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Sean Torrens
United States
Myrtle Beach
South Carolina
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I was fortunate to receive a "Special Advanced Airmail Copy" of this game in the mail from Mayday Games with the request that I review it on BGG "for others who are trying to make an informed decision about the game."
I got to thinking about how I would write this and came up with this blog idea. For information on me, check out the blog post entitled Reviewer Background
So what did I think about Eaten By Zombies before I played it?
Prior view of the Theme:  I don't much care for zombies. I don't like zombie movies or TV shows. I think it is unnecessarily gory and they are either very slow and dumb or very fast and powerful. The only thing that can make the genre interesting seems to be the need to add more gore.
Prior experience with Zombie Games: Zombies!!! (I rate it a 4.5), Zombie Dice (7), Last Night On Earth (8.25),
Prior view of the mechanism of Deck-Building:  I'm an admitted Fanboy for deck building games. My buddy and I are toying with an idea for one ourselves. I don't care as much for ones with less player interaction, but do like what the game achieves and watching my decisions build. Shuffling, though? Not so much.
Prior experience with Deck Building: Dominion (5.5), Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer (6.5), Puzzle Strike (7), Thunderstone (8.5), Quarriors (9)
Prior view of the mechanism of Hand Management:  I like this mechanism quite a bit and how just the quantity of choices with the card interactions allows for so many individual choices in each game and so much more replay-ability from game to game. There are just so many games (and plenty I have played) in this category that this is just a smattering of my history.
Prior experience with Hand Management: Gloom (5.5), Battlestar Galactica (6), Biblios (7), Innovation (7), Shadows Over Camelot (7.5), Cosmic Encounter (7.5), Magic: The Gathering (8), Memoir '44 (9), Pandemic (9), Macao (9), Deadlands: Doomtown (10)
Review of Eaten By Zombies
Components: ( ) This is the best card quality, packaging and overall look of any deck building game I've played yet. The card quality is on par with Pandemic, if not better. The box is a perfect storage solution and the card dividers even have extra information printed on them for the card they represent. The external look of the game box is that of an ammo box and helps with the theme of survivors of a zombie apocalypse. The randomizer cards are one of each of the actual piles, so you don't have extra randomizer cards taking up room in the box. Just put one of each of the 'Swag' piles into the randomizer pile and you are ready to go!
Artwork/Layout: ( ) Artwork on the cards are pretty good with the requisite blood spatter and splotches of muck for effect. The 'attrition/flee values' for the zombies are printed on 'directional arrow' road signs at the bottom of each card. I felt these should have been numerically left justified so that when stacking zombies in 'The Horde' the numbers are easier to read and the Horde takes up less room. Minor squabble, but there it is.
Theme: () The gameplay itself does a decent enough job of capturing the feel of survivors scavenging for supplies to fend off the inevitable onslaught. Not sure what more could have been done to make this better, but something still felt... lacking.
Rulebook/Player Aids: () The rulebook is laid out well, but needed more examples. The graphic for road signs denoting fight, flee, draw and scavenge left out the scavenge sign. The player aids that come with the game don't point out some easily overlooked points (such as where you can take Attrition from during the fight or flee "penalty phase" or how many cards must be lost when failing to fight or flee, among others).
Gameplay: ( ) I really enjoyed the refreshing ability to buy cards directly into your hand for use next turn, but that took some getting used to. I kept trying to put scavenged swag into my discard pile and then filling my hand back up from the deck! Also nice was the cards lost to attrition go back to form piles for others to buy, including YOUR starting cards. I think everyone had a bite of my sandwiches at some point.
The swag cards were not that different from each other in game effects and might not allow for very many differing gameplay interactions. Perhaps expansions would add more to the mix.
Once we got past the confusion of some of the rules and exceptions to when and where you had to take attrition from, we found the endgame to be very "Kingmaker" heavy. One player can easily decide who wins, especially in a 4 player game once one player succumbs to a Horde and can direct the Zombie Horde's abilities.
Overall Rating: () All in all, it's an above-average game. I'm not sure it's really for me, though. I didn't care too much for the theme before hand and this game didn't change that view at all. It serves as a low-level, almost entry-level, introduction to deck building games. It plays fast enough and once you get the rules and quirks down, it only gets faster. We played a full game in about 30 minutes with 4 players.
The disappointing, nearly scripted ending to the games we played didn't seem to leave a lot in the way of strategy or surprise-ending wins. If you are looking for something like that, I'd steer clear. If you are looking for the next step up from light party games (like Zombie Dice, to stay in the genre) then this game might be right up your alley. Then again alleys are never good things in zombie flicks...hmm.
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ed while I was typing it seems. 
