Too Many Bones Review - with Tom Vasel

Good Review. I own the game and have played dozens of times with my 3 sons. We love this game! Yes, steep learning curve. Yes, we don't like the plastic cards/artwork. Yes, we really like the dice and pads. What makes this game super fun is all about the dice and earning training points. As you "buy" more dice, the options your character has become quite enjoyable. This is where the game shines like few others I know of. It is great fun to experiment with different builds and see how far you can push the game. Yes, when you change characters, it takes awhile to learn the new abilities, but that makes it feel like a new game for you, which we think is a plus. After the first couple of games, we never have "1-shot" kills of characters. That happens to noobs and is the result of poor play. Besides that, as a co-op game, it is meant to be tough. We still lose encounters on occasion, but that means the game is a challenge. No, I'm not a "fanboy", blinded to the negatives of the game; Tom was right about several issues. However, I've spent lots of money on games I've loved, on games I've played a couple times and games I've really disliked. The measure of a game is how often you break it out. We break this one out often.

So many people getting up in arms over the term "component quality." Yes, the quality is good, but you can tell Tom was clearly complaining about graphic and visual design, which is one aspect of the components, and what Tom considers as part of the "quality" of them.

I don’t think they look cheap at all and not needing to sleeve the pvc cards is awesome I have no complaints about this game and can’t believe someone is knocking the quality when this is probably the only game with no cardboard and every component is high quality.

This looks like a great game, but I agree Tom, the components are great but LOOK "cheap-looking" Also not a fan of the graphic design personally, but It's not game-breaking. Hearing lots of complaining in the comments due to what Tom opinion(we all know what that is, right??) on the components, but he still gave the game a Seal of Excellence and loved the game play and mechanics

Great review as always

Also, you should really take a look at the version 2 character info sheets, as they layout the die faces and just make understanding each character much easier.

For those interested I have a full solo playthrough of TMB on my channel. Good review Tom. However, I personally disagree about the production / component looking low quality. It's one of the highest I've seen. The premium chips for health get rid of the sample of cheaper health chips in the base game. The production quality is high above the norm.

My first impression after seeing a few playthroughts of this game was I wish the cards were clearer and more vibrant. They have that I printed it at home on my printer type of look. Could definitley be better. All other components look really cool.

I bought this game and somehow got my girlfriend who really isn't into board games to love it. There is definitely a steep learning curve but the good thing about it is only one person really needs to know the game. You can kind of teach everybody fairly easily and after the first playthrough most seem to have a grasp on it.

The next printing will have a new rule book and some upgrades to the insert, plus some errata fixes. If you have the first printing you can get all the fixes for about $9

I agree about the issues with graphic design...even very small things like why is "Picket," the name of the hero, on different fonts on the player board and the player aid? A pretty basic design concept is to be consistent with font choices, and to limit the number of fonts you use. Makes the game far less cohesive visually. That is just one thing.

I RARELY disagree with Tom. But I think this game looks and plays FANTASTICALLY! I ❤ the artwork and i think the production quality is awesome! I cant wait to try out other characters too. I did get the opportunity to play with someone from Chip Theory Games for 2 hours at Pax Unplugged to learn it...otherwise, i would have been too intimidated to try to learn it. But its worth the money and the effort for sure!!!

Good review. I've played TMB a lot, and I love the game. It's not really a RPG, it's an adventure game. I like the artwork (entirely subjective), and I disagree with Tom on the components---I think the dice are great, and I love the chips, mats and dice trays. I also love the cards, but the PVC is slippery (tradeoff for durability). Definitely get the premium health chips if you get the game. Tom is right about the time; a full play-through will take a few hours. Tom is also right about the learning curve for the characters---but I actually really like that aspect. And the game is HARD TO WIN. It's a challenge. And players who like a challenge and enjoy figuring out how to spec their characters to take down a particular end-game boss monster (Tyrant) will really enjoy TMB. I KS'd TMB, and could not be happier. And CTG have already announced more TMB is on the way! If you like figuring out specs, and if you like a tactical challenge, and if you like chucking dice, then TMB is a MUST BUY for you.

I regret passing this up on KS. It was around $89 then now you can't get it for under $100+shipping. I think It's $144 or something now. Addon characters extra of course. What I really liked about the KS campaign is that there were no KS exclusives which seem to plague so many KSs of late. There are times that you get campaigns that have exclusive items and won't be able to get outside the KS campaign. Not so with TMB which did the campaign right.

Going to request this one be in the Cruise Library

Great video, thanks

With regard to the "There's so/too much information" complaint - This put me off the game for a long time, but I did a video called "Too Many Bones isn't as complicated as you think" as I wished I'd dived in a lot earlier! It's really not so bad : https://youtu.be/DJwqUDPrWy4

This game is absolutely fantastic. Glad to finally see a review of it on here. There's something just satisfying about rolling the different dice and messing with the poker chips. Especially if you have the upgraded health chips, it just feels great tactically. The cards feel great, the sheets feel great, even the mats feel nice, it's just a tactically satisfying game all around. Only ever played it solo, but it's a great way to spend an evening (or longer for some of the tyrants!).

I mostly agree with Tom in this review. Though I'm not a HUGE fan of ALL the artistic choices in the game, I disagree that it seems cheap. My 2 cents... Card art is ok. It's a style choice, but it wouldn't be my first choice. Character art is really good. Dice are neat. Similar to Star Wars Destiny dice in quality, though not as large. It seems that with present technology, if you want crisp art on dice, this is the quality you get. Chip art is fine. The plastic cards should not be forced on players unless you provide a card stand so the piles don't slip around. That said, I would probably sleeve paper cards. Still, I think sleeved paper cards would be less annoying than the plastic cards. Rulebook needed improvement which I guess it's getting in the second edition (and upgrade kit). Still, the gameplay is highly unique and very fun. Great solitaire game too.

I REALLY want to see a dice builder that is lighter weight and shorter (possibly family weight) I love the idea