Table-Top Review: Boss Monster

Get ready to throw down some face-downs and get your game on with this amazing kickstarter success story, Boss Monster. 

One thing I don’t normally review are games because I don’t have time to pick them up and play them in a manner that gives me enough time to form an opinion and review them. For example, I’d love to review Skyrim or Fallout 3 because those are games I had fun with and would like to share my experiences. But not only have these been out for a while, thus reducing the amount of people who give a fuck, but I’ve never finished them because there’s so much to do. Or games that really have no end or no progression other than unlocking shit (see racing and fighting games). Or games that I want to play but don’t have time to (see Dark Souls II or Assassin’s Creed: Whatever the fuck is out now). 

Another thing I don’t normally review would be table-top games. Generally because people give less of a fuck about these and they’re expensive in comparison to games, though understandably so. It costs a lot of money to print, package, and ship these kinds of games to locations in hopes someone will buy them. Especially because there are many varieties of table-top games that it makes it difficult for anyone to really stand out unless you know where to look. Or, if you’re me, and are attracted to box-art that looks like an NES game case.  In which case, let me introduce you to one of my new favorite games, Boss Monster.

The game is simple and requires minimal set up. Basically you and up to three friends play the role of a boss monster of a dungeon that you build throughout the course of the game (think Bowser, Ridley, Dracula, etc). The goal of the game is to design, re-design, and continuously improve your dungeon to attract as many heroes as quickly as possible in order to kill them in your dungeon to get 10 points before anyone else in the game. The game adjusts its settings depending on the number of players, but the game goes by quick and, once everyone knows how to play, only really takes 15-20 minutes to play. 

You kill heroes with a combination of spells you can collect and the rooms of your dungeons (and their various effects). Some rooms have abilities tied to killing heroes faster, and others are tied to when a hero dies in that room. All of which are designed to help make killing them more efficient, and make your later designs for a dungeon all the better. In my many rounds of playing this game, I have found no real “perfect” set up, but several “ideal” set ups as well as many “high-value” cards worth playing when you get a chance to maximize the effectiveness of your dungeon. Two in particular (Vampire Bordello and Monster’s Ballroom) are among my favorites for their effects and ability to combo well with other cards. But these are certainly not the only cards worth having and, in fact, there are better combos out there worth looking into.

Heroes are not played by anyone, but act as automatic cannon fodder, like a Tower Defense game. The heroes go to whichever players’ dungeon has the most treasures they want (example, thieves like money, so the dungeon with the most money gets to attract thieves). If more than one dungeon has the highest amount of a given treasure, then the heroes begin to bottleneck in town and I’ve had games where up to 10 heroes are just sitting around before any murder happens. Once a hero is attracted to a dungeon, the dungeon owner takes the hero and, room-by-room, walks them through it until they die or until their boss takes damage from the hero. It takes 10 human souls to win the game, and 5 wounds from a hero to lose the game. 

Additionally, there are epic heroes capable of dealing more damage, living longer, but they are worth more souls (2 in total) meaning that killing them boosts your score tremendously. Not only that, but this game already has an expansion (the box looking like an old Gameboy Game case), which adds ITEMS. Items are equipped to the appropriate heroes when available, giving them abilities that make heroes even harder to kill, and some are downright impossible to deal with. But, should you kill the hero, YOU get the item, which will have an alternate ability for the boss monster (you). So, no, this isn’t a walk through the park, but it’s simple enough that even with these slight complications in late game, you can figure out strategies to keep yourself alive while still gaining the most points.

It’s by no means my favorite table-top game. Cosmic Encounters still ranks highly on my list, along with Descent: Journey into the Dark, but both of those require more set up and more pieces to play and get them moving. Plus those games are just not fun (or impossible to play) with only two people. Boss Monster is in the same circle as, say, Flux in which the game is certainly better with more people, but is perfectly doable and still enjoy able with only two if that’s all you have available. Plus there are plenty of cute references to some favorite retro games that the art-style is clearly paying homage to, that you can’t help but enjoy those little bits of the game. 

I look forward to more expansions to Boss Monster in hopes of giving the game more variety and things to do. As it stands now, the game is very tight, focused, and fun with a fair enough balance to make it relatively easy for anyone to jump in and play without much trouble. I worry too many expansions, or the wrong kind of expansion could lower the quality of the product, but I’m open to the idea of this game expanding into something bigger, and certainly hope it does. Consider this a very strong recommendation for Boss Monster. See ya next time!