The first thing that hits me, is that it contains this cool playmat instead of the boring cardboard other games have. This alone let it stand out to all the other games. But after I played it I came to recognize how much thought went into this game.
1) The players have limited resources. When they are all up, they can't get more. This gives tension and makes every encounter with a zombie count, as you can't throw out all your cards at once, as you have no chance otherwise.
2) The game is constantly hard. No build up and working to an final encounter. The hardest zombies can come up in the first round and they stay this way till the end. It get's even harder due to the limited resources and due to the fact that...
3) Players who run out of red-shirt allies get turned into zombies themselves and try to stop the remaining players. So no sitting next to the others and waiting that the game finishes. And team Zombie can even still win the game. That's an amazing part, as it allows me to win the game at the end with a different objective than at the start of the game.
Although this game has a lot of cooperative elements, in the end you still try to be the one who comes out victorious over the others. I had a blast playing this game.
We had fun playing it, because we have fun drinking and talking to each other, but the game itself is NOT good enough to be the focus of the evening.
Think of Monopoly, or Trivial Pursuit, or similar. It has a square path around the outside, connected by a plus through the middle. You can travel forward or backward, but can not hop back and forth.
You land on spaces, draw an encounter card, and see what you have to fight.
The goal is to collect the 4 location cards (located on each corner) and return to the middle.
You get Scrounge Cards to help balance out the fight with the encounter cards.
It seems like they thought out a decent game, but didn't run it through testing long enough.
-Problems: You die way too fast, if you are not rolling 5 and 6 on every roll.
Cool thing is, that if you die, you can join TEAM ZOMBIE, and fight against your human friends. This is nice, but then you have people racing to die, so they can kill the others.
The Zombie cards, are again, too powerful. The Zombie Team won every game until we adjusted the rules for Crossbow, and Bat.
We made it so if you roll a 3 or better, you get to keep the weapon, instead of 5 or 6.
Overall the game didn't have much of a ZOMBIE feel to it.
Even with all the zombie pictures, it still feels like monopoly.
I think it's because of the "road" you have to follow. It's not an open map, and you don't have many options as far as moving around.
Better Zombie games are: Zombie Survival (The Board Game) , or the Mall of Horror Board game.
Zombie Survival has the right feel, but it's not so interactive. You can play as one player..... or you can play the way my nephew plays, and not defend your house, just keep using all your moves to throw zombies on another player's property. That is pretty much all the interaction you can do.
Mall Of Horror is nothing but interaction. It's more of a diplomacy game, with you pushing the losers out, to get eaten.
I tried the other Walking Dead game, and it's better then this one, but it's so super confusing, that you'll spend half your night trying to figure out what each card does.
There is also Zombies!!! the game, but despite it's good reviews, I found it to be less then fun. We played it twice, then forced ourselves to play it again to get our money's worth, but It now collects dust.
I'm still looking for a good Zombie Game
Buy The Walking Dead Board Game Now
I was a little bit apprehensive about purchasing this game at first. It wasn't terribly cheap until recently if purchased new, (however, I did procure a used version from Amazon for only $25, though the box was slightly damaged), and the reviews, here and on other sites, are mixed. However, many of the negative-leaning reviews were written by people who were more experienced in board-gaming than myself, so their dissatisfaction is relative to their experience. I am only a casual board-gamer, card-player, and I absolutely adore this game. My husband and I play it all the time. I love the mouse pad material that is used for the board. The cards are fun, there's plenty of images from the show and some images are from scenes that were never aired on TV. You have to keep an eye out for them. I can't say enough good things about this game. There are a lot of pieces, which can be a little bit of a pain, I've already lost one of my "Ally" pieces, but there's 16 in total (plenty if you're playing with 1-3 people, problematic if you're playing with 4. So, I just made a new one out of cardboard. It requires some strategy, but depends on luck too. Many experienced gamers dislike the "luck" aspect and the fact that movement is dictated by a die. I don't mind it though. It is similar to Monopoly and Sorry!.
Objective: Each player has to go around the board to all 4 corners before being able to return to "Camp".
The Locations: Each corner is a location, these include: the Police Station, the Department Store, the Abandoned Car Lot, and the CDC. (All locations which Rick and sometimes other survivors had to find in the show.)
The Characters: You can play as 1 of 6 players including: Rick, Shane, Dale, Glenn, Lori, and Andrea. Each of the characters has a corresponding "Special Ability" which can be used once during the game. My husband and I like to randomly pick our characters because some are better than others, so it's best to do at random. However, let me just say Lori sucks as much in the game as she does in the show. Her amazing ability only moves you forward one space once during the game. For some reason I ALWAYS end up with that god-awful character. The rest are pretty good though.
The Cards: Then there are the cards. There are 3 types of cards: Encounter, Scrounge, and Walker. Encounter cards are drawn on every turn you take. The majority of them are attacks by walkers (which have a specific strength which you must match or best with your Scrounge cards + your # rolled), some are precarious situations with your fellow survivors, and some, but few are good/beneficial cards. Scrounge cards are what you hold in your hand. These are your supplies and weaponry. You use these to fight the walkers. Each Scrounge Card has a strength which counters the strength of an attack from and Encounter card. Lastly, there are Walker Cards. These are used towards the end of the game when your opponent/s has died. They get to come back as a walker and use the Walker cards to attack the living survivor/s. There are also Allies. Allies function the same as Scrounge cards, they are small circular pieces of cardboard that will take the bite for you if you fail to defeat the Encounter Card/s with your Scrounge cards. However, once you run out of Allies, you run the risk of being bit yourself and becoming a walker, so you have to be smart about how you use your Scrounge cards and Allies. There is a limited number of Scrounge cards because there are a limited number of supplies in the Zombie/Walker Apocalypse. That's where the strategy comes into play.
There's really not much more to say about the game. It's pretty easy, once you figure out all the rules. There a convenient FAQ on the Rulebook, which is very helpful when you're learning the game. It's simple and fun. You can play it alone or with 3 other people. It's rare you find a 1 person board game. You can up the challenge or lower it by increasing/decreasing the number of Scrounge cards you put in the pile at the start of the game. I highly recommend it. Especially before October and Season 3 comes along. It'll be a great way to pass the time before new episodes each week.
Read Best Reviews of The Walking Dead Board Game Here
We had a great time playing this game.Being able to come back as a zombie and attack your former friends was super fun.We've played several times and sometimes the survivors win and sometimes the zombie players.Good times.If you like the show or the comic this is a good game for you.
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The Walking Dead board game is an entertaining way to spend an hour or so with friends. There are rules for a one-player and two-player game, but the four-player mode is the way to go. Either all four of you begin the game as Survivors, or it is two on two, Survivor vs. Walker.
It is fun, but will not "blow you away" by any means. After a game or two, it loses it's novelty value, and is more for hardcore fans of the show.
As far as durability, the board itself is a thin type of foam that rolls up for easy storage, and makes it far better than a traditional board for play-ability anywhere.
I bought this as a gift for a fan of the show as one of those "extra" Christmas gifts, and it was perfect for that.
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