Board Game Review: Boss Monster

The image above belongs to its respective owner, not me

Hello Enthusiasts,

Today I will be reviewing the game Boss Monster. This is a card game rather than the strategy and dice games that I usually play, so if you are looking for something more that speed, I suggest checking out my first impressions of The Others: 7 Sins from yesterday, which can be found here.

For this game, each player takes the role of a video game boss, all who have slightly different attributes. The point of the game is to build a dungeon that will attract heroes with its loot, only to have that dungeon kill them. The boss who hits the set number of dead heroes first wins. There are a few different classes of heroes, such as the warrior, who will go to dungeons that would reward them with weapons, and mages, who go to dungeons with spells to loot. As the boss, you have a few different approaches that you can take to kill the heroes, including rooms that cause straight damage from the creatures in there, trap rooms, and spells that can assist you in one way or another. There are a maximum number of five rooms for a dungeon, and each turn you can add one more room (if you have less than 5), or build a room on top of an old room, which destroys the old room.

This game is fun, and considering the aggressive nature of some of the spell cards, it can get pretty heated as well. I love the idea behind being the boss that kills the heroes, building a dungeon that you can imagine having to fight through when playing as a hero in other games. The art on the cards can be great as well, especially the spell cards, some of which cracked me up when I saw them. The game is pretty simple and straight-forward as well, it's a great game for any level of player, unlike some games that I've reviewed in the past. There are tricks that you will learn along the way that can really help out, but nothing that will ensure a certain victory every time. There isn't really a perfect dungeon either, as each of the different rooms with contain different loot, so even a dungeon that is doing great at killing heroes may need to be changed to attract the heroes that are "in town".

Once of the only drawbacks to this game is the length that each round takes. The game is over in the blink of an eye, so the dungeon that you build will feel like it was under utilized. It's not as if you can make house rules to increase the number of heroes that need to be killed either, as there are a very limited number of heroes in the deck. There are expansion packs that I'm sure include enough to keep the game going longer, but as the base game it is over far too quickly for me. It felt like each round was over as soon as it started. I realize that just one fault shouldn't be cause for me to complain so much, but it feel like a big deal to me, I like my games to feel substantial. Maybe I'm getting too used to games that take an hour or two per game, but still, this one has some quick rounds. It would probably do well at parties for this reason, people would be able to switch in and out without having to wait for long periods of time, but still, it was a drawback for me.

Overall, this is an easy game to recommend. It can easily be a game that anyone can play, and it's a lot of fun. Perhaps it's a testament to the game that I wish it would last longer than it does, but that's the only real drawback to it. It also seems that I made this review to reflect my issue with the game, because this one is turning into a pretty brief post. I hope I get to play the game with the expansions soon, but until then, I review the game as is.

I give Boss Monster a 7.5 out of 10.

Sincerely,

The Bored Enthusiast