Boss Monster: the Retro-Inspired Dungeon-Building Card Game

As a longtime D&D player and member of this community, I want to share a project that I think a lot of folks here will enjoy. It's a Kickstarter project called Boss Monster: Master of the Dungeon and it launches tomorrow, October 18.

Boss Monster is inspired by retro gaming in every sense of the word. While most people will first notice the pixel art style and references to 8- and 16-bit classics, dungeon-crawling RPGs are also a huge influence. The game mechanics have a dash of D&D, a bit of Magic, some Settlers of Catan, and what I think is an original core mechanic of "dungeon-building." Here's a look at some of the cards:



In Boss Monster, you will build a dungeon consisting of rooms that have a Treasure value and a Damage value. Treasure lures heroes, Damage kills them, and you can probably already guess that you have to balance tradeoffs between these values. Different treasure types lure different types of adventurers: Clerics want holy relics, Mages want spellbooks, Fighters want magic swords, and Thieves just want money. Every turn, Heroes show up in town, ready to travel to the dungeon with the highest relevant treasure value. Each player builds one room, playing it face-down until all rooms are simultaneously revealed. This means you're constantly trying to outdo other players when it comes to building relevant treasure -- or scrambling to cover up your treasure room if a Hero shows up in town who's too strong for your dungeon to destroy.

For more information on gameplay, read this Boss Monster 101 article at our website, check out our page on BoardGameGeek, or download the full rules.

I've done everything I can to make the Kickstarter pledge levels affordable and cool: the full game with 148 cards is $20 (a quarter of which goes to covering free shipping in the U.S.) and there are some very neat upgrades. If I can achieve my funding goal, the print quality will be very high, from the manufacturers of games like Pandemic and The Walking Dead Board Game.

Thanks for reading about my game, and please check out the Kickstarter if it sounds interesting to you. Also, if you have any questions or comments about the game, or if you have a game review website and would like a copy, let me know!


 
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