Keep the Heroes Out!: Finally, You Get to Be the Monster

Every dungeon crawler tells you the same story: brave heroes, scary monsters, shiny treasure. Keep the Heroes Out! asks the obvious question nobody asked. What about the monsters? They worked hard for that treasure.

So you play them. And it became our vacation favorite: we played it nonstop during our holiday, with new monsters, new mischief and lots of laughs.

What is Keep the Heroes Out!?

It’s an asymmetric, cooperative dungeon defense game for one to four players. You’re the monsters, guarding your treasure against looters who call themselves heroes. The game controls the heroes; you all win or lose together.

It was designed by Luís Brueh and self-published through Brueh Games in 2022. The Kickstarter raised more than 22 times its goal, and the game has sold over 70,000 copies. Our copy is the German edition, “Helden müssen draußen bleiben!”, which has to be one of the best German game titles of the decade.

How it plays

Think tower defense, but with cards instead of towers and your monsters running around the dungeon.

• Your turn: you draw cards and use them to move, activate room tiles, attack heroes and reposition your monsters. You can trade resources for stronger cards from a shared market, use portals to get around faster, and even lock heroes up, at the risk of a prison break.
• The heroes’ turn: after each player, the hero deck is drawn and resolved. New intruders march in and head for the loot.
• The goal: survive the waves of threat. Protect the treasure through the threat levels; if the main treasure is taken, everyone loses.

Who needs heroes anyway?

The twist is the whole charm. You’re not saving the kingdom. You’re protecting your stuff from a gang of self-righteous burglars in shiny armor. It’s a cheeky little role reversal, and it gives the game a mischievous mood that most co-ops don’t have.

And the monsters really are different. There are ten asymmetric factions: the Dragon flies and breathes fire, the Slimes split in two when you hit them instead of going down. That’s where our “new monsters, new mischief” came from. Every time you switch, the game feels new.

Fast, gorgeous, chaotic

For us, three words sum it up. It’s fast-paced. It’s gorgeous, with cute monster figures and colorful room tiles. And it’s full of chaotic fun: heroes keep pouring in and plans fall apart in the best way.

That chaos is exactly why it worked so well on vacation. It was perfect for travel nights and lazy mornings. We played it nonstop.

Karak, but from the other side

If your family learned dungeon crawling with Karak, you know the deal: heroes walk in, beat up monsters, walk out with the treasure. Keep the Heroes Out! is the monsters’ revenge. Same fantasy world feeling, completely flipped perspective, and you all team up against the game.

It’s also a step up. Karak is a kids’ game with simple turns; here you juggle cards, a market, portals and a whole dungeon full of intruders. Think of it as the game to reach for when the dungeon crawl gets too easy.

The box also supports solo play, and there’s now a video game version. We haven’t tried either.

Where it stings

We had a blast, but there are two points you hear in the community that are worth knowing before you buy.

First, turns can get long. A player may end up playing up to eight cards in a turn, each with several actions. If someone at your table thinks hard about every move, the others will wait.

Second, the difficulty levels. Some find the “Family” setting painfully slow in the opening turns and “Normal” hard to keep under control, with no happy medium in between. Others simply call the difficulty uneven. Expect to try a couple of settings before you find your groove.

Keep the Heroes Out! with kids

The English edition is rated 10+. There’s a dedicated “Family” difficulty, and since it’s cooperative, everyone can help each other along.

The theme is a big plus for families: cute monsters, a dragon, treasure, and bad guys who are really just nosy adventurers. Families of all kinds who like a bit of mischief at the table will feel at home.

What we hear in the community

Many call it an adorable little tower defense game and praise how distinct the factions feel, along with the twenty scenarios in the box. The criticism, as above, is long turns and difficulty scaling.

The game has also made the jump to screens: a video game version came out in December 2025, so you can now defend your dungeon with friends remotely.

There are several expansions, including The Great Dreamer, Guild Master’s Revenge, The Sparkling Guardian, Boss Battles and Cozy Dungeon. We haven’t tried any of them.

Our verdict

Keep the Heroes Out! is fast, gorgeous and wonderfully chaotic, and playing the monsters is a twist that keeps paying off. It earned its title as our vacation favorite the honest way: we kept playing it.

Get it if you love co-op games, cute monsters and a bit of mayhem. Skip it if long turns test your patience or you want the difficulty perfectly tuned from the very first game. Which side would you be on: heroes or monsters?