Boss Monster

Boss Monster puts you on the wrong side of the 8-bit dungeon. You are the boss at the end, building a side-scrolling lair of trap rooms designed to bait adventurers in and finish them before they reach you.

Heroes who die in your dungeon are flipped face down and count as souls. Heroes who survive the trip and reach you deal wounds.

• Win: end a turn with 10 souls.
• Lose: end a turn with 5 or more wounds.

The Cards

Boss card

Your boss shows:

• XP, which sets play order and acts as the final tiebreaker.
• A treasure icon, which helps determine what kind of hero your dungeon attracts.
• A level up ability, a powerful effect that triggers the first time your dungeon reaches five rooms.

Hero cards

Two kinds: ordinary and epic. Every hero shows a treasure icon, a health rating, the player count needed to include it in setup, the wounds it deals if it survives, and — on the back — how many souls it is worth.

Room cards

Also two kinds, marked by a silver icon (ordinary) or a gold one (advanced).

Room type	Where it can be built
Ordinary	Anywhere — on top of other ordinary rooms, or even on top of advanced rooms
Advanced	Only on top of a room with a matching treasure type

Every room also has an ability (triggering on build, on a specific event, or ongoing), a damage icon showing how much damage it deals to a passing hero, and a treasure icon that lures heroes.

Spell cards

Spells change outcomes mid-game. The phase icon tells you when a spell can be played: during the build phase, the adventure phase, or both.

Setup

1. Trim the hero deck to your player count — every hero card shows at the bottom the number of players it belongs in. Remove any above your count.
2. Shuffle the remaining heroes into two separate decks, ordinary and epic, and place the ordinary deck on top of the epic deck. The nastier heroes arrive later.
3. Deal each player 5 room cards and 2 spell cards.
4. Each player chooses one room and places it face down to the left of their boss card. Everyone flips simultaneously.

That simultaneous reveal matters: nobody should know which treasure type you are building toward before committing their own first room.

How a Round Works

Each round runs through four phases.

1. Start of round

Deal one hero per player into town — three players means three heroes appear. Then every player draws one room card.

2. Build phase

Now that you can see who is in town, choose one room from your hand and place it face down, either:

• to the left of your existing rooms, extending your dungeon up to a maximum of five rooms, or
• on top of an existing room, subject to the ordinary/advanced rules above.

Everyone reveals simultaneously.

The thing to watch is your opponents’ treasure icons, because that is what decides who gets the heroes.

3. Bait phase

Starting with the hero who appeared in town first, move each hero to the front of the dungeon with the most rooms of that hero’s matching treasure type.

If two players are tied for the most of that treasure, the hero is not lured at all and stays in town. If nobody has that treasure type, the hero also stays in town — and will still be waiting next round, alongside the new arrivals.

4. Adventure phase

Heroes now walk through the dungeons that lured them, in XP order of the bosses.

A hero enters at the far end and moves room by room toward your boss, taking each room’s damage as it passes through. Room abilities trigger along the way, and some rooms send heroes backwards, forcing them through the same damage twice.

• If the hero’s health reaches 0 before it reaches you, it dies and you collect its soul.
• If it reaches your boss alive, you take wounds equal to the wound icons on its card — typically 1 for an ordinary hero and 2 for an epic one.

Spell cards are the release valve here. A well-timed damage boost on the right room turns a hero who was about to reach you into another soul.

Once every hero has finished moving, discard any active spell cards, and the round ends.

How to Win

Repeat the phases until the end of a round in which at least one player has 10 or more souls. That player wins.

A player is eliminated the moment they end a turn with 5 or more wounds.

Tiebreakers, in order:

1. Fewest wounds.
2. Highest XP on the boss card.

Common Mistakes

• Building past five rooms. Five is the maximum dungeon length. After that you can only build on top of what you have.
• Putting an advanced room anywhere. Advanced rooms only go on top of a room with a matching treasure type. Ordinary rooms go anywhere.
• Forgetting the tie rule in the bait phase. If two players tie for the most of a treasure type, nobody gets that hero — it waits in town.
• Ignoring epic heroes. They sit under the ordinary deck, so the back half of the game is significantly more dangerous. Build for it before it arrives.
• Missing your level-up. Reaching five rooms for the first time triggers your boss ability. It is easy to overlook while counting damage.
• Holding spells too long. Spells discard at the end of the round they are played in, and an unplayed spell that would have saved you two wounds is a wasted card.