Matthew BaileyGame 52 of the “Now and Then Summer Marathon” is “Bad Bones” played with Toby(6)
Bad Bones is a tower defence game, similar in style to “Castle Panic,” which is often recommended in this group.
You start the game by setting up your board with your main tower in the middle, along with your warrior, who will help you defend the land from invading skeletons. You also receive a number of traps that you can activate, which are crucial for the graveyard.
At the start, you place four skeletons on their corresponding colour markers. They will begin to march across the land, attempting to destroy your castle and the village at the bottom of the board. The objective is to protect your castle or village for as long as possible. On your turn, you can perform four actions.
Firstly, you move your hero. This allows you to move one space; your hero will automatically defeat any monster they encounter, making them one of your key methods of attack.
Next, you can place or retrieve a trap. Traps do things like slow monsters, catapult them to the graveyard, or change their direction.
After that, you move the skeletons forward and draw new ones from the bag, similar to how it’s done in “Castle Panic.” One key difference here is that for every skeleton destroyed and sent to the graveyard, it creates more problems for your opponent on their next turn.
This continues until one player either loses their tower or their village at the bottom of the map. You then score based on several factors: players who have not been eliminated, visible stars on traps, the number of trap pieces remaining, and houses in your area.
Overall, it all comes together nicely and makes for a decent quality tower defence game, which I really enjoy. What’s interesting is that besides the version of the game explained here, there is also an advanced version and a children’s version, which greatly adds to its longevity.
If you like “Castle Panic,” this is definitely another version to try. While I still have an imaginary tower defence game in my mind that this doesn’t quite fulfil, it is definitely a decent game and worthy of a play.
