Author Topic: Zombies!!!  (Read 2083 times)

Offline danisthirty

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Zombies!!!
« on: April 29, 2016, 10:53:03 AM »
There are very few board games that I owned before Carcassonne that I'm still interested in playing now. One of these is Monopoly Deal which Mrs_danisthirty and I used to play a lot (pre-Carcassonne) and still play every now and again if we feel like having an argument about something but can't think of anything to get cross about. Another is Zombies!!! ("Directors Cut"/ second edition) which she bought for me in 2006 when Waterstones had hundreds of copies for sale during the Christmas period. I wasn't really into board games then, but asked for it anyway as it looked like a neat little game and I liked the theme. Sadly, we never got round to playing it though as the rules (3 sides of A5) weren't comprehensive enough for me to have any confidence in, so it ended up in my cupboard of shame where it remained despite occasional sparks of interest over the years that never quite motivated me enough to dig it out. And so, somewhat unbelievably, it's taken me almost 10 years to actually get this to the table and I couldn't resist doing a little write-up of the game afterwards, which I've decided to share here along with a couple of photos. I hope you enjoy it...

I had the honour of kicking the game off with the first map tile; the army surplus store. I rolled and moved off onto the new tile, then went straight into the building to collect the valuable bullet/ heart tokens. I managed to avoid fighting any zombies thanks to the way I'd arranged them when I placed the map tile, so Chris (my worthy adversary for the evening) had the honour of killing the first zombie. The map seemed to grow very quickly over the course of the next couple of turns and filled with zombies at an alarming rate, so I decided to make a dash for the Police Station as there was lots of good stuff there guarded by five zombies. Some favourable dice rolls ensured that I didn't struggle to clear and loot the building, but Chris was quick to play a card which immediately repopulated it meaning I had to kill another five zombies before I could get out again. But kill them I did, and with 12 zombies in my collection and a good supply of bullets and life tokens I felt unstoppable at this early stage of the game.

Chris and I took similar routes around the city at first, but when I headed down the short road leading to the Police Station he found a car and sped off westwards to a recently placed hardware store on the other side of the city. Once he'd cleared it he stuck around outside afterwards without making a lot of progress in any direction. I forced him to lose his movement turn with a "Fear" card at one point, and took control of his movement on a subsequent turn, forcing him to charge headlong into a horde of zombies (all of which he killed rather heroically). Whilst he didn't seem to have the cards to make my life similarly difficult at that point, the dice certainly didn't help me as I tried to make my way back from the Police station, and a number of very low roles hindered my progress to a large degree. However, we were both in a relatively safe part of the city as there wasn't space nearby to place new map tiles; these were always added to the outskirts of the city along with all the new zombies, most of whom we didn't bother to move as they were far enough away that they seemed harmless and irrelevant.


(from my perspective, the left of this picture was the North. I didn't dare venture into the South for obvious reasons)

Once we'd both grown more familiar and comfortable with the gameplay, the more malicious cards were brought into play more often rather than being discarded in order to make space for more cool weapons that we'd never be able to use but which looked like fun at the time. We both lost movement turns at least once through Fear cards but I was especially proud of the time I took control of Chris' movement as mentioned above, even though this was a complete failure in terms of trying to get him killed. I was more successful though with the "Butterfingers" card which I played on two consecutive turns forcing Chris to discard all of his bullet tokens as he didn't have any extra weapons. He then rolled three 1s in a row during his next zombie encounter and this killed him. The respawn point was only a short distance away, but it cost him seven zombies as he'd killed 13 up to that point. Insert evil laugh here. >:D


(My zombies decided to indulge in a bit of country dancing while they waited for more friends to join them)

As the dwindling supply of map tiles waiting to be drawn and placed continued to shrink, I felt that I was in the lead purely because I'd killed most zombies (12 – despite losing two of them at one point because, according to a card Chris played on me, they weren't dead). But I wasn't feeling brave enough to head into the zombie-infested streets of the south in order to kill another 13 and satisfy the 25-zombie kill win criteria though; that just felt like suicide. But fortunately I didn't have to contemplate this for long as Chris drew the helicopter site and rather than placing it on the other side of the map where neither of us would ever be able to reach it (as he was tempted to), he placed it in a relatively accessible spot. I wasn't far behind him at this point, and apart from the nine zombies that came onto the table with the helipad, the immediate area wasn't too badly infested...

The race was well and truly on! Being closest to the helipad, Chris played an "Alternate Food Source Available..." card which meant both of us could effectively walk right past zombies (without having to fight them) until the end of his next turn. With this, he made a charge towards the helicopter but I slowed him down with a "Your Shoe's Untied" card which halved his movement; he couldn't quite reach it. This didn't give me much of an advantage though as Chris was able to play the same card on me while I was still playing catch up and since I rolled a one and couldn't move half a square I had to sit tight for another turn. Things weren't looking especially good for me, and even if Chris wasn't holding a card that could send me right back to the town square at the cost of a mere heart token there was nothing I could do to hold him back as he tore through the three remaining zombies that stood between him and victory with his very next turn. He killed all three effortlessly, and then waved to me from the helicopter as he flew off into the sunset... :(


(Damn)

To be just four spaces away from victory after such a thrilling 90-minute game was a bit of a kick in the teeth but far worse was the knowledge that I'd owned this great game for almost a decade without playing it, especially since the majority of the game was actually very simple. But whilst the cards add a lot of depth and additional fun/ competitiveness, they can also lead to some unanticipated awkwardness where it isn't clear how certain cards affect other specific cards or situations. This was what had originally put me off playing it, but finding a FAQ online that seemed to resolve most of these conflicts with some degree of authority was the main reason for giving it its chance to shine. And I was so glad I did! :(y)

If there was one thing I didn't like about the game it was that the balance between named and unnamed map tiles felt a bit off in that there weren't enough named buildings and the surplus of generic street tiles served mostly to spread everything out (and bring more zombies onto the board but this wasn't necessarily a bad thing). Maybe this was all part of the design, but coupled with the fact that most of the more exciting weapons could only be "activated" in certain buildings it felt like we were missing out on a lot of the fun as there was no realistically survivable route to any of the required buildings after the first 10 – 15 map tiles had been placed. This meant a lot of the special weapon cards were simply discarded. Furthermore, reaching a specific building and having a corresponding card that could be played in that building felt like it would be so difficult to achieve that a mere weapon upgrade or one-off special ability wasn't sufficiently rewarding to make it worth the effort and risk of doing so. This certainly didn't break the game, but it was a shame as some of the special weapons and abilities looked like they would have been a lot of fun to play with.

I think it's safe to say that I'm already looking forward to my next game. I've already planned a 4 or 5 player game at work next week, but even if I continue to play with just one opponent at a time it will be nice for Mrs_danisthirty and I to have something else to argue about for a change! O:-)

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2682.0
« Last Edit: October 11, 2017, 01:39:36 PM by Decar »

Offline Decar

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Re: Zombies!!!
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2016, 01:46:36 PM »
A formidable thesus of your game! Now I see how 'The Walking Dead' script writers keep coming up with ideas.  This looks like quite a game. I'm off to check for some videos! A merit for your effort Dan that makes Danis-130!


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Zombies!!!

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