Mohrrrr Brainnnnssss...

 Well first things first on the Zombie front you'll probably notice an amazingly brilliant background accompanies this here blog. This image is used with permission from Anthony Petrie, whom I owe great thanks to for allowing me the use of his background. Anthony is an extremely talented artist in not only the realms of the strange & horribly wonderful but also has a keen eye for more modern art styles as well. Follow the link above or simply goto http://anthonypetrie.com/ to see more of his works.

 Today is going to be a little trip into some Zombie gaming that I've been up to lately. I'm not talking about your typical PC Zombie gaming either. You see I've started spending a bit of extra time over at Boardgamegeek.com lately and stumbled across some wonderful games that simply had to join my collection immediately. A shout out to my buddy, eBay.

 First off the ranks is Zombie Dice by Steve Jackson Games. My history with Steve Jackson actually stems back to my early teens. No, sadly I didn't really know him, but it felt like it! It was a book by Steve Jackson, Dicing with Dragons (Wow! That's most of it right there!), that my older brother had on his bookshelf when I was growing up. It was this very book, a little over 15 years ago, that opened my eyes to the world beyond reading books and running around my back yard pretending sticks were broadswords & opened the doors for me into the realms of RPGs and other geeky ventures.


That's pretty good advice for a Zombie right there!


 Sorry for that tangent, I just felt I had to share that fond memory. Back to Zombie Dice. Zombie Dice is a very simple concept dice game that is made for quick, fun & short gameplay. Rather than the usual premise of playing the humans trying to survive the Zombie Apocalypse this time you actually play the Zombies. Yeah that's right, you play the "good guys"! Each turn you roll 3 dice which each come up with feet (null), brains (good) or a shotgun blast (bad). The aim is to be the first person to reach 13 brains.

 Each player takes it in turns rolling several dice and has the opportunity to hold or continue rolling. Three shotgun blasts and you lose all the progress you've made that round. Holding the brains attained allows you to keep that number and the next player has their turn. At the end of each round any scores are held and a new round starts. If someone attains 13 or more brains in a round, holding them of course, then anyone who has a turn remaining in that round has a chance to beat their score. Whoever ends the round "holding" the most amount of brains wins the game. Now it's not because I physically own this game already that I know all this, the game is still in transit from the US with another Steve Jackson game I've ordered.

 You can actually download the game on iTunes for your iPod or iPhone! The initial download is free, allowing you to play the game against AI players. An "in app" purchase for $1.19 (Australian pricing) allows you to upgrade to the full version of the game and play with your friends (or foes). A little personal feeling of mine is supporting products you like. I purchased both the physical version of this game and now own the iPhone version. It helps the producers actually continue to produce the things you enjoy. I do the same for music, movies and games. I'm an anti-pirate... well anti-copying-stuff-that-you-haven't-bought at least, I like the ARRRRRRRR pirates *laughs*.
 

Zombie Dice knows what it's talking about!


 The second game off the ranks, the first game of several to arrive in my hands, is none other than Zombie in my Pocket. Now this is a game I really can sink my teeth into! I'd never really heard of a 1 Player board game before and that's the first thing that grabbed my attention with this game. The original version of this game is single player only but I decided to hunt down a copy of the newer release that allows from 1-8 players (non-cooperatively as the instructions state) so I could share in my Zombie experience with my fiancé and friends.

 Zombie in my Pocket (or ZimP for short) revolves around trying to end the Zombie Apocalypse either by yourself or with a group of friends. This is done by searching the house to find the Evil Temple and discovering the Cursed Totem, which then has to be taken to the Graveyard outside and buried. Before it can be buried the Mysterious Etchings must be discovered either inside or outside the house to seal the grave. Sounds like fun right?

 Oh it is! But that's only half of it! You discover each "room" one tile at a time, each time you play building your own unique house and backyard. If you can even get that far. ZimP runs some pretty nasty rules that leave you running from zombies, cowering in the Kitchen, pushing your friends through windows, getting you cursed and all out just trying to make sure it's not an easy task to complete the game. Oh and to make matters worse the game runs on a limited turns system as well; dictated by the Events deck and a clock.

This is the "board" at the end of my first game playing ZimP. The only game won so far.

  The clock starts at 9pm and each time you have to reshuffle the Events cards deck the clock moves forward an hour. You have 9pm, 10pm, 11pm and last but not least "Too Late". Too late and the Zombies are enjoying your brains for a midnight snack. Each time you move or make an action an Event card must be dealt with in one manner or another. This keeps game time down to anywhere from 5 minutes (you're obviously unlucky and dead) or 20-25 minutes maximum (you might be dead, but you might've just won by the skin of your teeth).

 I think I got extremely lucky the first time I played, a solo game, as I ended up being successful with burying the totem in the Graveyard. That probably has alot to do with the fact that the first area I found outside after the Patio happened to be the much-needed Graveyard. I played another game later in the evening and thought I was doing great, but silly me was in the Graveyard with the Cursed Totem and had not found those stupid etchings yet and the clock struck midnight before I could find them! Playing two games a little later on with my fiancé last night yielded to two more losses, even though we were playing cooperatively. First game I died before my fiancé and then the second game she died just before me.

 The game was originally produced independently by Jeremiah Lee in 2007, who originally released the game as a free single-player "print and play" style game. The version of the game I purchased, the 1-8 "non-cooperative" version, comes with all the nice colour tiles, counters, dice and everything else you need to play. If you want a bit of board gaming with a difference and definitely a paranoia-inducing "we might not make it" feeling behind it then I couldn't recommend this game any more highly.

 So if you're looking to get your Zombie on in either flavour, hunter or hunted, and want to find a good reason to pull yourself away from a screen for a change then go out and find yourself a copy of either of these games! Of course I'm not opposed to Zombie time in front of a screen, but we'll get to that in another blog :)