Boss Monster

Good game, but a bad port. If you want a number score, I would say 3/5. First, I've played Boss Monster a few times before this electronic version showed up on Kickstarter. I do not own the mobile version. Let me start by saying I own a Surface Pro 3, a Windows 8.1 tablet. I thought having a digital copy of this would make it fun to play on the go. The problem is the port has some critical bugs they need to fix. Story time... The major game bug I had is with touch devices, after a while the game loses focus. When you're tapping the screen you're actually clicking behind the game window. When you finally Alt+Tab to the desktop you'll see all these programs open because you've been clicking your shortcuts and items on your desktop. This bug is terrible, and would happen every 3-5 minutes without fail, when not using a mouse. I would have to hit the Windows button a few times to bring up the start menu, then click the program in the task bar, or I would have to hook up a keyboard and forgo the ease of using the Surface as a tablet to recover the game. This bug seemed to happen in fullscreen, so then I thought "I'll just play in Window mode". Surprise! Here is the first clue this is a cheap port of the mobile version. You get 4 options in the Settings menu. Music volume, sound effect volume, game speed, and fullscreen on/off. "Okay, no real graphic settings, but at least I can make it Windowed" I thought. This brings me to the next major bug. If you have a high resolution screen, like on a Surface Pro 3, the game window is tiny, card text is unreadable. Then you discover you can't resize the window, or make the window take up the full screen. You have two options, tiny unreadable window, or fullscreen. :( Fine fine... I loaded the game up on my main desktop PC and figured with it's lower resolution screen at least it would be readable in Window mode, and it was! I then figured, "Alright let me play a few games!" That is where I ran into the next issue, again because it is a poor port. This game has minimal Steam features, which tends to be the trend with mobile ports. This means there is no Cloud Saves. To unlock extra Heroes, which is DLC I own, I have to win 40 games... that means I have to win 40 games on each device I own because the save game isn't transferred between my devices or carried over after I reformat. :( Lastly, some game design choices are weird. When using a touch devices you have to double tap everything to activate, when using a mouse it is a single click. Also the Halt button seems like a waste. There is no reason for the Halt button. The game should show you the 3 buttons, Pass All, Go (Pass Once), and Play Card. If you choose Play Card, then it should pause/halt. There is no reason to have to open a menu 95% of the time just to get to "Pass All". It seems very unnecessary, except as an attempt to save visual space on a mobile device. Now. Why the thumbs up? It's a fun game, and I hope they fix these issues, it was just released and I trust they'll look into it. Though even things like the "In-App Store" just scream it's a very weak mobile port. I figure once they iron out these bugs with touch devices, and maybe add some graphic settings (at least resolution options or scaling) the game will be perfect for a quick purchase and play on a trip. Pros: * The pixel graphics are nice. * The music is nice. * Faithful to the card game. Cons: * No Steam support (other than trading cards), which means you're save isn't transferred between devices. * No graphics options * Poor touch screen/device support To make this game 5/5, it would have been awesome to have Steam Workshop support, allow people to make custom cards, or at least add new images to existing cards. I feel Steam features, and mods/customizing is locked out to keep the PC/mobile ports the same, and to sell DLC unfortunately. One can dream though...

[h1]EARLY ACCESS Review: Boss Monster [/h1] Tired of playing the good guy? I feel you, my friend. If you are looking for some place to fight some heroes, luring them into your deadly traps or cast some mighty (and again, deadly) spells, Boss Monster might be the right choice. But be aware, the other Monsters aren’t your allies so don’t expect them to help you. [i]Simply put: Boss Monster is the adaptation of the indie-card game of the same name where different bosses try to be the most evil villain trough hero slaying so If you expected a game like Dungeon Master, you should stop reading right now. [/i] Let’s get started quickly. At first, choose between single - or multiplayer. You can play worldwide, invite friends, play hot seat or simply fight against the AI. Picking your boss monster comes next. We have Mummy Cleopatra, Xyzax the Lich, Seducia the Siren and many more, each with a unique Special Ability that can be activated only once every game. So what is the Main Goal of every match? To win, you have to be the first boss that collected 10 Hero Souls and to do so you have to slay, of course, heroes. But be aware, heroes making it through your sidescrolling dungeon will hit you with 1 wound, epic heroes even 2 wounds. To make sure that you don’t take the maximum of 5 wounds and die, playing your cards wisely is inevitable. Build rooms, use synergies, activate abilities and cast spells if necessary. Heroes need to be attracted, that’s why every room has at least one Treasure Icon. If you see that there is a mage in town and you want to lure him, build more rooms with a spellcasting icon. Same goes for fighters, clerics and thieves. The game comes with a tutorial, right before the first match or always available in the settings, making me stop the basic overview now. Boss Monster delivers old-school 8-Bit Graphics and a NES-like Soundtrack that tends to get annoying after a while. The virtual cards look great and have funny descriptions, the same goes for heroes and our beloved villains. But some issues affected my gameplay and are already discussed in the forum. Just to mention some: The game has been released for iPad as well and thus suffers from a bad resolution in terms of Text-Boxes and general User Interface. The overall gameplay seems to be slow since you can interfere with every move heroes or opposing bosses perform. To do so you always have to check different buttons instead of just playing cards like spells that can be instantly performed, meaning Clicks, Clicks, Clicks… Playing with more than 1 opponent means you have to click on the other icons to check the rooms they built, since there are only 2 bosses displayed at once. Playing solo is fun indeed but the lack of story condemns Boss Monster to be a game best enjoyed in Multi-Player. Thus I tried to enter a worldwide match, waiting for 45 mins until I cancelled the queue. Let’s sum it up. [h1]Big Text, Quick Facts:[/h1] [b]Pro:[/b] [list] [*]Great idea since Boss Monster is the adaptation of an indie-tabletop game [*]Retro Graphics and Sound fit into the setting [*]Various Bosses, Rooms, Spells and Heroes to choose from or interact with [*]Single and Multi-Player available, Hot Seat is fun and works with “Turn your head, mate” [*]Short but satisfying Games - expect 15-25 Mins for KI-Matches [*]Card-Gallery sums up every available card so far [/list] [b]Con:[/b] [list] [*]Interface needs an adjustment for PC [*]Solo-Game lacks a bit of replayability since there is no story-content [*]Worldwide Multiplayer is dead (Okay, Early Access and Launch 8th May 2015) [*]KI could be harder [*]6,99 seems to be too much for a game that looks like a mobile port (Appstore, Buttons are well placed for big thumbs) [/list] [h1][b][u]Summary: [/u][/b][/h1] My inner demons are still fighting while writing this so I should make it clear. I recommend this game, yes. For its idea, its “easy to learn, hard to master” gameplay and the overall retro-look, sound and artwork. This game is still in Early Access and needs not only lots of improvements regarding UI and getting rid of all these unnecessary clicks it took over from the mobile port but also more content for solo-players. Devs are working on Bugs, crashes people were talking about didn’t occur for me while playing about 10 games, so progress is happening. Gather your friends and invite them to online matches and increase the worldwide player-base or take your girl/boyfriend and hate each other in a Hot Seat match. If you are not sure about it, don’t buy it now, wait for a sale instead. 6,99 Seems to be more of a future investment than a price that reflects its current state. 6/10

Despite all negative reviews, the game works perfectly fine for me. No crashes, correct effects on the cards, all expansions working, so overall enjoyable! I am a big fan of the board game and this version comes for a ridiculous price in comparison. Top notch even in its early access version!

Disliked: - Game gets stuck during tutorial and randomly during gameplay - Crashes - Wouldnt let me play Spell Cancel on Jeopardy - Doesn't usually show what spells opponents use on you so you don't know what is going on - Issues with selecting/dragging cards in boss area - Less than 50% of games are playable to completion without encountering bugs Liked: - General idea of game - Lets you play against AI Thoughts on publishers: - Was meant to be finished in 1 month, is now many many months later - Publishers have released paid expansions despite excessive glitches in the basic game Conclusion: This is a buggy game that the publishers appear to have given up on but released anyway in order to make a few bucks. I predict this game will never pass QA. Save your money.

I love this game! Boss Monster was actually released a couple of years ago as a popular card game, and I was excited to see it available on Steam. You play as the final boss of a dungeon, and the goal is to build a dungeon, lure heroes to it, then kill the heroes! The graphics remain true to the 8 bit design of the original cards - I'm happy to see they kept the retro look. The cards have a lot of references to geek culture (ie I played a counterspell card that featured Harry Potter fighting Voldemort). Before starting, I had the option of playing the tutorial, which I highly recommend. Having a tutorial with pictures really helped me to grasp the concepts of the game (rather than a typical word-only instruction manual). The layout of the game screen is organized and straight forward. I could see how many room cards & spell cards my opponent and myself have, how many souls and wounds we accrued, and what type of hero we could lure into our dungeon. My favorite feature in the game was the ability to "pass all", where the game ran on autopilot, allowing me to just watch heroes run through my opponents' dungeon. I got a bit carried away watching my opponent take hit points that I forgot to build my dungeon though. So don't do that! :P All in all, a very fun game. Stays true to the original card game. I'm looking forward to playing the expansions that will unlock after I win x-number of games. A video of my first playthrough will be up soon: https://www.youtube.com/user/HiddenLevelStart

Boss Monster the card game is amazing fun if you're playing with 3-4 people (2 people comes down way too much to luck of the draw rather than dungeon building skill) but the Steam version right now is a beta, and it really does show with its bugs and random freezes. The interface, being ported straight off the iPad and Android versions, could also do with some serious work. I had fun playing single player and 1-on-1 with a buddy, but when we got 4 human friends in one room the bugs popped up fast and hard. I can't recommend this game as it is right now: wait for the bugs to be ironed out first. Then you can enjoy this game for the fun it is in its card version!

I love the card game and own it with all the expansions, however the steam version is buggy and not worth the money. -Gameplay moves slow to give the player a chance to interrupt but there is no skip feature unless you turn gameplay to fast where you don't get a chance to interrupt at all. -Certain card effects wont kick off at all leaving your plans ruined. -The UI is terrible and clunky -Rules expalnations are almost non-existant and the only way I could play was from knowing how to play the actual card game. If they update the game and fix the bugs it could be a truly awesome game, instead it's an almost unplayable mess.

I see a lot of complaining that the game is slow, mostly from people who have never played the card game before. The reason that there's a pause while the heroes are moving through each room of your dungeon is because it gives the other players about 3 seconds to decide if they're going to interfere with your dungeon and play cards against you. Spell cards and certain rooms can only be played if certain conditions are met, so sometimes you need 3 seconds to realize your room can activate. So it's not a flaw of the port, it's an inherent rule in the gameplay. That said, this port is not perfect. I have not experienced UI issues like others have mentioned, but I might also be less annoyed since I've played the card game and know my way around after a few runs with the AI. Bottom line is - if you enjoy the physical card game then you will like it. If you're looking for a fast paced card game, this isn't it. You need to think through your choices, try to tailor your dungeon to attract certain heroes, mess with your opponents and try to stop them from scoring points, and try to setup combos and place rooms optimally. That's called strategy.

I'm glad I paid for something that no longer exists. Thanks Steam!