Boss Fighters QR

• Designers: Michael Palm and Lucas Zach 
• Publisher: Pegasus
• Players: 2-4 
• Age: 10+
• Time: 40-60 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

 Dive into daring battles with 2 to 4 heroes as you face off against ten unique and intelligent boss monsters! What makes it special: All bosses are controlled by an app that dynamically responds to your actions. At the start of each battle, their tactics and abilities remain a mystery. Uncover their weaknesses, discover how to defeat them, and claim powerful loot cards to upgrade your deck and unlock new abilities!

Boss Fighters QR is a cooperative fantasy campaign game where players battle against ten unique boss monsters that react tactically to their actions. This hybrid game combines elements of a classic card game with a digital app to create an interplay of strategic deck building and dynamic boss battles. The Scan&Play mechanic of Boss Fighters QR allows the game to instantly recognize player cards as they are scanned, which then triggers challenging responses – to the players’ choices, in real time.

At the start of the campaign, each player chooses a hero deck—Jungle Troll, Hill Halfling, Copper Dwarf or Wood Elf—and combines it with one of the four available classes: Warrior, Mage, Rogue or Druid.  You will make up a deck that has cards from both your hero and your class.   Your max health as well as your hand size will also be determined by this combination.  If you like, between bosses, you can switch the classes between the players as you like. 

When the decks are set up, players will start the app on someone’s phone or tablet and then scan in their Hero and Class cards in seat order.  Next, you’ll have to tell the app which boss you’re fighting, and each boss battle can be attempted at one of four levels of difficulty.  Every boss has its own unique tactics and abilities, strengths and weaknesses, which the group of heroes must first deduce and understand before they can effectively fight it. 

There are 7 phases to each round

1] Boss Planning phase – the app tells you how many points of damage the Boss will deal at the end of the round

2] Boss Shield phase – the Boss gets one shield for each type of damage (Melee, Ranged, Magic).  These shields block player attacks based on the type of attack.

3] Action Phase – The team chooses who starts and then play goes clockwise. Each player gets to perform 1 Action in each of 3 turns. At the start of the games, Actions generally mean playing cards from your hand, but you can later use Actions to use items.  (The game will give you new rules and components as you progress through the levels, and the game teaches you all the new rules as you need).  As you play cards, put them in front of the camera phone so the app knows what is played; the app will figure out the resolution for you.

4] Attack Phase – If the Boss still has attack power (i.e. you haven’t played cards to reduce it), the players will take the damage.  If any player has their health reduced to 0, the team loses.

5] Status Phase – tokens such as Poison, if still on the player board, now affect the players.

6] Discard Phase – discard all cards played this turn as well as any hand cards you want to discard.  Further, if you have more cards in your hand than your hand limit, you must discard down to your limit.

7] Draw Phase – draw cards from your deck until you reach your hand limit.

Upon successfully defeating a boss, players gain loot cards hidden in three secret loot boxes, which they can use to improve their decks and unlock new, powerful abilities. 

My thoughts on the game

Certainly, there is a strong movement to try to integrate technology into board games.  Each year, we see new innovations and plenty of games supported by apps.  I continue to try them to see what these innovations are, but I’ll admit that I’m a slow adopter of games that are overly app dependent.  As in, if a game requires the phone for nearly everything, why isn’t it an app game in the first place?  Here, every card played needs to be processed through the app, and for me, it is too much technology and not enough board game.  Of course, YMMV, and if you don’t mind games that rely on apps – this might really be one for you to try.  The gane itself is quite engaging and challenging – it just all happens on the phone.

Putting concerns of the app aside and focusing on the game – I do like the challenge here of trying to figure out how to beat the bosses.  Each one has their own strategy and weakness, and you have to work together to figure that out.  There is also a very nice bit of necessary teamwork required between the players to maximize the effects of their cards.  For us, the start of each new boss requires a lot of trial and error – holding cards in front of the iPhone to see what happens, and then trying to work out what we need to do or what we need to avoid in the future.

The team will constantly be in discussion on what to play or what strategies to try. I like that part of the game; further, plenty of cards allow for effects to be doled out to different players, so there is usually some conversation along those lines as well.

The game has a nice arc to it, and as you defeat some of the bosses, you’ll be instructed to open up boxes to get new cards (and thus new abilities) into your decks.  There are also some added rules complexities that will be discovered – and I think this is done nicely… You just get the base rules for the first fight or two, and then once you have the hang of it, you’ll get some new concepts added in as you progress.  This makes the learning process easy and organic.

The app is obviously the centerpiece of the game as pretty much everything except for hit points and dealing the cards happens on the app.  It is well done and we haven’t found really any glitches with it.  The app works well, easily reads the cards and applies their effects clearly. 

For the right group, this could be the perfect game.  It’s super easy to learn, and honestly, the game plays out right on the phone.  Players only need to be responsible for choosing their card and then tracking their HP.  For families and/or casual gamers, this could be a great way to bring a fairly complex game and make it accessible for all.  It would not surprise me if this game didn’t win plenty of awards for its integration of the video game and board game worlds – though it’s definitely not for me because of that same reason. I’d be more than happy to play this game as a standalone app (in fact, I’d be willing to pay for an app with a game like this), but I want more “board” game in it if it’s going to be played during my “boardgame” night.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor