Boss Monster
Hey everyone, remember Johnny O’Neal? He used to write for Nintendorks? Went to E3? Had that awesome dog named Atari? Went on to work at some cool job involving Nintendo, or toys, or both? He contacted me this morning to let me know about a Kickstarter he’s involved in that I, and probably you, will be interested in.
Boss Monster is a 2 to 4 player “dungeon-building” card game with artwork based on the 8-bit videogame era. You play as a randomly chosen dungeon boss with unique powers, and on each turn you build a side-scrolling dungeon to lure heroes to their doom. If your rooms (cards) kill the hero, you get their soul. If the hero makes it through to your boss, you get a wound. 10 souls and you win, 5 wounds and you’re out.
It sounds pretty cool, and it sounds like a lot of time has been put into developing and playtesting it. Each hero has a treasure type that attracts that hero, and rooms are first “built” face down, so you don’t know what your opponents are going to use to lure heroes to their dungeon. If your dungeon has 3 holy relics, but your opponent’s dungeon has 4 holy relics, the Cleric hero is going to attempt to make it through the more rewarding dungeon–so there’s a little bit of bidding and strategy involved in which type of room you place to hopefully lure more heros than your opponents (or hopefully not lure stronger heroes). Earlier in the month he introduced it to some strangers at Indiecade, and they all seemed to love it. It’s a cool, simple idea, and games should last only around 30 minutes if that, which I’m a fan of.
Gorgona’s dungeon with three rooms
Update: Well this was pretty much funded in a DAY. They’re already working on stretch goals, with the most recent achievement upgrading the card stock for everyone who pledges! I don’t know what you are waiting for.