Jul 15, 2013

Mailbox Invaders - Boss Monster

I recently got my first Kickstarted physical game in the mail and wanted to show it off. 
It's got a perfect storm of things going on that made it a must buy for me:
 it's a card game, it's fantasy based and the 8-bit artwork.

Brotherwise Games Boss Monster card game
The shiny gold Zelda-like box sleeve was one of the backer exclusive perks.
While I played a good amount of Nintendo back in the day, I know my experience is pretty sparse. I stuck mainly to Mario, Zelda and licensed games like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, so I don't have a lot of the nostalgia that most Nintendo players have for many of the fantasy games like Castlevania. Nope, never played a one!

I think Nintendo and D&D fans would like this game. There's a lot of sly winks to both.

I'm not going to go into too much detail of how the game is played, I mainly wanted to show some of the cards to give a general impression. You can read more on the Boss Monster site.

The premise of the game is a bit different from what you might expect. Instead of the intrepid adventurer questing for loot: you get to be the Boss Monster!

Brotherwise Games Boss Monster cards
Zyzax's name is inspired by Gary Gygax, creator of D&D.
As a Boss Monster, your goal is to lure Heroes into your dungeon and collect 10 of their souls before they can do enough damage to kill you.

Brotherwise Games Boss Monster Hero cards
Take a closer look, you might recognize some of these Heroes!
You accomplish this by building dungeon rooms laden with traps and hungry monsters. Each room has one or more types of Hero specific treasure icons. The Heroes will be lured to the Boss Monster's dungeon with the most matching Treasure icons. The rooms all have something special to help you conquer the Heroes and the other Boss Monsters.

Brotherwise Games Boss Monster Room cards
The Dark Lab art reminds me of a piece of fantasy artwork but I can't remember what it is.
And no devious Boss Monster's arsenal of tricks would be complete without some Spells to help overcome the greedy Heroes!

Brotherwise Games Boss Monster Spell cards
A few familiar faces?
I haven't had a chance to actually play it yet, but I'd say it's a safe bet that if you like the art and sense of humor that it's up your alley. They're currently working on the first expansion called Tools of Hero-Kind. They've also mentioned a standalone expansion, to be a future Kickstarter, code named Crash Landing which has something to do with aliens coming into the fantasy realm of Boss Monster.

I got some really neat-o things for being a backer, like holo-foil versions of the Boss Monster cards and gold  arcade inspired "level up" tokens. Even without those added goodies,
I think $25 is a great price for a boxed game with 148 cards.

Head over here to order and/or check out a gameplay video.

2 comments:

  1. Now these look great a appeal to old video gamer in me.

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    Replies
    1. It's fun just going through all the cards and checking out the 8-bit art.

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