to use to boost the damage. Players are then ranked according to the amount of overall damage they do to the Colossus. The player who does the most damage goes first during the next phase, but also becomes a target when the Colossus strikes back.

Finally, after the battle, players must decide where to place popularity tokens from their limited supply, subject to their eligibility decided earlier. Tokens represent renown, which is converted to VPs (Glory) via majority control at the end of the game.

While players can choose to place as many or as few tokens as they wish during a round, choices are final and there is a hard limit to the number of tokens they can place over the course of the game. Deciding when to double-down to gain a majority and when to conserve tokens are major considerations during each round.

The game is medium-weight and plays in 75-120 minutes, and (despite the impression the name might give) has minimal direct player interaction. It thematically combines the deliciously agonizing choices of classic area control and hand management games (El Grande, Auction 2002) with resource management and simultaneous action selection mechanisms.