Zombies!!! Part 1: Box Contents

The game under the microscope for Games & Tea tonight is Zombies!!! from Twilight Creations Inc; a competitive zombie survival game for 2-6 players.  Now zombies are a topic rather close to our hearts here at Games & Tea, so we went into this review with high hopes.  Will it meet our expectations?  Let's find out...

 

 

Zombies!!! is presented in a fairly compact Evil Dead-inspired box, meaning it will take up an inoffensive amount of space on your game shelf.  The aim of the game is a simple one: Zombies have taken over the city, leaving the players in an 'every man for himself' struggle to escape in one (living) piece.

Upon opening the box, players will realise that its compact size is mainly due to the lack of a gaming board, in any conventional sense at least.

 

 

Instead of a regular gaming board, the board for Zombies!!! is made up from a deck of modular Map Tiles.  There are two types of tiles in this 30 card deck; Named Buildings, and Unnamed Buildings.  A Named Building tile, such as the Hospital on the right in the picture, is marked by text in its upper-left corner.  Unnamed Buildings, such as the one on the right, have no text.  Each turn the players draw a tile off the top of the deck and add it to the map on the table, expanding the city as they flee to safety.

 

 

As well as the Map Tiles, Zombies!!! also contains a 50 card Event Deck.  Each player has a hand of 3 cards from the Event Deck, and they can play one between the beginning of their present turn and the beginning of their next turn, giving them the option of playing a card during an opponent's turn which will hamper their progress.  The Event Cards serve various purposes, from increasing your own movement speed or combat prowess, to slowing down your opponents or swarming them with additional zombies.  Most are one-off cards which are discarded after use, but some stay with the players throughout the game and can give them a sizeable advantage.

 

 

The box also includes two sets of tokens.  There are Bullet Tokens (the black ones, shaped like bullets) which help you to slay the undead, and Life Tokens (...you can figure out which ones they are) which show how much health your character has.

 

 

Zombies!!! wouldn't be a particularly good zombie game if it didn't contain any zombies (in fact it would just be called '!!!'), and so the box contains 100 miniatures in two different styles.

 

 

And or course the players need their pieces as well, so there are 6 Plastic Shotgun Guys (yes, that's actually what they're called) in various colours, as well as a pair of dice to determine their movement and shooting.

 

So as far as board games go it's not a particularly complicated lineup.  Let's move on to Part 2 and see how it plays!  I don't know about you, but we're anxious to get our zombie hunting on!