Before we begin this review, I'd like to take time out for a brief public service message. Now, many of you have wives and husbands who you love very much. These spouses share your dreams, your hopes and your aspirations, infinitely enriching your life. Without your spouse, your life would be an empty shell, devoid of meaning.

But in Mall of Horror, you need to stick that knife in their back, twist it a few times and then kick them over for good measure. We, the other people playing the game with you and your delightful spouse, thank you for it.

The Bits
Mall of Horror ships in a square box measuring about 1'x1'. The box itself has vacuum-formed plastic to contain the game's pieces, which include several wooden disks, some stickers, some punch-out spinners, a deck of square cards, the board, four dice, a ton of zombies, a rule book and half a box. It sounds like a lot, but the built-in container actually holds the various components very well.

The wooden disks are about a half-inch thick and come in the six player colors, three per color (with the exception of three of the colors which get four disks for the three-player variant). The included stickers are applied by the owner onto each of the disks prior to play. Not to quibble, but in this type of game, I kind of expect the stickers to have already been applied (oddly enough, I'm OK with applying stickers in wargames). The disks do the job they need to do and to be honest, probably work better for this type of game than figures would. Each disk represents one character (a gunman, a big guy, a cheerleader, and, for the 3 player game, a small child) worth a differing number of points (3, 5, 7 and 1 respectively).

The six punch-out spinners are also made of a decent sized cardboard and have held up well after numerous plays.. These are made of a larger cardboard plate and a dial that is attached through application of a plastic clip. Did I mention you need to do this yourself before playing? That said, assembly is straightforward, even for those of us who are mechanically challenged. Each plate shows the six teams available in the game around the edges of the plate and the numbers 1-6 on the body of the disk. The dial has a hole on the body aligning to the numbers and a cut out area at its top used to select the teams arrayed around the edge of the plate. Its a bit hard to describe, but the tool works well and is very accessible for most players.

The cards that come with the game are a bit odd. Each card is a fairly heavy card stock cut into a 3”x3” square. The cards have good artwork, although the fact that each card only has its artwork and the name of the card - no description, no other text - nothing. This is probably the game's biggest flaw as its amazingly hard on new players and frustrating for those who have to wait while card owners read through the rule book.

The board itself is a fold-out board that has a good thickness and lays flat without any coaxing. The artwork on the board is similar to that of the cards and works well for the theme, but is more usable than the cards in that all the rooms of the mall are clearly labeled and numbered. The rooms also have a series of pins painted on them that are used to indicate the number of characters that can be in that room at any moment.

As for the included dice, its time for a bit of hate. The four black dice included with the game are a bit on the small side (just a bit taller than the wooden discs used for characters) and feel a bit light for gaming dice. Worse than their size and weight, the pips on these dice are colored with a weak yellow paint that fades within the first few plays. At this point in my copy's life, our groups regularly ask for replacement dice when playing the game as some of the dice border on unreadable.

Saving us from the crappiness that is the dice, is the bag of zombies included in the game. These zombies (there are over 40 of the things) are a decent quality plastic and are surprisingly well sculpted given thire use in the game. To be honest, they're probably good enough to paint (and anyone who wants to paint mine is welcome to do so).

The rule book is about 8 pages long and is almost completely dedicated to rules with the occasional example. This may seem like a bit much for such a light game, but you'll cherish them for their clarity. The only complaint I really have is that the rules aren't always well laid out, making it difficult to reference specific items (in particular, the rules for each of the cards are buried in the middle of the rule book).

The half a box that's included is used by the security officer to keep his die rolls secret from the rest of the players. The problem with this box is that its a bit smaller than the cards and with the small size of the dice, its a bit difficult to use as intended. A full box might have been a better choice, although this is a minor complaint at best.

Gameplay
Mall of Horror appears to be a very cluttered, scattered game if you only look at the box and its contents. However, the actual rules have a tight pattern that is repeated throughout the game without creating a “here we go again” vibe. Each turn, all valid players search the parking lot for loot, elect a security chief, have a character run to another room (its scary in there!) and watch the newly arrived zombies devour their friends. Many of the stages of the game rely on a voting mechanism whereby the players who can vote, select from among themselves secretly using the dial and reveal their choices simultaneously. Each player gets a number of votes equal to the number of characters present (two if one of the characters is a gunman). If there is a tie, then all players can vote, but the players who aren't present only get one vote. If this second vote is a tie, then no one wins (usually; if its a vote to see who gets to be zombie chow, then the victim is chosen randomly). Also, one of the cards that can be gathered from the parking lot allows a player to get an additional vote in an election.

During the first phase, the players in the parking lot (room #4) vote to see who gets to loot the garage for new cards. The winner gets to draw two cards, keeping one and giving the other to any player of his choice. This second card creates a great bit of political wheeling and dealing and definitely makes things interesting.

The players with characters in the security room (room #5) then vote on who will get to be the security chief. The security chief is responsible for rolling the dice and is allowed to peek at the result before they are revealed to the other players (if there is no security chief, no one gets to peek). Each number rolled on the dice will result in one zombie appearing at the location with the same number. It is with this knowledge that the security chief announces where he will be moving one of his characters - he doesn't have to actually move yet, nor does he need to declare which character he is moving. The other players then secretly use their dial to indicate where they are moving a character. Once everyone has selected a destination, everyone reveals their new haven and the security chief moves a character. Each player, going clockwise from the chief, then moves one of his characters to the declared destination. If at any time a room is full, the character is moved to the parking lot instead (which has no limit).

Once all the characters are moved, the zombies are placed on the board according to the die rolls, with one additional zombie placed in the location that has the most cheerleaders (I'm afraid the only jokes I can make on this one aren't appropriate for the geek...sigh). If the zombies outnumber the characters in that location, someone becomes an after-dinner mint (the big guys with the baseball bats count as two characters). Where this gets interesting is that the players with characters in the room vote on which team has to play the part of main course. On the plus side, whenever a character becomes jerky for some lucky zombie, all the zombies at that room go away (apparently, humans taste great as opposed to being less filling). The parking lot is the one exception to these rules. In the parking lot, for each zombie present, somebody dies. Its worth noting that there are cards that allow players to hide, keep out an additional zombie, change destinations, or kill zombies, so sometimes the zombies go unfulfilled. After all this, if any room has eight or more zombies, it is permanently closed, with any zombies rolled for that room going to the parking lot.

End Game
From here, the game repeats, starting with the parking lot phase. The social dynamics caused by the voting and the potential backstabbing really prevent the game from ever feeling repetitive. Nearly every turn of the game is different, with many turns requiring each player to make hard choices around who to support, who to betray and which character to sacrifice.

The game ends when only a certain number of characters remain in play (based on the number of players), with each player's score being the sum of the point value of their surviving characters (with ties going to the players with the most cards). It seems like you should be able to see the end of the game coming without much problem, but the fact of the matter is it often sneaks up on you. The latter stages of the game can really see some significant bloodshed as the zombie counts mount.

The three player version of the game uses four characters, rather than the typical three. Ignoring the fact that the fourth character is an adorable little girl (which turns off most of our casual friends, euro-gamer and non gamer friends), the three player game just isn't as good. For me, it doesn't sustain the same level of suspense and betrayal and I generally won't pull it out if there are only three players available.

Also, if players aren't willing to play to win, or are afraid of angering someone (say a spouse), the game can rapidly become aggravating. This is true for nearly any game of this type, but it seems more noticeable in this title and has led me to not pull the game out when I know certain players will be involved.

I've played this game with a good range of ages, teenager and up. The game's rules are accessible for younger players, but the artwork in the game is fairly blood-ridden and might make some parents a bit uncomfortable about playing with their children (our children don't play the game, but think the concept is amusing...further proof that they are mine...). The game's rules are simple enough that the game is very popular with my non-gamer friends, as well as hard core gamers and eurogamers. Those who trend towards causal games usually aren't as keen on this one because of the bloodthirsty, backstabbing, paranoia-inducing (i.e. fun) nature of the game.

Bang for the Buck
I picked this one up for retail at my FLGS for about $50. Given the number of plays, good quality on most of the components and amount of fun I still have with this one, I think it was definitely worth it. If Asmodee would put some decent dice in the game and clean-up the rule book, it would probably be an absolute slam dunk.

Overall
This is a great game overall. Ignoring the few quibbles about the dice and the rule book, its a smooth playing game that's easy to get into. After eight months, this one gets pulled out about once a month and is one of the few titles that actually gets requested by a good cross-section of people playing at our games day events. Heck, I have yet to win the game, and its still one that I pull out whenever there's a lull in picking a game. I recommend this one highly, especially if you've got a diverse group of players who don't mind a little blood-letting.

Disclaimers
Time Owned: 8 months Number of Plays: 8
Ages Played With: 18-40 Player Counts: 3, 4, 5, 6