After buying several zombie themed boardgames that had great elements here and there, I finally found a game that does it right: Zombie Plague. It's a free print and play game that manages to capture all the suspense of a zombie flick with easy to grasp rules and gameplay. As the humans, you must search all the red X search' squares on the board and barricade the house to win (or if you're lucky, find the keys to the car and escape). As the zombies, your goal is simple- feed on the living. Each player gets a set of actions to complete each turn: moving, fighting, and searching. The gameboard is similar to that of Heroclix- a grid placed on top of a house in the suburbs.
Here's a comparison of the original map on the right with the new and improved map on the left using modeling software (not by me). Since the game's conception, there has been several modifications on boardgamegeek. I too, added my own take to the game...
The game dice didn't work for me. At least graphically. Rather than text saying "bite" or "escape", why not show a zombie's face and human face fleeing in terror? Here's my dice I created with sticker paper and Yahtzee dice. Below, the black die depicts a zombie bite, the blue die, a headed shot to a zombie, the yellow die, a Wild start space, and finally the red die, depicting a non-fatal wound.
Next, I thought the search spaces on the board needed to more impactful. Friend Mark supplied me with mini-crates. I painted a red X on the top to make them easier to see and add some dimension to the flat board.
Orange player "Timmy" flees from the zombie, hoping to find a weapon in a nearby crate.
Meanwhile, yellow player "Mullet" and black player "Betty" leave the supply building with a shotgun and the car keys.
Below, "Timmy" places a barricade and continues to make a run for it! (the plank was a bridge piece from 'The Adventures' boardgame)
On the otherside of the board, blue player "Mullet' takes out his revenge on the police cruiser. ( a relatively scaled Transformers toy)
Ultimately, Blue doesn't stand a chance- as the sole survivor with one crate left to go and know weapons on hand, it looks rather bleak...
And that's Zombie Plague in a nutshell. A great little game that doesn't take much to put together. Plenty of room for expansion, modification, and more, Zombie Plague is my new favorite zombie survival game.
