Keep the Heroes Out! is a cooperative scenario-based dungeon crawler with deck-building mechanics. Unlike typical games about slaying monsters in endless corridors and looting treasure, this one flips the script: you defend your cozy dungeon from pesky hero looters eager to raid every chest. This quirky game was created and illustrated by Louis Brue in 2022. That same year, it was nominated for “Best Cooperative Game” at the «Golden Geek» awards and is steadily climbing toward the top 100 family board games on BoardGameGeek.

About the Board Game Keep the Heroes Out!

One to four players lead a clan of adorable monsters in a dungeon with twelve unique rooms, each with special properties. The game features nine asymmetrical monster factions, each with distinct meeples, decks, health pools, and playstyles, letting you tailor strategies to your group’s needs (yes, it’s still cooperative). The so-called “heroes” come in four classes, each with a unique trait.

And if that’s not enough variety, the designer included three difficulty levels and twenty scenarios. Each scenario offers two modes, special setup, and unique rules for even more diversity.

A Quick Look at Gameplay

To successfully defend the dungeon, you must survive two waves of hero attacks while protecting a treasure worth 4. Players take turns, with each turn consisting of five phases:

1. Play a tactic card from your hand to perform an action with any of your monsters (activating special abilities or rooms, drawing cards, attacking, moving between rooms, placing resources for others, setting traps or portals, ambushing, etc.).
2. Discard a tactic card and refresh items on the “market.” For each card discarded from your hand, one item refreshes.
3. Cleanup and upkeep. Move all played cards to the discard pile and draw up to 5 cards. If your deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck.
4. The hero invasion phase begins by revealing a set number of cards from the Guild deck (the number and heroes’ health depend on the chosen difficulty and scenario). Cards show the hero’s class and icons indicating their starting room. They beeline for the treasure chest worth 4, looting lesser chests and attacking cute monsters along the way, but they get only one action. If the second wave’s deck runs out and the top treasure survives, you win (lose instantly if the chest worth 4 is taken).
5. If the game hasn’t ended, the active player concludes their turn. The active player token passes to the player on the left, who starts from phase one.

We recommend checking out the video rules in the “Video” section and, if desired, diving into the illustrated PDF rules in the “Files” section.

One Last Note

“Keep the Heroes Out!” is a must-have for fans of cooperative board games. Its wild replayability comes from scenarios, modes, and faction asymmetry. With three difficulty levels and no text in the game, Gallu the Rooster suggests playing it with kids aged eight and up.