Bald Bosses — A Card Game About Escaping the Grind

WHAT IS BALD BOSSES?

Bald Bosses is a strategic, humor-forward card game about surviving the modern workplace long enough to either escape or take the power seat for yourself.

Every turn costs you precious (Sacrificial) Hours — unless you bend the rules with your Corporate Slaves, seize the boss role, or weaponize chaos with Actions and Events (which, honestly, may still cost you hours ✌️).

Bald Bosses drops you straight into the grind: a table where time is limited, power is unstable, and everyone’s trying to escape or outlast each other.

There’s no “ugh! office sucks” rant here — you’re inside the system and complicit in it, making tough choices every turn to stay ahead.

Fast enough for a coffee break, sharp enough to sting, it’s designed for 2–4 players, ages 14+, with games that run 5–20 minutes.

WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT

You’ll laugh. Then you’ll wince.

The cast is painfully familiar — Vacation Mason who’s never around, Rookie Rachel still believing in meritocracy, and George the Feedback Machine whose notes have notes — and Bald Bosses makes you play them like resources. Every turn drains your Hours unless you throw a Corporate Slave card into the grind, turning “that guy from the office” into a decision that could help you now or pay off later.

Nobody starts in charge. Everyone wants to be.

The Power Role begins unclaimed. Play a Boss card to seize it and start demanding Corporate Slave cards from any player, turning their “relatable co-workers” into your personal resource pool. Just don’t get comfortable — someone else can drop a Boss and evict you from the seat like it was always theirs anyway. Power is fragile.

Collaboration, but only in the moment.

Sometimes the smartest move is simply realizing someone else’s problem is also your problem — for a turn or two — then immediately going back to looking out for yourself. Business as usual.

Two ways to win. Pick your style.

Collect five Corporate Slave cards and clock out for good, or outlast everyone else as their hours run dry. Whether you’re gunning for the escape route or clinging to the power seat, both win conditions stay live until the last card hits the table.

Not so fast. Think it’s easy? You’d be surprised.

Core mechanics are simple enough to teach in a few minutes, but they’re stitched together in a way that keeps revealing new layers: sequencing when to spend Hours versus play Slaves, timing Boss takeovers, sandbagging Actions, and deciding when to trigger Events that nuke the whole office. The more you play, the more you notice that the real grind is in reading the table, not just reading the rulebook.

WHAT'S IN THE GAME

32 Sacrificial Hours — the game's currency.
Money means nothing here. Time is the real currency, and every turn drains your Hours. Little by little, the office takes it all.

14 Corporate Slaves — your ticket out.
Play them on your turn to skip your Hours cost and buy yourself breathing room. Collect five of them and you win.

4 Bald Bosses — the Power Role.
Play a Boss card to seize the Big (Bald?) Boss chair and stop paying Hours yourself; instead, you demand a Corporate Slave card from any player each turn. Just don’t get too comfortable: someone can always play their own Boss and take your seat.

27 Action cards — control the chaos.
Actions let you "power up", steal, redirect, disrupt, or defend at key moments. Some are Reactive, played out of turn to protect yourself or flip a situation at the last second.

15 Event cards — the entire table shakes.
Events are global effects anyone can trigger. They hit everyone at the table, sometimes in your favor, sometimes as pure chaos that you, along with everyone else, also have to navigate.

1 Rules Sheet — Employee Handbook (Unabridged).
All the rules, none of the rights. The part everyone skips right before asking what the cards do—except Rookie Rachel. Bless her.

1 Integrated Table Reference Board — the office’s latest high-tech solution.
The magnetic lid of the box detaches to serve as your player aid during the game, because we now have to account for the office skipping the rules sheet—which was completely unpreventable.

PRODUCTION & QUALITY

Bald Bosses comes in a magnetic-closure box with linen-finish cards and hand-illustrated art on every character and card type. Step away, AI.

As mentioned, the magnetic lid detaches (how cool is that?!) and doubles as a table reference board, so you can set up quickly and keep core information visible during play. 

The whole package is built for repeated sessions, not just one novelty round.

We’re also partnering with a reputable manufacturer, and the first prototypes are already in hand looking great.

ADD-ONS

We’re building a small, lean ecosystem around Bald Bosses for launch day. Expect:

• Unhinged Employees premium holofoil booster pack — more unhinged personalities to throw into the office chaos.
• Office Saints booster pack — the “nice” ones who still manage to make the grind worse. Also with premium holofoil finish. 
• DoubleSpeak Greeting Cards — a three-card bundle where closed messages look rude, but open up to unexpectedly wholesome longer phrases. 
• A3 art print with the full cast of characters.
• Bald Bosses Chronicles — a character book with “ HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL" employee files for every personality in the deck. Looks like a recently unearthed relic from a forgotten filing cabinet.
• Alternate-art card sleeves to protect your deck with a design worth flexing.

No expansions for now. We built the core game to feel complete from the start, not half-baked. If we do expand later, it’ll be for The Overachievers. The office is inclusive, after all. If you haven't already, find your office archetype and Bald Bosses alter ego in our short quiz here!

Be the first to escape the grind.
Follow Bald Bosses now to get notified the moment we launch! Plus, find out how to get the Unhinged Employees booster for FREE here!

Creator’s note

I’ve spent years in offices that felt more like pressure cookers than workplaces, surrounded by people who were unintentionally hilarious and deeply exhausting at the same time. Bald Bosses started as a way to capture that feeling in a game: sharp, honest about the grind, but still something you’d want to play with friends after work.

I wanted the game to be easy to jump into, but with enough tension, timing, and strategy that it keeps revealing new layers after a few plays. It’s meant to be quick, interactive, and a little too familiar for anyone who’s ever sat through one meeting too many.

From there, Myron and I built it out through iteration until it became something much more complete. He drove much of the mechanics work early on, and we shaped the rest together over time, with ideas going back and forth until the game clicked. We later brought in a talented friend, Panagiotis, to handle the art and graphics. That mix of ideas, mechanics, and visuals is a big part of what makes the project feel alive.

I also want to say the name is just wordplay, a twist on the word “bad”, and a way to give the game’s characters a distinct look and a sense of humor. It’s about the kind of absurd office energy that makes the whole thing fun. (We have nothing against baldness—promise to God! 🙋‍♀️)

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: No bald people were harmed (emotionally or physically), insulted, or otherwise targeted in the making of this game. Allegedly.