For many people, including myself, owning your own pet store would be a dream come true. Cute pets, being your own boss, and making tons of money all sounds pretty perfect. At least that’s what the imps in Dungeon Petz thought. In this new great game by Vlaada Chvatil from Z-Man Games, you are competing with other imps to create the best pet store in town. However, the pets you’re selling aren't just dogs and cats, they’re certified monsters with all the trouble that goes along with them. Your customers are also a little more difficult than a little girl buying her first fish. The Dungeon Lords who frequent these shops each have their own distinct (and sometimes disturbing) preferences that you must accommodate. Buying the best pets, keeping them happy and healthy, and finding the right buyer can all be very rewarding. However, if you make any mistakes, you can find yourself at the imp hospital, getting chewed out by angry relatives who want to work for you but don’t yet have green cards, or shoveling piles of poo while trying to avoid mutated monsters. If this all sounds quite complicated, you’re probably right. But, trust me, it’s well worth the time reading through the rule book to enjoy this hilarious and lively game.

Goal:

Collect the most total victory points by selling your pets to Dungeon Lords, exhibiting your pets to the public, and meeting your pets ever-changing needs.

Game play:

Dungeon Petz is a worker placement style game. This means that there are several different possible actions each turn. However, if one of your opponents chooses that action before you do, you may not get to do what you wanted that turn and may have to choose a completely different action. Unlike many other worker placement games, Dungeon Petz implements a bidding system to choose actions which spices things up a bit. Using your imps and gold, you bid on activation order. The more imps you send out shopping together, the faster they will arrive and the more likely they are to beat other smaller groups of imps sent by your opponents. For example, if there is a pet I really want to buy, I will bid a lot of imps/gold so that I will be guaranteed first pick. I won’t have as many resources to do other actions during that round, but at least I got the thing I really wanted. If I think my opponents will be choosing different actions, I can put in several low bids. This way I can do several actions during my turn, although they may be the less desirable ones.

You start with only 6 imps and two gold which you can split up into as many bidding groups as you like as long as there is at least one imp with every piece of gold. (The gold can’t go shopping by itself!) As the game progresses you can choose to spend actions on several things including sending distant relative imps green cards so that they can help you with the family business. With more imps working at the store, you can bid higher numbers. You can also keep imps at the store to make more money for future rounds which can also help your bidding.

Once everyone has bid (grouped imps and gold together in groups), each player takes an action in order according to how much they bid. There are many different items one can buy using these actions including pets, new cages and accessories, food, magical items, bonus points from community members who will vote on your pets, green cards for your relatives, and a spot on the stage to sell your pets.

When all the imps have finished their shopping, it is time to take care of your pets. Each pet has different requirements according to colors on their spin dial. As they grow, they have more requirements that must be met each turn. To meet the requirements, you must draw and place cards that match their color bars. If you place too many cards that have a food symbol but not enough food to feed the pet, it will be hungry and accumulate sadness tokens. Too many sadness tokens and it could die. Dead pets are bad for business. There are many different types of needs that may be assigned. The pets could be ferocious and require a cage with upgraded strength lest they escape. If they escape you may send imps after the animal, endangering the imps and possibly sending them to the imp hospital. Your pets may need to play with toys or another imp, or they may create feces that need to be cleaned to avoid diseases. They might be vegetarians, requiring only vegetables that could rot in the fridge if they aren’t used quickly enough. Simply put, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, so choose your pets wisely.

Pets that survive through the needs phase, may be exhibited to the public gaining you points for the notoriety of your store. Public opinion changes quickly. The attributes that make your store the most popular today, may not be appreciated tomorrow so you must always be on your toes. You know what the public will be looking for a few rounds in advance and can try to acquire the right types of pets to show off.

After the public has had their fill, the Dungeon Lords enjoy a private viewing. Each lord is looking for particular type of monster to fill their needs. They may want one that likes to play, or one that creates a lot of manure for their garden. Selling the right pets to the right Lords, will grant you the most points. After the Lords make their appearance, it’s time to clean up the shop, throw away old food, and get ready for another day.

Overall thoughts:

Even though this is a heavy micromanagement type game with a lot of rules and a lot of maintenance each round, after two and a half hours of playing I’m not quite ready for it to be over. Each players’ board is carefully created to help players keep track of what happens during each phase, what penalties occur when needs are not met, and many other important bits of information. Once everyone has played through a few rounds, the information on the board is quite understandable and makes the maintenance quite easy. I also appreciated the special board for 2-3 player games which helps it scale better for smaller groups. The care taken in creating not only the board, but the 18 unique pets, detailed imps and all the other quality game pieces exceeds my expectations, even for a high-end board game like this one.