Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure – What’s Inside #2

New games joined my collection earlier this week. and one of them is Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure from Brotherwise Games. This is one game that I’ve been following closely for the past year since discovering it. I think I’ve watched all the gameplay and review videos available. Before You Play, Rahdo, ProZD, etc., you name the channel, I probably watched the video.

For those of you that don’t know, Overboss: A Boss Monster Adventure is a standalone game in the Boss Monster universe. The players draft and place terrain tiles and monster tokens on their boards, crafting a map. At the end of the game, They earn points based on special placement rules.

One the front of the box we see King Croak, an iconic boss in the Boss Monster series. He is leaning over a grid of map tiles, giving you an idea of what you’ll be doing while playing this. The retro artwork reminds me of old video games which I loved to play when I was young! I couldn’t help but notice that one of the designers of Overboss is Kevin Russ. He is the designer of Calico, one of my favorite games of 2020. Seeing this, I’m now diving into this game with high expectations.

Opening the box, I was greeted by a big stack of punchboards waiting to be punched. These contain the tiles and the monster tokens that you will use during gameplay. The cardboard is just a bit thinner than you’d expect such tiles to be, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Some tiles felt out of their punchboards as soon as I took them out of the foil so I decided to continue punching them before moving forward. I like how one of the punchboards advises you to place some of them under the plastic inserts to ensure a good fit with the top of the box. I already do that with most games that come with punchboards, but this is a helpful tip for those who don’t.

Each tile has a terrain type represented on it and there are 10 terrain types in total. For each of these, there’s also a creature associated with it. The artwork on the components follows the same theme as the one on the box front, but in a pixel-art style. Reminds me of Zelda but with better graphics. The colors are vibrant, specific to each terrain type, making them easy to identify even from a distance.

Overboss comes with GameTrayz inserts and that’s amazing! Inside the box, you will find two inserts. The first one stores the player boards and the score pad, while the second one holds the tiles and the cards. Everything fits perfectly and helps a lot with the setup. I love how the insert for the tiles comes with a lid, this helps a lot with keeping everything together!

Inside the second insert, you will find two card decks. One deck contains two card types: Terrain Selection cards and Command cards (for the Advanced mode). The other deck contains Boss cards which are also used in the Advanced mode. These ones contain special powers and bonuses that may aid you during gameplay.

However, after putting everything inside the inserts, I noticed that there are some spaces left empty. Either I put the components wrong or the empty spots are there for some Kickstarter exclusive components. This is not a problem for me, but I can see how some people might get upset about that.

Something I appreciate a lot is that along with the rulebook you get a Quick Start Guide. This is a sheet that streamlines the rules and makes learning the game much faster. One side contains the rules, while the other one gives you information about how each terrain type is scored. Don’t get me wrong, the rulebook is not that long either, but having this sheet at hand is much more helpful than having to go through the rulebook every time you want to check some rule.

First impression: pleased by the quality of the components, happy with the rulebook, in love with the artwork! This is the first pattern-building game in my collection and I am very eager to put it on the table!

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