Boss Monster - An Introduction

 Boss Monster - An Introduction

Game Specs

• Advertised Player Count: 2-4 (I believe it goes up to 5 with expansions; and there are several of them!)
• *Actual* Player Count: This game is best with 3+ players to offset any potential skew of hero type (an assessment that will make more sense when I post my review of the game!)
• Playing Time: 30 minutes (this is fairly close to accurate once everyone understands the basics)
• Age: 13+
• Premise: Each player is a "boss monster" (a la the old 16 bit Nintendo games) and must build a dungeon. That dungeon will lure the heroes in town to their doom, and the Boss Monster who kills the most heroes wins!

I was introduced to it by my buddy John at a weekend spent at Lake of the Ozarks playing board games and RPGs. It was the first time he and I had gotten together for a full weekend of gaming with two other friends, so we had a lot of different games hit the table to learn what we liked and what we didn't. Boss Monster was an instant hit and was playing constantly throughout the weekend. Setup and tear down are really fast, so it ended up being the first game we played each morning, it was played during meals, it was played between other games being set up.

Sequence of play is real easy, I promise. At the beginning of the turn, you reveal heroes and each player draws a Room card from the deck. Next, each player builds one room in their dungeon (layout pictured below; rooms are either built on top of one another, or from right to left as the dungeon expands, with the boss waiting at the end of the dungeon, like any good video game). Players reveal their rooms, and then heroes are lured to dungeons based on treasure types (symbols on the bottom right of each room or Boss card). The Adventure phase comes next, when the heroes adventure through whatever dungeon they're visiting, and either die a horrible death, or get all the way through and hurt your Boss!

That's it. That's all there is to it. You also have spells that you can play during the game. There are interactions that can get a little tricky from time to time, but overall, the game is really light on rules and complexity while running deeper on strategy. I'll be writing more about this game in the future: reviewing pros and cons, delving into strategy a little bit. But this and other introduction articles are just that: introductions. "Hello, friend! Meet a game you might enjoy!" If it piques your interest, read more about it on my site or on other sites.

With a deck of cards, Brotherwise does a really nice job of setting up a tabletop game that has the feel of playing the villain in a 16 bit video game. The art is a lot of fun, the names of cards and artwork is tongue-in-cheek, chock full of insider gaming and pop culture references, and it is fast. I cannot stress that part enough. The more time one invests in a game, oftentimes, the more frustrating it is to lose. Especially if you feel as though other players coordinated against you. And if you're in the lead in this game, expect that to happen! But the overall time involved with this game (not just play time, but setup and breakdown) is so small compared to so many other games that it is almost ALWAYS worth breaking Boss Monster out. And if you're bounced from the game early, I promise, it won't be terribly long until you can choose a different Boss and start again.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a light, fun card game, this fits the bill. If you or your friends/family are old school video gamers, then this is a must-own.