Opportunity Actions: Game Night Blog Carnival – Zombies!!!

Welcome to the Game Night Blog Carnival!  This is a new feature we’re doing once a month with a few other RPG blogs.  If you have an RPG blog, and would like to participate, check out the FAQ at the main Game Night page.

“This One’s a No-Brainer!”

So says the ubiquitous line at the top of the Zombies!!! box. For what it’s worth, you really do benefit from checking your intellect at the door. This game is so riddled with dumb luck that you really can’t go into it with any sense of strategy or tactics. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let’s get to the game.
The premise is pretty simple. Start in the town square, find your way to a helipad, and leave town. It would be incredibly easy to achieve this were it not for a few obstacles. First, you have no idea where this helipad is going to be. Second, and every issue after this, the town is swarming with gluttonous hordes of zombies. You need to get through them, find the helipad, and wait for the helicopter to arrive so you can get out. Still sounds easy, right?

The game is laid out as play goes. It’s another build-as-you-go game that ensures a different experience every time you play. There is an additional element in action cards. These involve weapons, events, and other circumstantial waylays that can help or hurt, bring more randomness to the mayhem.

Each turn includes the player turn and the zombie turn. Combat happens during the player segment, and any time a zombie is in the same square as a player’s token, a fight happens. More zombies on the board means more opportunities for conflict. More players in the game means zombies can get faster, since each player gets an opportunity to move zombies.

Where this game really takes off is its screw-your-neighbor capacity. You can be downright cruel to your fellow players, flooding their paths with zombies and other nasty surprises that can really leave a bad taste in your playmates’ mouths. You better hope your friends can handle it.

Summary

All in all, I find this game does exactly what it sets out to do. Goofy fun running and gunning through a zombie filled town hoping you’re the one that gets out. All the meanwhile, you’re making life difficult for the other players, trying to make sure they don’t make it to the end before you do.

When I have played with my family, we throw in a rule just to be even more ridiculous. My brother nominates one zombie to be the “chicken”. Whenever he has to move zombies, that one zombie will move in the opposite direction from any action whatsoever. All of the player tokens can be on one side of the board, but this one poor zombie finds itself on the opposite end, running for its unlife.

Try it out. It’s a hoot.

Be sure to check out the next blog in the carnival over at the Home of Kindros.

As always, I love your comments. Watch your threatened squares.