Tom Vasel takes a look at Boss Monster: the Dungeon Building Card Game
00:00 – Introduction
01:05 – Game Overview
05:48 – Final Thoughts
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19.02.2022
89 Comments
even if it is a simple puzzle game overall it makes up for it with how you basicly screw with someones methods to build it. and also you make a point on how everyone targets the guy in first place…yeaaaah thats how every game works over all, you get rid of thr bigger threat to your victory
I love the game because even though it is luck based once you understand the rules and strategy involved the game plays quick so you can play multiple games and find more of the hard fought close victories that I enjoy. The expansion doesn't save the luck aspect of it but gives the heroes special abilities which add a TON to the game. And instead of just being a collectathon the losing player can push a few epic heroes with good Items on the winner and eliminate them, which is quite reachable because the items are just hard enough to beat but will still kill a player with a lot of damaging room cards! The game was ok but the expansion saved it and for the cheap price it was easy to pick up. Love it!
I do enjoy your game reviews. But I do feel like you should give it more of a chance. Usually in the core game, heroes get stomped pretty bad and everyone try's to bait the heroes in their own dungeon. However due to the game expansion, heroes have items that can potential tear your dungeon into pieces. So now it is extremely important how you bait heroes, plus you get an item card if you kill the hero. Essentially giving you another spell card effect. I heard boss monster 2 is being play tested, and you can sign up for the play test on reddit.
Card games are always based on luck of the draw, this game is no different. Don't say its bad because of you can lose by not drawing good cards. I purchased this and I rather enjoy playing.
Cool concept of a game, the only problem is that this game is kind of a ripoff of the video game for PSP called " what did I do to deserve this my lord!?" Because in that game you create a dungeon & create traps/monsters to kill unwanted heroes who have come to capture your master.
I just got the opportunity to play this game today and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. To be fair, we only played 2 games with the item expansion (3 player), but it was a fun filler game. This game felt very similar to Cutthroat Caverns – yeah, you might get some lousy hands from time to time and you might get eliminated in the first few turns… good thing the game only lasts 10-15 min. The flavor is great and some of the room/spell combo possibilities are pretty interesting. I might change my mind after a few more plays, but again, it's a filler game that wont be hitting the table on a frequent basis.
did he even play the same game as me? play the best card? you mean like depending on the situation because different heroes are in the town and depending on what other players have for treasures and how many wounds they have and the state of their dungeons. What do you mean by "best" then? Because different cards could be better depending on the state of different players. A solitaire game? you mean in a game that is a bidding war for heroes? how can that be a solitaire game? does he know what solitaire game means? So you had the only fighter icon and got trounced by too many fighters? Granted there is a small luck element but why didn't you build rooms to kill them? Or you can cover treasures and send those heroes at others because it's not a solitaire game. Didn't you have any spells to scare away, stop or kill any of these heroes? if not then that's just super unlucky, pretty rare, it's not a long game, play again. The items expansion makes it even more fun by giving heroes variety and giving bosses more powers.
The major problem is that he did not play the mini-expansion Tools of Hero Kind. I am also unsure if he was playing by all the right rules. He suggests he started with all fighter symbols in his hand at the start… was he playing with the mulligan rule that is in the rulebook that says that if you start with 4 rooms that have the same symbol or 4 advanced rooms that you can have a mulligan draw on your room cards? I can see what he means a little bit about the game without the expansion, I know I found that it got dry a little quickly without it. I have also had a number of complaints about dying so soon due to wounds, but a lot of the time it is avoidable as long as you know what you are doing (which as a first time player you will not know what to do). But with the expansion it makes the game so much better. This being said it is possible that the game was just not for him, but I know I love it.
I just bought this game recently and I think it's great for people who've never experienced the dungeon building genre of board games. Also, when you mentioned getting a bad hand, it says in the rules you're allowed to re-draw your cards if you get something like that.
I picked this game up last week. I've played two and three player versions of this game. I think it's great. I've only had one game where someone was killed off early. He's not used to playing these types of games and played quite poorly, but it was a three player game so the game kept going. Sometimes there have been some close calls. Getting to the point where a player has 9 souls and four wounds and me looking through my hand to find that card that screws him over. One thing that I do is purposely tie with someone on a hero type to lessen what I get, build my dungeon up, then break the tie in my favor and rack up the souls.
This game was so disappointing. I was so excited about it, and it just fell flat. I completely agreed with your summary at the end.
Aside from all the gameplay issues, I also had two major thematic issues with the game:
1- The box is clearly designed to emulate an original NES video game box. So then why did all the cards have 16-bit graphics on them?
2-The game is called Boss Monster, you take on the role of a Boss Monster, so then why is the boss monster essentially irrelevant? Why am I relying entirely on the dungeon to kill the hero? If the hero makes it through the dungeon, I lose the fight? Isn't beating the Boss Monster supposed to be the hardest part of the dungeon?!
I completely disagree with your argument. This game is really fun, it just takes time to learn not to screw yourself over. Yes, it is repetitive at times, but that is why there are 2 expansion packs for the game. Also, player elimination happens very rarely when you actually know how to play the game. If you were to replay the game and get the hang of it, you would find it a lot more enjoyable.
Picked this up yesterday but my major goal was to find a light 2-player game for my g/f and I. This is it. Yes random but fast. Almost would like to see a fifth treasure or more strategy in gating the heroes because with a bit of forethought you can really screw the other player early.
His explanation of why the game is bad would seem to say that the game Munchkin is bad as it has the same draw good cards early and take a huge lead aspect to it. I think this game is fantastic.
Just don't play elimination if you don't like it. Game ends when all heros are gone and the winner is most souls minus wounds. Also, I play simultaneous turns wherever possible to really speed the game up. 15 minutes or less is a lot of fun. Looking forward to the expansion and Boss Monster 2.
Would playing sort of like mage wars, to eliminate luck, make game unplayable? Basically each turn a player just got to pick 2 cards, or however many would be appropriate, from deck to play and put face down then had only those cards to play during that turn and had to pick two cards next turn but could pick a card they've picked but haven't played yet.
If you think that the game "plays itself", then you're probably playing the game wrong… XD This review is probably rushed, since the game doesn't need "luck", since all cards are great in their own way, all it needs is proper card placement.
I own this game, and agree on all your criticism. There's too much randomness involved with the boss cards and the room cards. There's an expansion for it, which I think I can safely ignore. I like the pixel art though.
Played this last night and can't believe I found a game I hate MORE than munchkin. You are exactly right, if you get better cards you are going to do better and there's no way to change that. The randomness is what kills this game for me, really glad I haven't bought it.
Could you update your review to include the expansions please, I'm curious if they have brought anymore balance, or multidimensional free-agency to the decisions players make. Also Good review 🙂 thanks for making these videos 🙂
I found that the more you play and familiarize your self with the cards, the luck draw factor almost disappears because you can sometimes do surprising things with fairly 'weak' rooms. It is how you combine them with other rooms (especially 'destroy another room' effects). So you can have tonnes of strategy. My wife is not a heavy strategy gamer but this game brings out some hardcore strategical skills. I don't know, something about it just resonates with her and we love it.
It's not just the artwork. There is a real game here, and I think it has its own following for that reason.
I still have this game, my girlfriend loves it. My opinion has slowly gone down over time though, it's really too luck based and for the most part the winner is determined by who draws the correct cards. There's very little opportunity generally to do anything clever with what you're holding, you just have to hope you draw the right thing. Tom's "the game is playing you" probably sums it up best. Having said that, I don't mind playing it, it's not outright awful or anything, but definitely not a great either. It stays in my collection because my girlfriend likes it but otherwise I probably would have gotten rid of it.
I have to disagree with your "The game plays you" opinion, the game on plays you if you use your rooms randomly. Setting up strategies and combing rooms, as well as spell usage makes the game fairly tactical, and I love that. The same thing can be said about your point on player elimination, playing smart lets you play the game.
This is a game the you will enjoy depending on who you play with. The game is only there to gather your friends around and do something not to play the game.
I hate when a gamebox claims "you csm start and play immediately". No. You can't with this game. I've spent endless hours to understand what rules ask you to do. There are hundreds of exceptions. The colors on the cards don't help at all. Sometimes two cards mutually counterdict, so you don't know what to do. And – oh boy – the round order about boss' xp is one of the crappiest things to do. You get those x shaped round order… why not just pick up the card and THEN sit around the table? This was one of the first games that made me disappointed.
And spells… just put smoke to everybody's eyes. Did I say that rules just suck?
Agreed. The cards aren't balanced. There are simply GOOD and BAD cards which is crazy because you get them randomly. Cards that have 0 or 1 damage simply doesn't have a good ability to compensate the low damage. Early game elimination is a real threat. The winner is basically who has the most draw luck.
This was one of the worst, most boring, most uninteresting games I have ever played. And I've played pretty much every board game ever made and a lot of card games, video games, pnp games, and just most games – period.
I can't express how much hype this game had (it looks awesome; great theme) but the actual design & gameplay is downright horrible. It's just bland as can be and not at all fun. Very, very, very boring.
Ah, feedback loop problem, eh? The better you're doing, the better you're able to keep doing. That does speak to an inexperienced designer. Usually, those feedback loop problems are balanced by a risk-reward system, like "all your eggs are in one basket, you may have the best stuff but also the most vulnerable to a single setback", or rubber-band difficulty like "the better you're doing, the worse stuff you get- the worse you're doing, the more aides you're given to catch up". This seems to have neither. Maybe can be corrected in an expansion or 2nd edition.
even if it is a simple puzzle game overall it makes up for it with how you basicly screw with someones methods to build it. and also you make a point on how everyone targets the guy in first place…yeaaaah thats how every game works over all, you get rid of thr bigger threat to your victory
I love this game.
I love the game because even though it is luck based once you understand the rules and strategy involved the game plays quick so you can play multiple games and find more of the hard fought close victories that I enjoy. The expansion doesn't save the luck aspect of it but gives the heroes special abilities which add a TON to the game. And instead of just being a collectathon the losing player can push a few epic heroes with good Items on the winner and eliminate them, which is quite reachable because the items are just hard enough to beat but will still kill a player with a lot of damaging room cards! The game was ok but the expansion saved it and for the cheap price it was easy to pick up. Love it!
I do enjoy your game reviews. But I do feel like you should give it more of a chance. Usually in the core game, heroes get stomped pretty bad and everyone try's to bait the heroes in their own dungeon. However due to the game expansion, heroes have items that can potential tear your dungeon into pieces. So now it is extremely important how you bait heroes, plus you get an item card if you kill the hero. Essentially giving you another spell card effect. I heard boss monster 2 is being play tested, and you can sign up for the play test on reddit.
Card games are always based on luck of the draw, this game is no different. Don't say its bad because of you can lose by not drawing good cards. I purchased this and I rather enjoy playing.
Cool concept of a game, the only problem is that this game is kind of a ripoff of the video game for PSP called " what did I do to deserve this my lord!?" Because in that game you create a dungeon & create traps/monsters to kill unwanted heroes who have come to capture your master.
I just got the opportunity to play this game today and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. To be fair, we only played 2 games with the item expansion (3 player), but it was a fun filler game. This game felt very similar to Cutthroat Caverns – yeah, you might get some lousy hands from time to time and you might get eliminated in the first few turns… good thing the game only lasts 10-15 min. The flavor is great and some of the room/spell combo possibilities are pretty interesting. I might change my mind after a few more plays, but again, it's a filler game that wont be hitting the table on a frequent basis.
did he even play the same game as me? play the best card? you mean like depending on the situation because different heroes are in the town and depending on what other players have for treasures and how many wounds they have and the state of their dungeons. What do you mean by "best" then? Because different cards could be better depending on the state of different players. A solitaire game? you mean in a game that is a bidding war for heroes? how can that be a solitaire game? does he know what solitaire game means? So you had the only fighter icon and got trounced by too many fighters? Granted there is a small luck element but why didn't you build rooms to kill them? Or you can cover treasures and send those heroes at others because it's not a solitaire game. Didn't you have any spells to scare away, stop or kill any of these heroes? if not then that's just super unlucky, pretty rare, it's not a long game, play again. The items expansion makes it even more fun by giving heroes variety and giving bosses more powers.
The major problem is that he did not play the mini-expansion Tools of Hero Kind. I am also unsure if he was playing by all the right rules. He suggests he started with all fighter symbols in his hand at the start… was he playing with the mulligan rule that is in the rulebook that says that if you start with 4 rooms that have the same symbol or 4 advanced rooms that you can have a mulligan draw on your room cards? I can see what he means a little bit about the game without the expansion, I know I found that it got dry a little quickly without it. I have also had a number of complaints about dying so soon due to wounds, but a lot of the time it is avoidable as long as you know what you are doing (which as a first time player you will not know what to do). But with the expansion it makes the game so much better. This being said it is possible that the game was just not for him, but I know I love it.
I just bought this game recently and I think it's great for people who've never experienced the dungeon building genre of board games. Also, when you mentioned getting a bad hand, it says in the rules you're allowed to re-draw your cards if you get something like that.
I picked this game up last week. I've played two and three player versions of this game. I think it's great. I've only had one game where someone was killed off early. He's not used to playing these types of games and played quite poorly, but it was a three player game so the game kept going. Sometimes there have been some close calls. Getting to the point where a player has 9 souls and four wounds and me looking through my hand to find that card that screws him over. One thing that I do is purposely tie with someone on a hero type to lessen what I get, build my dungeon up, then break the tie in my favor and rack up the souls.
Should I get this it's going to be my first board game other than monopoly
This game was so disappointing. I was so excited about it, and it just fell flat. I completely agreed with your summary at the end.
Aside from all the gameplay issues, I also had two major thematic issues with the game:
1- The box is clearly designed to emulate an original NES video game box. So then why did all the cards have 16-bit graphics on them?
2-The game is called Boss Monster, you take on the role of a Boss Monster, so then why is the boss monster essentially irrelevant? Why am I relying entirely on the dungeon to kill the hero? If the hero makes it through the dungeon, I lose the fight? Isn't beating the Boss Monster supposed to be the hardest part of the dungeon?!
I completely disagree with your argument. This game is really fun, it just takes time to learn not to screw yourself over. Yes, it is repetitive at times, but that is why there are 2 expansion packs for the game. Also, player elimination happens very rarely when you actually know how to play the game. If you were to replay the game and get the hang of it, you would find it a lot more enjoyable.
Picked this up yesterday but my major goal was to find a light 2-player game for my g/f and I. This is it. Yes random but fast. Almost would like to see a fifth treasure or more strategy in gating the heroes because with a bit of forethought you can really screw the other player early.
His explanation of why the game is bad would seem to say that the game Munchkin is bad as it has the same draw good cards early and take a huge lead aspect to it. I think this game is fantastic.
Just don't play elimination if you don't like it. Game ends when all heros are gone and the winner is most souls minus wounds. Also, I play simultaneous turns wherever possible to really speed the game up. 15 minutes or less is a lot of fun. Looking forward to the expansion and Boss Monster 2.
its an awesome causal game that my girlfriend will ACTUALLY play. The reviewer doesnt look like he has that problem…
Would playing sort of like mage wars, to eliminate luck, make game unplayable? Basically each turn a player just got to pick 2 cards, or however many would be appropriate, from deck to play and put face down then had only those cards to play during that turn and had to pick two cards next turn but could pick a card they've picked but haven't played yet.
If you think that the game "plays itself", then you're probably playing the game wrong… XD
This review is probably rushed, since the game doesn't need "luck", since all cards are great in their own way, all it needs is proper card placement.
Hi Tom, i agree with your judgment but here in Italy a lot of players are having a lot of fun with it. In its way this game has a lot of fans.
I own this game, and agree on all your criticism. There's too much randomness involved with the boss cards and the room cards. There's an expansion for it, which I think I can safely ignore. I like the pixel art though.
Played this last night and can't believe I found a game I hate MORE than munchkin. You are exactly right, if you get better cards you are going to do better and there's no way to change that. The randomness is what kills this game for me, really glad I haven't bought it.
I like this game. Its not that good as Scythe or KD:M, but its a good one.
Is this a fun game for kids? I'm thinking of buying Boss Monster to play with my 7 year old.
Could you update your review to include the expansions please, I'm curious if they have brought anymore balance, or multidimensional free-agency to the decisions players make. Also Good review 🙂 thanks for making these videos 🙂
This game plays itself. You just do what the card says. I can do…er…this. Awful.
This game is giving me a boner
Can you guys do Gloom?
I love this game.
That is my review. xD
I found that the more you play and familiarize your self with the cards, the luck draw factor almost disappears because you can sometimes do surprising things with fairly 'weak' rooms. It is how you combine them with other rooms (especially 'destroy another room' effects). So you can have tonnes of strategy. My wife is not a heavy strategy gamer but this game brings out some hardcore strategical skills. I don't know, something about it just resonates with her and we love it.
It's not just the artwork. There is a real game here, and I think it has its own following for that reason.
This is actually a pretty fun, casual game to play.
I find your review about right on – I am playing with my 12 and 13 year old – so being "basic" is perfect.
"The one with the better cards will most likely win" no really? 😛 Its like this in almost all card game. I play a lot of MTG and its liek this…
I still have this game, my girlfriend loves it. My opinion has slowly gone down over time though, it's really too luck based and for the most part the winner is determined by who draws the correct cards. There's very little opportunity generally to do anything clever with what you're holding, you just have to hope you draw the right thing. Tom's "the game is playing you" probably sums it up best. Having said that, I don't mind playing it, it's not outright awful or anything, but definitely not a great either. It stays in my collection because my girlfriend likes it but otherwise I probably would have gotten rid of it.
I have to disagree with your "The game plays you" opinion, the game on plays you if you use your rooms randomly. Setting up strategies and combing rooms, as well as spell usage makes the game fairly tactical, and I love that. The same thing can be said about your point on player elimination, playing smart lets you play the game.
This is a game the you will enjoy depending on who you play with. The game is only there to gather your friends around and do something not to play the game.
Pixel art is easy to make.
I hate when a gamebox claims "you csm start and play immediately". No. You can't with this game. I've spent endless hours to understand what rules ask you to do. There are hundreds of exceptions. The colors on the cards don't help at all. Sometimes two cards mutually counterdict, so you don't know what to do. And – oh boy – the round order about boss' xp is one of the crappiest things to do. You get those x shaped round order… why not just pick up the card and THEN sit around the table? This was one of the first games that made me disappointed.
And spells… just put smoke to everybody's eyes. Did I say that rules just suck?
I totally agree with Tom, BUT WHY CAN'T I STOP BUYING THESE EXPANSIONS?!?!?!
The game is super fun, just the author is blighter.
each……. 4:25 …….
You're bang on right, Tom!
Tom is becoming more and more a solid benchmark for me…negatively spoken!;) Everything he dislikes, I enjoy and vice versa.
1:24 creepier geodude
Im glad i bought modern horizons boosters instead of this ^.^ i opened a yawgmoth so im really glad i didnt miss that by buying this unbalanced game
Agreed. The cards aren't balanced. There are simply GOOD and BAD cards which is crazy because you get them randomly. Cards that have 0 or 1 damage simply doesn't have a good ability to compensate the low damage. Early game elimination is a real threat. The winner is basically who has the most draw luck.
This was one of the worst, most boring, most uninteresting games I have ever played.
And I've played pretty much every board game ever made and a lot of card games, video games, pnp games, and just most games – period.
I can't express how much hype this game had (it looks awesome; great theme) but the actual design & gameplay is downright horrible. It's just bland as can be and not at all fun. Very, very, very boring.
Ah, feedback loop problem, eh? The better you're doing, the better you're able to keep doing. That does speak to an inexperienced designer. Usually, those feedback loop problems are balanced by a risk-reward system, like "all your eggs are in one basket, you may have the best stuff but also the most vulnerable to a single setback", or rubber-band difficulty like "the better you're doing, the worse stuff you get- the worse you're doing, the more aides you're given to catch up". This seems to have neither. Maybe can be corrected in an expansion or 2nd edition.
The player elimination is easily bypassed by allowing players to draw a new boss but losing all his/her accumulated souls.