Eaten By Zombies!
In the game Eaten By Zombies! players strive to survive as the horde of the living dead make it their goal in Death to force you to join the crowd. You must work with or against the other survivors to be the last one standing. No not standing, cowering in the corner crying for their mommy.
In the spirit of AMC's "The Walking Dead" and "I Am Legend", Eaten By Zombies! takes you into a dark world of eventual death. Every turn you must venture out from your safehouse and scavenge for Swag. But not so fast, the Undead have other plans for your brains. Every day a Horde of fresh zombies will be waiting for you, and over time the threat gets greater. Now it's time for your "Fight or Flight" instincts to help you to survive just one more day. Using the swag you've got on you (ie cards in you hand) you must survive any way you can.
If you can get away or kill the Horde, you may scavenge the remains of the desolate suburbs for any Swag the neighbors may have left behind. With the right stuff and a few good friends to out run, you may just make it through this alive... well, no probably not. But being the last one to die a slow, painful death means you can claim sole victory!
With a set of over thirty different cards to start with, no two games will ever be alike. This game is a combination of Card Drafting, Hand Management and Survival Horror with a few dirty tricks thrown in.
User Reviews (4)
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It is the 1950’s and Eisenhower is president, rock and roll music is sweeping the country and zombies have come back from the dead to eat the living. This is the subject of the newest game from mayday games called Eaten By Zombies! But is this card game one that you should pick up or should you avoid it like a pack of flesh hungry zombies?
You start the game by selecting one of four characters June, Bob, Barney or Mary and each of the core cards are themed to your character. As you are hiding your safe house you have managed to scrounge together some items that will help you. There are big sticks (which give you +1 to fight), hide (giving you +1 to flee) and sandwiches (that give you +1 to flee but you can draw a card). You get 12 cards in your deck and you will shuffle this deck and draw six cards at random.
At the start of your turn you will shuffle the deck that contains the zombie cards and place a card face up. Then you can decide whether you want to fight the zombie or flee as you have to match or exceed the value of the fight or flee values on the card. If you fight the zombie it is removed from play but if you flee you can outrun the zombies but you will lose half the flee value of cards from your hand. If you fail to fight or flee you must discard the amount of cards in your hand equal to the hordes flee value. But either fighting or fleeing you can scavenge cards to put them into your hand and how you do this is by how many cards you played to defeat zombies. For example: if you discarded five cards you can purchase two cards that cost 3 and 2 or one card for 5.
The only way to win the game is to be the last one left alive and in a 2 player game that is fine.
But in a 3 to 4 player game that might be a bit harder and if you die in a 3 to 4 player game you come back as a zombie and have a chance to add zombies to the deck. The game is really fast paced and fun to play and has some great card art to get your players in the mood. This is a great game as it is simple to play with two players as it is with four. And to make matters better there are scenarios included in the back of the instruction manual where you have certain loot cards on the table. What I love most about this game is the box as it looks like an ammo box and it fits all the cards snugly in the case so it’s easy to store and retrieve the cards for play.
This is one of the most fun games to play as you can stab your friends in the back and the price is $25.95 which for a card game is not that bad. For more information on this game including on where to buy go to http://maydaygames.com/ and get ready to get eaten by zombies!
But who will be the last to survive? That’s the question in Eaten by Zombies. This is a deck-building game with a twist. Some new mechanics threw us the first few times we played, such as not discarding your entire hand at the end of your turn; you keep whatever cards you decided not play and then refresh up to the base six cards. You don’t take what you purchased and put it into the discard pile for later use, you put the item directly in your hand for use on your next turn. The mechanics definitely make the learning curve a little higher for seasoned dbg-ers, but…….
Draw a zombie. Then, the basic strategy is: Should I fight or run? If the latter, you’re going to lose an item from your hand or deck, meaning it goes into the items pool where others could purchase it, whether you successfully get away or not. Hey…you run, you drop something. The question is, how much will you lose? If the former, you might gain some zombies in your hand that can be played on others. Ah yes! Screw your fellow survivalist by setting more zombies on them!
You can do one or the other (fight or run)but not both. And the value of the fight or flee cards played are what might be able to be used to purchase something. Might, because if you lose a battle or you run, you don’t get to purchase anything that turn.
The cards are extremely high quality and the artwork on them is fun and fanciful…and sometimes slightly gory, but not anything that is inappropriate for kids over 10.
Yes, this turns the deck-building genre on its ears. But for seasoned dbg-ers, it will take a couple of plays before all the differences kick in. Once they do, this ’50s-style horror film homage will become a regular part of your gaming night.
I bought this game and was immediately in love with it and my friends couldn’t get enough of it. The game has an interesting mechanic to build your deck but a difficulty added to keep it somewhat balanced by making you discard. Though my only real problem with overall balance is a synergy with draw and flee that can essentially make it one sided very quickly.
The rules can be somewhat frustrating at first, but once learned it flows well. You can do a random draft for your loot piles or go by predetermined setup. The mechanic of killing zombies going to your pile then not being able to discard them from your hand and fleeing which forces you to discard whether successful or not really adds a fun stratagy.
Also should be noted that there is 1 major expansion ‘In cahoots’ that lets you play with 6 players and adds fire weapons. And a couple mini expansions. “We’ve got the bomb” is a 6 card expansion that adds a bit of dread by making you lose swag in order to keep from losing the game.
It’s taken me a while to get my review finished for this game because, even after a handful of plays, I’m still not quite sure how to explain it. I guess I’ll get this out of the way from the get-go – I love the game. It’s quick, and embraces its theme. But I’m the only one out of a handful of people I’ve played this with, who has been so excited over it.
This one has struggled to hit the table and stay there. Members of my old game group were too invested/determined in identifying it with Dominion and/or other deckbuilders. This is not that game. It also has some chaotic play that is a bit reminiscent of other “Take That” style games like Munchkin. A lot of people, gamers and family alike, have all set out to play cooperatively (kill all the zombies/make the zombie deck run out). However, once they realize that killed zombies go into your deck and mostly stay there (and drawing a full hand of 6 zombies, and not being able to play a card on your next turn = a loss for that survivor/turned into a zombie), and once they realize that one loss mid to late game can deplete a hefty chunk of your cards, it tends to turn sour for some. For me, that’s part of the theme of the game. It SHOULD be intense, it should feel like the odds are stacking against you, and one slip/trip and you are close to being a meal. You might be playing cooperatively with others, only to find out there is just no way. You are going to have to throw another Zombie at ol’ Bobby sitting across from you. Or maybe you use “A Good Friend” card, to borrow a nice gun from your daughter, and then decide not to give it back (forcing a LOSS – not a discard – of your “A Good Friend” card, but not making you a very good friend! LOL). If you are not into random games that can switch from co-op to cutthroat, this probably won’t be to your liking.
Every player gets a basic/weak 12 card starting deck, same cards with varying artwork. Five fight (Heavy Stick), Five Flee (Hide), and 2 Sandwiches (Draw card and flee). Swag piles (piles of new fight/flee/draw) are placed in the middle. Each turn players flip over a “new” zombie (1-4 Zombies, depending on the “day”, which advances every time the zombie draw deck runs out, and you reshuffle the Zombie discard pile). You choose to fight or flee, based on your hand. You play the appropriate cards, then lose some cards (if you flee, even successfully, you still lose “half attrition” value rounded up) and draw back up to 6 cards. If you fight successfully (the entire horde/all zombies in play) you lose no cards to attrition. All complete successes allow you to scavenge (buy) swag from the available pools.
If you successfully fight or flee, you get to “find” swag card equal to the total value of your fight/flee. So maybe you can get away from a zombie with 1 Flee, but if you play FIVE flee from your hand, you can purchase more/more useful swag cards. You can purchase as many as you want, up to your played value, as long as your hand doesn’t exceed 6 cards in your hand.
Planning and strategizing are important, much moreso than any other “take that!’ style game Ive played yet. That can be attributed to the deckbuilder side of the game, which really is prominent and changes the game up every time you play it (because some/all of your swag cards are chosen at random, you never know what ratio of fight to flee you might have available, and have to adjust play style accordingly). Any strategy can be undone, when someone adds a zombie to the horde or you draw a bad hand. Also, when you fail, be prepared to “lose”(not just discard) cards. They go back to the swag piles, for repurchase (or purchase by other players). This has turned a lot of people off, that I have introduced the game to. I’m not sure why, though. I find it a fitting mechanic, and it keeps the game tense and speedy.
I would say the game shines brightest when you throw all deckbuilding experience/knowledge out and just go along for the ride. Last game with my daughter, I was sure she was to be eaten. We ended up just barely surviving and ended with a co-op victory! We had to draw 3 zombmies on my turn, but there were no more left in the draw pile or discard. That is one way for survivors to win (in 2 player games). One more turn and I would have won, my daughter would have had a hand of 6 zombies, not been able to draw/play any cards. In 3 or more player games, a player in that situation would become a “Zombie Player” and plays Zombie Cards to add modifiers to hinder the remaining survivors (so another plus, no real player elimination, everyone remains a part of the game until completion).
I rate this game a solid 7. I’d probably rate it an 8, if the rules were written better (FAQ’s and online forums have helped to clarify a few things in the past few months while I’ve been learning and playing this game). It’s really not a difficult game, but some cards had terrible editing (lack of), spelling and grammar errors that open up rules questions. Bit of heavier proofing and better wording would have made this game MUCH easier to pick up, and less time debating with rules lawyer types (which I can’t stand playing with, honestly).
One guy I played with, really fussed over having to lose so many cards. He kept suggesting the rule didn’t make sense (lose the total number of cards equal to the total attrition value of the zombies in the horde), and suggest I was interpreting them wrong. He wanted to only lose the PURCHASE VALUE of cards, equal to the attrition, because it seemed easier/less intense. I had to go to the rulebook, online, and still that game got ended halfway through, because I just was getting annoyed.
Don’t play it like dominion or Thunderstone. Check online for FaQ and rules updates, and go with the theme. THEN, it is a blast. Be prepared to trip up your neighbor and hope he gets eaten first, if things look bleak for you. Throw a sandwich, fire on a stick, and maybe even your daughter at the horde, to save your own skin…lol. It’s all in fun, and my daughter and I at least have a blast with it. I hope to reintroduce it to my gaming group one of these days.
One of the new members said it best – it’s not called “KILL ALL ZOMBIES!!!” It’s called “Eaten By Zombies”. You are just trying to make sure you are the last to become lunch!