Running Around Squares

I was eager to finish my list of games so I asked Liz during dinner if she'd be up for one. She was, but only after some cool down. Not too soon after dinner she was ready to go and I set up...

Zombies!!! 2-6 players
Aaaaahhhhhhahahh Zombies!!! I mean... aah, "Zombies!!!". This is the game that reminded me board games are fun. I was in college at the time and my friend Andy brought it over to play. It was the most interesting thing I had seen: modular playing board and two possible win conditions. I was enthralled. I would have bought a copy for myself if I didn't have to spend my money on food and rent. This meant I had to be thrifty and nothing is thriftier than no money at all. I dived into some of my old board games. Emily H. got into it too and we had a go at a number of games collecting dust in her basement too. I remember one of them being a fantasy war game that was played on a plastic mat that took up most of the kitchen. Awesome times. Anyway, once I got back into gaming in Portland, I had the money to blow and this was high on my list. It was a no-brainer.

Zombies are rampant and you need to get the crap out of town. On your turn, you add a tile to the town, add the appropriate zombies and supplies to the tile then roll and move. If you run into a zombie and can roll higher than 3 you kill it an add it to your collection. If you didn't roll high enough you can spend a bullet or two to add pips or you can spend hearts to reroll. You can play a card during your turn to help or play one during other players turns to hinder. The first player to get to the helipad or the first player to collect 25 zombies wins.

This was the most screwed up game we every played. Both of us were just about to go zombie shooting in buildings for pick-ups, but the helipad showed up pretty early. This changed both of our game plans. Liz had no problem booking it to the pad. I couldn't seem to roll over a 2 for movement. The few times I did, Liz would play a card that would move me back or slow me down. I eventually died just before Liz was able to get one space away from winning. This caused me to lose half of my zombies, start over at the center of town, and get new cards and tokens. On my next turn, I was able to play a card that let me move 10 spaces. The helipad was 9 spaces way. It happened so fast, Liz had to ask me to explain what just happen. A weird win for me.
In retrospect, I'm not a huge fan of the game. A lot of the cards are only good in certain locations and when you know you'll never make it there or it's not in play yet, it makes the card pretty useless. Wandering around town without a weapon sucks and unless you get just the right card, you're going to be that way for a while. There is also a rule where you can only use one card per round, but we ignore that since that's just stupid. Actually, in retroretrospect, the cards might be the only thing I hate about the game. If the cards were more useful or could be used in multiple locations, that would add that extra boost it needs.

Liz was in the mood to play another tile and movement game after this: Gold Mine. This was much more fun. I had the lead for most of the game, but after a bit of digging, Liz caught up. Oddly enough, we both got 10 gold nuggets one after the other. I had a little longer path to the exit, so I slowed her down with Bat Challenges. She tried to slow me down as well, but the dice were in love with me allowing me to throw it back in her face. We were finally out of challenges and I was close enough to roll in for the win. Hazzah!

Tally: 174/185  Bonus: 43/50