What is it?

Boss Monster is a role reversed; you are the bad overlord monster trying to stop the heroes from invading and taking all your loot. It is cleverly devised over the heroes having a set amount of time and they will attack in waves trying to get through your dungeon that you have set out for them to cross.

What do you get?

Boss Monster keeps things simple and it is only card based. The art work is really nice and has an instant retro gaming design to it all. From the characters, to the cards, to the backgrounds, the artwork is heavily pixel art inspired. Personally, I think it’s a really nice touch to the game that instantly tells you not to take it too seriously.

How does it work?

Boss Monster is an easy game to teach new players. Each player is a boss with their own unique ability. You then must build up your dungeon which is limited to a certain amount of cards. Each dungeon card has special rules and is a dungeon type. Typically you can expect dungeon tiles to cost more depending on how good the effect is or how beefy the monsters are in there. After you are done for the turn the heroes will venture into your dungeon and try to get through. Heroes come in the usual D&D flavours and they have stats of their own as well as classes that have different effects on the dungeon at stake. As the turns go one, the heroes will progressively get tougher. Oh and most importantly, your biggest opponent is the people you are playing with. They have a hand full of ways to make the heroes that much better.

Is it any good?

Boss Monster is a hell of a brain teaser. There is a lot to be said that luck (or bad luck) plays a part here too. There is no real bad dungeon layouts but there are optimal ideas that you can strive for but expect your opponents to laugh behind their cards at your perfectly thought out plan.

It’s in this that Boss Monster comes alive. This game on its own is a little too simple to be that interesting but every opponent scrabbling to make your dungeon near useless creates hilarious memories or in my case, grudges.


Boss Monster is the sort of game that eager gamers new to the hobby but looking to make friends should really embrace.

It’s a fun concept and smartly done with well thought out traps and tricks. The expansions to Boss Monster add a lot of much needed complexity to the game too. The base game has everything down very vanilla but each add-on creates a lot more possibilities for all players and the heroes.

It’s a super game that plays relatively quick with experienced players.



Steam (2009)