Disclaimer: This review is quite overdue as I have owned TMB for 8 months now. However, I do not like to review games until I’ve had a chance to play them at least 2 times at every possible player count. In the case of TMB, I’ve had a difficult time getting it on the table for a 4-player game. Thus, this review is based on numerous 1, 2, and 3-player games but only 1 game with 4 players. I feel pretty confident that another game or two with 4-players would not significantly alter my review. Nevertheless, full disclosure is respectfully provided.
Overview
Too Many Bones, by designers <PERSON> and <PERSON> and published by Chip Theory Games, is a 1-4 player cooperative game of fantasy-themed adventure and tactical combat. Players take control of one of four unique “gearlocs” (at present, this number is expandable to 7) and embark on a journey to defeat one of several different “tyrant” bosses. A round of gameplay involves resolving an encounter drawn from a semi-randomized deck. These encounters usually result in tactical combat played out on a 4x4 grid and resolved through a series a dice rolls. At the conclusion of each encounter, players may earn points to spend on character upgrades and/or treasures drawn from one of two “loot” decks. Each tyrant requires that players complete a certain number of encounters before they are allowed to challenge the boss in a final battle to claim victory. However, these encounters must be completed within a specified time frame or the game ends in defeat.
Too Many Bones is as much a game as it is a full-fledged creative enterprise. Opening the game’s giant box gives me a feeling similar to that of a child opening a toy chest. The box is packed full of colorful, custom dice with a whole plethora of different symbols on them, weighty poker chips to represent a wide array of different enemy types, and hefty neoprene mats for each gearloc. The high-quality components emulate the sense of imagination and abundance that characterizes the essence of the game. This booming creative pulse makes Too Many Bones stand out as something that truly unique and memorable. Yet, it is also a game riddled with clunky mechanisms and extraneous elements that can sometimes make the actual experience of playing it feel very uneven. 504
In the following sections, I will detail what I have found to be the most notable strengths and limitations of the game’s design.
Creativity on overdrive
In the midst of a current climate of generativity and proliferation within the board gaming industry, it is natural to approach each new game with an inclination to compare it to similar games that have come before. In the case of Too Many Bones, such comparisons are all but impossible. There really is no other game out there quite like this one. If originality, in and of itself, strikes you as an attractive quality of a game, then it is safe to say that you owe it to yourself to give TMB a try.
The centerpieces of TMB’s design are its variety of gearlocs. Each gearloc shares a set of 4 common attributes that measure attack, defense, health, and available actions. However, it is there that the similarities across the different characters pretty much end. Each gearloc also has a set of 16 unique abilities and each ability is associated with a unique custom die. As players complete encounters and gain upgrade points, those points are assigned to both increase the base attributes as well as to unlock the gearloc-specific abilities. It is through these abilities that the characters quickly come to wildly differentiate themselves from each other. The ways in which each ability is tied to a single 6-sided die showcases the imaginative ingenuity that drives the game and gives it its sense of excitement and momentum. Dice, in this game, do many, many different kinds of things. The fundamental idea at play here is truly inspiring: instead of the typical fantasy game motif of characters getting stronger by getting more dice that effectively do more of the same things, gearlocs in TMB get better by gaining new dice that introduce whole new forms of functionality. Unlocking new dice expands the tactical options available to each character in ways that are both fresh and unpredictable. And given that a single playthrough will only afford a limited number of upgrades, it is quite possible to play the same gearloc numerous times before you have had a chance to try out every possibility. Mr. <PERSON> and Mr. <PERSON> have done an amazing job in crafting this dice-based system of character development. It is undoubtedly the aspect of the game that will keep you coming back for more.
Yet, maybe some things should have been left on the table
The imaginative effusions that provide the central architecture of TMB are also its own worst enemies. 755