Super Boss Monster 2 and Boss Monster Junior

Super Boss Monster 2 Designer Diary
6 months ago – Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 07:33:14 PM

Happy Thursday, Boss Monsters! Today we're officially entering the last week of this Kickstarter campaign! Over the last ten days, we've welcomed over 3,900 backers and we've already made over $100k more than our original Boss Monster Kickstarter back in 2012! This has been an exciting campaign for our team, and we can't wait to see how the last week goes.

In today's update, Lead Developer Hayden Dillard has a designer diary for Super Boss Monster 2! We'll let Hayden take over in the next section, but if you're curious about the Stretch Goal unlocks recently, there is more information just after his diary! So without further ado, let's give it to Hayden:

Super Boss Monster 2 Designer Diary

We had a very clear design goal with Super Boss Monster 1: to develop a new Boss Monster system that would backward compatible but solve some issues with the original game. I believe we achieved that with the Super Boss Monster system: a game that keeps the familiar Boss Monster charm, but reduces some randomness and gives players more control over their dungeon-building.

Once we turned to Super Boss Monster 2, we had a lot more freedom. We had the game system in place, so we were able to ask ourselves: what new mechanic would be fun enough to design a whole expansion around? I started off by making a series of pitch slides for the team with a lot of different crazy ideas that included, but were not limited to, Bonus Levels, Time Tokens, Random Events, Dice, and even Room/Spell Hybrids.

For a project like this, brainstorming is a really important step, because sometimes the best idea only comes on the heels of ten bad ideas, so we spent a lot of time in this phase, going through multiple attempts and refinement- choosing an idea and then brainstorming on that idea, then doing that again, getting a narrower focus of what we want.

Our favorite idea at that time was incorporating dice, and we definitely understood the irony of adding dice after removing randomness from Super Boss Monster 1! But we explored ways to make the dice less a factor of randomness and instead a controllable fate. We had three different ideas for dice: dice as traditional rolled effects, dice as resources, and dice as card modifiers.

One neat idea was using different dice as a resource you could collect. That approach would have introduced custom dice, and an early draft of the game explored that with "the Moon" room:

It was a fun concept, but it had too many practical mechanical problems, so we eventually moved past it to an early version of what you see on this Kickstarter: dice as card modifiers.

Playtesting is vital at this early stage of the process, not so much for balancing purposes, but to gauge whether something is “fun.” Designers can get so into the weeds of a game that they can’t look at it objectively, so sometimes I’ll think a game I made rocks but everyone else completely hates it. Fortunately, early playtests for this mechanic met with resounding approval. One playtester called even the unbalanced prototype “the most fun version of Boss Monster I ever played.”

After this stage, we went all-in on dice, incorporating them both as traditional die rolls and card modifiers. There are a few cards in the final version that were almost identical to those in the original version, and some were developed much later in the process.

Dice placement was a huge discussion- where should the dice go? Originally, we designed with very small dice in mind, going on the bottom of the card, but that had multiple problems. The dice had to be tiny, it didn’t allow for any action spot cards to have dice, and it only allowed one die per card. We experimented with pretty much every section of the card to put on, but our eureka moment was deciding to just cover the art.

Every die card’s art has a square-shaped element designed to put the die on. On the Secret Garden, you’re supposed to cover the door, so the garden becomes truly secret. This approach creates some very fun art interactions. 

I really love how the dice ended up in Super Boss Monster 2, and it makes me even more excited to think about directions we could go in the future. What mechanic do you think would be fun enough to build an expansion around?

Stretch Goals

Late last night we hit the jackpot with another stretch goal! We unlocked Mrs. Casino and Deadly Lights for all copies of Super Boss Monster 2.

We're on our way to unlocking our next stretch goal: upgrading the 5-6 player neoprene extension mat! This next stretch goal will upgrade the neoprene extension mat in this Kickstarter to be double-sided, with one side featuring artwork from Super Boss Monster 1 and the other side updated to match Super Boss Monster 2's icy theme. We don't have the artwork for this one just yet, but we'll share it in a future update once the campaign has closed!

That's all for today! We'll close out the week with another fun update tomorrow!

We Want Your Questions!
6 months ago – Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 03:30:56 PM

It is already Wednesday and that means we have just over a week to go in this campaign. Today has been another day of amazing funding, and we're nearing yet another stretch goal unlock! We have some fun plans to close out the campaign next week, but today we need some help from you, our backers, so...

Ask Us Questions!

Brotherwise Games Co-founders, Chris and Johnny O'Neal, will be getting together to record a video answering your questions! Comment on this update with your questions about Brotherwise, Super Boss Monster 2, and Boss Monster Junior, and we will try to answer it in a video going out next week.

If you're curious about how this went last year, check out the Q&A with Chris and Johnny from the Super Boss Monster campaign:

Stretch Goals

In the early hours this morning, we unlocked our latest stretch goal! 4 new bosses will be added to the Combo Pack!

We're already very close to our next stretch goal unlock at $315K! All copies of Super Boss Monster 2 will get upgraded with a new Thief Boss and Advanced Trap Room!

In Other News

Brotherwise Games Lead Developer Hayden Dillard got interviewed by Josiah Matson! The interview is over on BGG, and is part 1 of a small series! 

Make sure to show some love to Hayden and Josiah for this great interview!

Meet the Brotherwise team!
6 months ago – Tue, Sep 23, 2025 at 05:44:29 PM

Happy Tuesday, Boss Monsters! We've officially been live with this campaign for a week, and we're so thankful for the continued support that Super Boss Monster 2 and Boss Monster Junior have been receiving. Since Boss Monster was released over a decade ago, it's been wonderful to see the love it continues to receive as it enters a new generation. 

With that being said, we'd love to dive into today's update: showing off the team that has brought you these two new games in the Boss Monster Universe!

Meet the Brotherwise Team

Our core team at Brotherwise has tripled in size since we debuted in 2012, and that doesn't count the hundreds of freelancers and part-time contractors who are also part of our team!

Chris and Johnny designed the original Boss Monster in 2012, and it became the game that launched Kickstarter. For years they worked as a duo, then added full-time team members over the last few years: Hayden, Matt, Jillian, and most recently Meric!

While every game at Brotherwise is a team effort, Hayden Dillard deserves special credit for this Kickstarter. After leading design for Super Boss Monster, Hayden took on the sequel and Boss Monster Junior. He brings years of experience working in development for Boss Monster and spinoffs like Overboss and Dungeon Kart.  If you enjoyed Hayden's design diary for Boss Monster Junior in last week's update, you should also check out his design diary for Super Boss Monster!

Birthday Boys!

Let's wish a happy birthday to two of our team members! Chris and Hayden both celebrated their birthdays over the weekend. Super Boss Monster 2 wouldn't exist without these guys, so please join us in wishing them a great day!

Stretch Goals

Today has been an amazing day of funding! We're super close to our next stretch goal at $300K, which unlocks the four core Bosses from Boss Monster Junior for the ultimate crossover into Boss Monster!

Thank you for another fantastic campaign day, and here's to a great week ahead!

New Custom Molded Dice!
6 months ago – Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 06:03:34 PM

Happy Monday, Boss Monsters! We are starting the second week of this campaign with some exciting stretch goal unlocks from the weekend and the reveal of the winning Boss from the Fighter Poll. We had a few unlocks over the weekend, so let's talk about 'em!

Stretch Goals!

Over the weekend, we had you vote on BGG and in our previous update on which Fighter Boss you'd love to see Super-fied in the Dice Age Pack! The results were clear: Comrade Bull is the winner! In the final game, you'll be seeing a wintry version of this soldier.

Trivia Question: In which game did Comrade Bull make his debut in the Boss Monster Universe?

We also unlocked updated Minion Homes with icy colors to match the Minion meeples in Super Boss Monster 2. The back of the Minion homes have a handy +2 heart token on the back, matching the second action spot in the Hideout! (This is a helpful reminder that your Minion is visiting that action spot, since you don't place +2 counter on the room when you visit this action space.) A small but helpful upgrade in every game box!

And the one we are most excited about is the one we unlocked just minutes ago! Thanks to the success of this Kickstarter, all copies of Super Boss Monster 2 will be upgraded with custom molded dice. These dice might look a little familiar! They resemble the Diceling minions who appear on the box cover and in several cards. These servants of the Dice Queen have a single eye on the "1" side and pixelated pips on every other side. Each die is also in a cool "frosted" treatment!

What's Next?

You know we love crossovers! So this stretch goal is a bit meta! At $300k, we'll put the Bosses from Boss Monster Junior into the Combo Pack! You can mix and match these Bosses into any of your regular Boss Monster and Super Boss Monster games.

Frequently Asked Questions [9/20-9/21]

How is solo mode different in Super Boss Monster 2?

The Tavern on the Super Boss Monster 2 Town Board (both in the solo and multiplayer version) has action spaces where your minion meeple can go! The action spaces are the same on each side -- you can either reroll a placed die in any dungeon or add or subtract one from a placed die in any dungeon. It's a new mechanism to the overall play of Super Boss Monster, but the objective is still the same for solo mode: try to lure and slay as many heroes as possible without a hero visiting the Tavern Landmark. If a hero visits the Tavern during solo play, then you lose! The newness in the solo mode lies with the Chaos Die, which we lightly outlined in this update from last week. But we may have a few more tricks up our sleeve...

Will you include any more new add-ons besides the Combo Pack?

We are always discussing as a team about items to include in the add-ons section! To avoid confusion with our backers, we generally prefer to keep things simple; however, we may have a few new add-ons available in the last 48 hours of the campaign due to high demand.

How large are the First Player coins?

The First Player coin is roughly the size of a Silver Dollar at 38 mm or 1.5 inches.

Will all the neoprene mats fit in the Big Box?

Yes! If you roll up the mats together, like Jillian did in this video, you'll have plenty of room left in the box, even with Super Boss Monster 2 added in.

Thank You!

We've got some fun plans for another exciting week of the Super Boss Monster 2 and Boss Monster Junior campaign! We can't wait to see what we unlock this week, so stay tuned!