moviehippo

Not to be confused with several other Walking Dead Games, this version is based on the comic and includes artwork from comic artist Charlie Adlard. This has quickly become one of the most played games among our friends.

Each player selects a character, a follower, and claims one food, ammo, and gas. Food can heal wounds. Ammo allows you an extra dice to roll that guarantees a zombie kill. Gas lets you move an extra space on your turn (two if you play as Dale).

Each turn, you may move up to 3 spaces from your current location on the board. This will allow you to land on a space that has one of the aforementioned resources (or many of them) so you can attempt to scavenge for more. When scavenging, you play an action card and attempt to resolve the issue on it by rolling your dice pool.

The goal of the game is to scout 3 of the various locations on the board, each with it’s own set of challenges.

This is NOT a short or easy game. If you play till someone scouts 3 locations successfully, you may be playing for hours. We love a long game like that, but some people want a dash not a marathon. You have been warned.

To slightly complicate things more, whenever you leave a space on the board, a random zombie token is placed there, implying that the zombies are always following you. If you have 5 people playing at once the board can get filled easily. However, because you can move several spaces at once, this becomes just a minor inconvenience. More so if the dice rolls hit the board. Zombies can and will go flying.

What makes this game different each time is that the dice pool each character and sidekick have are all different. Some characters, if paired up, will get special rewards. So, this means you can come back and have a different experience even if the object is the same every time.

The flip side to that is, like many dice games, SOMEONE always has a bad game. It never fails that one of us just can’t roll anything worthwhile and has the hardest time completing objectives. If you play this with a bunch of new people, there may be one person who doesn’t have as much fun and will sour on the game if you’re not careful.

Having said that, our friends consistently request to play it on board game nights and we happily comply. I love this game and it’s absolutely worth a try.

Enjoy!

TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO

SRP: $39.99 although I have seen it as low as $29.99

Contents:

•4 Blue “Hero” Dice

•4 Red “Warrior” Dice

•4 Green “Scavenger” Dice

•1 Black “Ammo” Die

•216 Zombie Tokens

•72 Fatigue Markers

•6 Starting Character Cards

•23 Follower Cards

•26 Location Cards

•90 Encounter Cards

•6 Starting Character Portraits

•6 Bases

•6 Player Sheets

•1 Game Board

•1 Rulebook

•18 Resource Markers

•23 Follower Tokens

This is a quick and easy to learn card game where you draw a card, play a card, and do what the played card says. It’s pretty simple and the instructions are printed on a small one-sided square of paper.

The game feels like a bit of a Fluxx knockoff and not really in a good way. The charm that Loony Labs brings Fluxx is missing here, even if they try to work in the cute and fuzzy animals.

Games play simply, and ending the game can be even more simple… and random. One might win the game by being the shortest person in the room, or playing the correct choice in a game of rock, paper, scissors.

I love the idea of such random encounters, but in execution it falls flat. It makes the game feel a bit pointless and ruins the replay value some.

At best this is a good warm up game, or possibly an ice breaker. You won’t spend hours playing this with friends. They say the game is good for 2 – 15 players, and our experience has been that games last between 1 and 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO

Contents:

Rule sheet

54 Cards

*Basic set comes with the Chaos Pack Expansion now

This game is easily one of the most played games in our household. It’s a great way to bring in casual game players who aren’t used to cooperative gaming as long as someone at the table knows the game rules really well.

We continue to play this game regularly in part because it offers quite the challenge and is slightly different each time we play. However, if you want a game that you’ll beat easily, this is not the game for you.

Each turn, you have 4 actions that allow you to move around the board and remove disease cubes that have infected various worldwide locations. At the end of your turn you collect cards that will aid your travels and help you find a cure for the four diseases.

The character you select at the beginning of the game will also have some type of special class-based ability.

It seems simple enough, but the game is working against you. After each turn, you draw random cards that will infect more cities, and occasionally an epidemic will break out and force even more disease cubes onto the board. *The number of epidemic cards you use each game will either increase or lower the difficulty of the game.

The object of the game is JUST to find cures for the four diseases. If you want to eradicate the plagues too, more power to you. However, there are multiple ways to lose the game, so you can’t get too fixated on clearing the board completely. This ensures that stalwart gamers will come back time and again looking for sterile vengeance.

Everyone we teach this game to ends up buying it, so that should tell you quite a bit. It IS a little overwhelming at first, but once you play a game, you’ll have the hang of it and will be glad you stuck with it.

Enjoy!

TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO

SRP: $39.99 but I have seen it as low as $29.99

Contents:

•Board

•7 Role cards, with matching pawns

•6 Research stations

•6 Wooden markers

•96 Disease cubes

•48 Infection cards

•59 Player cards

•Reference cards and rulebook