Sorry I've been so bitchy lately, my Conan game collapsed due to real life getting in the way shortly after Scrolls of Skelos came out. I've been "jonesing" for ANY gaming action, and in desperation for something that required absolutely no thought ahead of time and had a finite playing time (to get the group back together around the table despite busy schedules), I finally caved in and bought Zombies!!! and Zombies!!! 3 Mall Walkers (Dawn of the Dead mall expansion). We loved them! It was a nice alternative to yet another session of Axis & Allies, Upwords or Risk: 2210 A.D. Even though those games are awesome, they either take too long to play, or else I always win (Upwords, which is basically Scrabble except you build "up" on top of other words to make new ones, making it much more fun than Scrabble, IMO).
Anybody else playing Zombies!!! from Twilight Creations?
The plot of Zombies!!! is simple: You and your fellow survivors are trapped in a city of flesh-eating ghouls. You collect cards and play them on yourself or your opponents (the cards are full color, gory and fun). You get to move yourself and some zombies every turn, racing around the city, breaking into and looting stores for Life tokens and Bullets. You must kill 25 zombies or escape to the helicopter, stranding everyone else to a certain doom. The thing I've noticed, is even when you lose, you still feel like you acomplished something, because you killed a truckload of zombies and screwed your opponents over many times in memorable ways. Every game is different, because you build the city one section (full color tile) at a time and the order of each section's appearance is randomized by shuffling the city tile deck.
ZOMBIES!!! official website
http://twilightcreationsinc.com/zombies/
The Zombies!!! box set comes with 100 zombie minis! I've played 9 games in two days over 18 hours, LOL. I think I'm addicted. I'm gonna buy Zombies!!! 2 Zombie Corps(e) next to get the military base expansion and the 6 glow-in-the-dark uber-zombies. I'm also tempted to get Zombies!!! 4: The End, which takes place in the woods with zombie dogs and you have to collect the pages from the Book of the Dead to stop the horror and win. That set comes with 100 zombie dog minis! You can mix and match the various cards and rules from the sets to create the game you want. Only two pages of rules makes the game easy to house rule on the fly and just generally tinker with to make it the game you want. Each game is about 2 hours of beer-n-pretzels fun. If you only use the shopping mall or military base, instead of the city, it cuts down to maybe 1 hour or 90 minutes depending on the number of players because those locations use about 10 less tiles than the city. If you want to include the city, you'll need to buy more zombie minis (suitable for RPG use too), which they sell in bags of 100 for $9.95 in either (standard) rotten gray or glow in the dark varieties. The minis have a disgusting, wobbly, rubbery (but still sturdy) texture to them, which makes them more fun to pick up and move around, like you're actually touching clammy, dead flesh!
After trying the default rules and the standard Quickplay rules in two games, I'm using a combination of my own house rules and the Quickplay rules from the game's website. Basically, you always move a number of spaces equal to your current life tokens (or better if you roll higher on movement). Instead of only moving zombies one square each, you can split up the d6 roll and move less zombies faster, or more zombies slowly. If you are down to your last Life token, you don't die, but start losing kills for every failed combat roll. If you run out of kills, you just keep fighting until you defeat the zombie.
We also created a city only "death match" game where you start with 5 life and 5 bullets (and can trade in 15 kills for a "recharge" to put you back to 3 life and 3 bullets if you're lower). A variant "death match" allows each player three lives, so if they die, they lose all their kills, tokens and cards and start over in the town square with only 3 Life and 3 bullets.
We also added in uber-zombies (currently represented by skeleton and zombie RPG minis)! Here's how they come into play: Everytime the movie theater tile comes up (and there are 4 of them, each playing the movie "Evil Dad", LOL), an "Evil Dad" uber-zombie appears on that tile in lieu of the two regular zombies. The "Evil Dad" can only be killed on a six (instead of 4-6 like normal zombies) and moves twice as fast as regular zombies. If you are killed by an "Evil Dad" your character becomes an "Evil Dad" too! First one to the helicopter wins, regardless of the number of kills! Not respawning when you die and having the "Evil Dads" chase you around so fast really makes a dramatic, scary impact on your resource management and play style... everyone is much more conservative and nervous, at least until the helicopter tile is drawn and then it's a mad dash to screw over your opponents and jack the old whirly-bird. If not using the city tiles, the "Evil Dads" only appear when a player dies (on that spot).
Anybody else playing Zombies!!! from Twilight Creations?
The plot of Zombies!!! is simple: You and your fellow survivors are trapped in a city of flesh-eating ghouls. You collect cards and play them on yourself or your opponents (the cards are full color, gory and fun). You get to move yourself and some zombies every turn, racing around the city, breaking into and looting stores for Life tokens and Bullets. You must kill 25 zombies or escape to the helicopter, stranding everyone else to a certain doom. The thing I've noticed, is even when you lose, you still feel like you acomplished something, because you killed a truckload of zombies and screwed your opponents over many times in memorable ways. Every game is different, because you build the city one section (full color tile) at a time and the order of each section's appearance is randomized by shuffling the city tile deck.
ZOMBIES!!! official website
http://twilightcreationsinc.com/zombies/
The Zombies!!! box set comes with 100 zombie minis! I've played 9 games in two days over 18 hours, LOL. I think I'm addicted. I'm gonna buy Zombies!!! 2 Zombie Corps(e) next to get the military base expansion and the 6 glow-in-the-dark uber-zombies. I'm also tempted to get Zombies!!! 4: The End, which takes place in the woods with zombie dogs and you have to collect the pages from the Book of the Dead to stop the horror and win. That set comes with 100 zombie dog minis! You can mix and match the various cards and rules from the sets to create the game you want. Only two pages of rules makes the game easy to house rule on the fly and just generally tinker with to make it the game you want. Each game is about 2 hours of beer-n-pretzels fun. If you only use the shopping mall or military base, instead of the city, it cuts down to maybe 1 hour or 90 minutes depending on the number of players because those locations use about 10 less tiles than the city. If you want to include the city, you'll need to buy more zombie minis (suitable for RPG use too), which they sell in bags of 100 for $9.95 in either (standard) rotten gray or glow in the dark varieties. The minis have a disgusting, wobbly, rubbery (but still sturdy) texture to them, which makes them more fun to pick up and move around, like you're actually touching clammy, dead flesh!
After trying the default rules and the standard Quickplay rules in two games, I'm using a combination of my own house rules and the Quickplay rules from the game's website. Basically, you always move a number of spaces equal to your current life tokens (or better if you roll higher on movement). Instead of only moving zombies one square each, you can split up the d6 roll and move less zombies faster, or more zombies slowly. If you are down to your last Life token, you don't die, but start losing kills for every failed combat roll. If you run out of kills, you just keep fighting until you defeat the zombie.
We also created a city only "death match" game where you start with 5 life and 5 bullets (and can trade in 15 kills for a "recharge" to put you back to 3 life and 3 bullets if you're lower). A variant "death match" allows each player three lives, so if they die, they lose all their kills, tokens and cards and start over in the town square with only 3 Life and 3 bullets.
We also added in uber-zombies (currently represented by skeleton and zombie RPG minis)! Here's how they come into play: Everytime the movie theater tile comes up (and there are 4 of them, each playing the movie "Evil Dad", LOL), an "Evil Dad" uber-zombie appears on that tile in lieu of the two regular zombies. The "Evil Dad" can only be killed on a six (instead of 4-6 like normal zombies) and moves twice as fast as regular zombies. If you are killed by an "Evil Dad" your character becomes an "Evil Dad" too! First one to the helicopter wins, regardless of the number of kills! Not respawning when you die and having the "Evil Dads" chase you around so fast really makes a dramatic, scary impact on your resource management and play style... everyone is much more conservative and nervous, at least until the helicopter tile is drawn and then it's a mad dash to screw over your opponents and jack the old whirly-bird. If not using the city tiles, the "Evil Dads" only appear when a player dies (on that spot).
