Boss Monster: Master of the Dungeon How to Play & Review

Boss Monster: Master of the Dungeon is a hand management, dungeon-building game.

Title: Boss Monster

Year Published: 2013

Designer: Johnny O’Neal, Chris O’Neal

Publisher: Brotherwise Games

Players: 2-4

Game Time: 20+ Mins

Set-up Time: >5 Mins

Ages: 8+

Theme: Fantasy

Mechanic: Hand Management/Tableau Building

How to win: Gain 10 Souls

Game Description

Boss Monster is a “dungeon-building” card game that pits 2-4 players in a competition to build the ultimate side-scrolling dungeon. Players compete to lure and destroy hapless adventurers, racing to outbid one another to see who can build the most enticing, treasure-filled dungeon.

Boss Monster Set-Up

Take the Heroes and Epic Heroes from the deck with the appropriate play count icon on them and shuffle them into two separate decks.

Shuffle the Room cards and Spell cards to create two separate decks then shuffle the Bosses and deal 1 to each player.

Each player draws 5 Room cards and 2 Spell cards, then discard 2 cards from their hand.

Each player builds the first room of their Dungeon by putting a room card face down to the left of their Boss and reveals simultaneously. If the Room has an effect that triggers when it is built, it activates now.

Boss Monster Game Play

Beginning Phase

Heroes appear in Town – Reveal 1 Hero from the top of the Hero deck for each player. When the Heroes pile ends, move on to the Epic Hero deck.

Each player draws a card – Each player draws 1 room card.

Build Phase

In order of Boss XP, Players may build a room in their Dungeon. Place a room card face down…

To the left of your leftmost room to build a new room (Maximum of 5 rooms)

On top of an existing room by placing an Advanced Room card over an ordinary room that shares at least 1 Treasure type.

Players may play Spell cards with the Build (Hammer) icon in this phase.

Rooms are then revealed and room abilities are resolved in Boss XP order.

Bait Phase

In the order they were revealed from the Hero deck, each Hero in Town will go to the entrance of the dungeon with the most treasure icons of the relevant type. In the case of a tie, the Hero will stay in Town.

Adventure Phase

In Boss XP order, Heroes enter that player’s dungeon one at a time. As they move left to right from room to room, the damage will be dealt to the Hero.

If the Hero dies it is turned face down into the player’s scoring pile. The back of the Hero card shows you how many Souls (Points) it is worth.

If the Hero lives, it is placed face up in the players scoring pile. The bottom right of the card tells you how many Wounds it deals.

Players may play Spell cards with the Adventure (Axe) icon in this phase.

End of Turn

Any deactivated rooms are reactivated.

Game End

Any player with 5 Wounds at the ‘End of Turn’ phase is out of the game.

Any player with 10 Souls (and less than 5 wounds) at the “End of Turn” phase is the winner.

In the case of a tie, the player with the highest total of Souls – Wounds is the winner.
If it is still a tie, the player with the lowest XP wins.

Round-Up

A bit of a ‘Take That’ game.  It’s as much about building a dungeon that will kill those Epic Adventurers as it is messing with your opponent.

Balancing the treasure types to make sure you’re attracting some Heroes but not ALL Heroes is quite tough.

Rating

It’s only OK, but Jesta The Rogue is clearly the best Hero in the game 😉

I give it a 3/10

Jesta ThaRogue in Boss Monster: Master of the Dungeon

I already mentioned that I have pledged for Pixel Lincoln and that I have a Jesta ThaRogue card for Pixel Lincoln. That card is a promo, a one-off…

So not only is Pixel Lincoln himself a Kickstarter-exclusive promo in Boss Monster, I was able to grab the last spot on the Thief Hero pledge level to have a copy of a card IN EVERY COPY OF THE GAME!

So if you pick up a copy of Boss Monster there will be a copy of Jesta ‘The’ Rogue in it, for you to kill.

I’m quite excited that I get to have this card AND that it’s playable AND that everyone gets to play with it. I’m also scattered through the rule book a few times 🙂

Jesta ThaRogue