Brains! Braaaains... Brrrainsss!

Zombie Walk Missed

So, despite the fact that I still have my costume from last Hallowe'en and had been planning to participate since I missed the Zombie Walk again... I had been thinking it was monday and I wouldn't be able to participate again... but then I saw on the sunday evening news that it had happened sunday the 22nd... *sigh* ... Missed opportunities.

Benjie's Late-October Gathering - RE: Zombies!!!

So, I'm having a party-ish thing on Saturday the 28th (if you havn't been invited email me/assume you are invited... if I have never met you and you know where I live and show up... kindly don't take this as an invitation to murder me in my sleep) and at this party I intend for us (among other things) to play agame called " Zombies!!!".  Now it has been insinuated in the past that I play games unfairly by knowing all the rules and only revealing them when it is profitable to me.  I feel this is unfair as the rules of the game are 2 sides of a half sheet of paper and half of that again is flavour text, and I always offer people the opportunity to read them before the game starts.  So what I will do first of all is provide you with the rules to study, at your leisure, before coming so there will be no excuse for those who don't want to know how to play.  Another reason for me to post these rules is because I would like to make some additions and changes, house-rules if you will, that Rob and I have come up with due to the fact that many people find this game "Long and Boreing".

 

Firstly the orriginal rules can be found at this location, and the rules for the Zombie Corps(e) expansion can be found here. I don't expect you to read them in advance, but in the case of disputes there are helpful FAQ for both the orriginal and the expansion available aswell.

 

Now here are the modified core rules to make the game faster and exciting.

 

A "Round" is a series of player "Turns"

 

A Turn Starts When a player draws a tile or card, and ends when the player discards a card or declares it to be over and no-one has an immediate objection (this is basically what it says in the rules but I like to make it very clear).  This means that if someone goes to discard a card or calls their turn over and another player sais, "Wait I play this card before your turn ends," they can play the card and resolve it's effects before the acctual turn end... in general, if the next player has done any actions (aka drawn a card) the option to "Oh Wait" is negated... this encourages people to be jerks and play faster wich should speed things up.

 

You may play 1 card during your turn, and may discard 1 card at the end of your turn, this is normal.  However to make things interesting during other players turns you may play 1 card on another persons turn aswell.  One on turn card, one off turn card... this does not mean you get two off turn cards if you don't use your on turn card. This allows people

 

Because of the extra card to play you get to have 4 cards in your hand... during the draw phase you may draw up to 3 cards, as long as you don't end up with more then 4 cards in your hand (aka if you have 0 cards you draw 3, if you have 1 you draw 3, if you have 2 you draw 2, 3 draws 1, 4 draws 0)... this lets you save good cards while cycling the other cards.

 

You only roll the movement die ONCE... this is your movement and zombie movement roll... those 10 seconds less each turn and the ability to think about your zombie movement while you take your normal turn should speed things up. in a game where 100 or more turns go by before the end of the game (typical of matches with more then 3 players), this minor change really helps move along the pace of the game.

 

Glow-inthe-dark Super-Zombies can hop over other zombies when they do their double move... official rules get them stuck behind the other zombies which basically makes them really easy to avoid and not nearly cool enough... they basically get ignored and are a waste of space.

 

The normal/boring strait pieces from the orriginal set are excluded... they make the cool buildings be too far away from eachother.

 

When you go to draw a tile you draw both a base and a normal tile, you play the normal tile and keep the base tile.  When the base entrance gate is drawn (shuffled into the top of the normal draw pile), on each persons turn for that round people will play their base pieces all at once... then drawing goes back to the way it was described in the expansion rules (choose a draw pile, play one card)... this will usually make the base, including the helipad, show up all in the same round, which will usually mean anyone who isn't trying to kill 25 Zombies will all start racing towards the Base Helipad right away.

 

Basically All this stuff, while it took a while to read is pretty simple and fit's in nicely with the current rules... aside from the 4 cards thing we've played with these modified rules before and they worked pretty well... not all at the same time but I'll try to bug rob into playing another test game.

 

The Rules As Of Now

 

Setup:

You have all the cards in their own pile on the table cause I put them there... , remove a cross piece and a straight piece from the standard set and put aside, remove the rest of the strait pieces from play, the draw piles are shuffled, the gate entrance is shuffled into the top half of the orriginal draw pile, the helipads are placed at the botom of their respective piles.

 

Place the Town Square tile in the center of the board, and each players shot-gun guy in the center of the Town Square tile.  Players do something to determine turn order, usually either rolling dice, rock-scissors-paper, or Super Smash Bros. Melee Tournament Standings.

 

Each Turn:

Note: At anytime during anyone's turn, any player may play a card, you get one in turn card and one other persons turn card for each turn.

 

IF the Military Base Tile has not been Place {

- Draw a Normal Tile Card and a Base Tile Card

- Keep the Base Tile face down in front

- Place the Normal Tile and neccessary Zombies/Bullets/Hearts in a legal position (roads must line up with other roads)

  - Follow the instructions for specific cards aka helipads and the Base Entrance Gate

}

IF the Military Base Tile has been Placed This Round {

- Place the Miltary base tiles you have already collected instead of drawing, in a legal position, one at a time, placeing Zombies/Bullets/Hearts as you put down each card.

}

IF the Military Base Tile has been Placed in a Previouse Round {

- Draw either a Normal Tile Card OR a Base Tile Card

- Place the Drawn Tile and neccessary Zombies/Bullets/Hearts in a legal position.

}

 

Draw up to 3 cards, not to exceed 4 cards in your hand.

 

IF Your shot-gun Guy is on a space occupied by a Zombie, roll the die to kill the Zombie.

 

Roll the movement Die

 

Move up to the number of spaces as your roll, rolling the die to kill any Zombies you land on.

 

Move the number of Zombies as your roll for the movement roll.

 

Discard a card if you wish.

 

Declare the end of your turn.

 

Winning:

You win the game by landing on the center square of a helicopter pad and surviving this move (aka, no zombie, killing the zombie that is there, moving there while protected by the effect of a card, or moving the zombie away from the space)... or by collecting 25 zombies

 

Combat: Roll the die, if you roll less then 4, lose a heart and reroll or pay bullets to increase your roll to 4, if you roll 4 or more you collect the Zombie.

 

Yeah... I don't know if that counts as a blog entry...

 

Heroes Tonight

 

I have a show now.  I watch it every week. I haven't had a show I cared about enough to plan my life around in a while.  They took Superheroes and Soap Operas and Funny Japanese Guys and mashed them into one show... Yay!

 

I would recomend if you have missed the beginning you find a "friend" who has recorded the other episods and "obtain" a copy of them... as the story is continueous.

 

Dinner

 

I believe it is my job to make french bread pizza for dinner tonight... hurray!

 

Chiropractic

 

The treatment seems to be going well... my weight has shifted further onto my left side... and I've started traction or something which is kinda weird... it's supposed to pre-stress my neck or something like that.

 

The End

 

Still busy reading "The Amulet of Samarkand" but when I'm done I get to move onto "The End", book 13 of the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" series... Yays!