Game: Zombies!!! 4: The End...

Thread: No seperate entry for 2nd Edition?

maelic001 — 2008-08-28T10:58:32+00:00

Why isn't there a seperate game entry for the 2nd Edition of Z4, when the previous Z!!! games have seperate game entries for their 1st and 2nd editions? Then again, why do they have seperate entries as the changes between 1st and 2nd edition are merely graphical? There really isn't any significant rule changes between the two.

Thread: Re: 2nd Edition?

Beachhead — 2008-08-18T10:40:29+00:00

Can somebody upload Pictures of the updated Map-Tile Art from Z!!! 4 Second Edition please?

Thread: Re: Like Real Zombies, This is Slow and Plodding

Grunthos — 2008-08-11T02:57:55+00:00

Quite true, came to this game after playing a few of the previous iterationsof Zombies.
Bit of a disappointment, especially with the placement of the Cabin tile; unlike the previous versions where this tile was shuffled into the later half of the deck there was no such requirement in this version.
So when the Cabin tile comes up the game quickly devolves from there.

Thread: Like Real Zombies, This is Slow and Plodding

trebro — 2008-08-11T00:16:00+00:00

I should mention that while the statistics don't show it, I've played this game and some of the other Zombies!!! games several times, so this is not based on one game played.

Zombies!!! 4 features a host of Cujos ready to attack the unwary traveler who just wanted to get to a cabin in the woods and recite a spell to turn them back into Lassies. If he or she can't do that, killing 25 puppies brings the wrath of Zombie Bob Barker but also the title of victory.

Players, on their turn, flip a tile to create the board (which is actually a problem, more on that later), place zombie dogs and maybe also some bullets and health, get new cards, and then move about the woods, trying to reach the cabin.

If they want to, they can play a card. If they face a zombie dog on their square, they must try to kill it, on a roll of 5 or 6 only. If they fail to roll right, they can use a bullet to kill the dog or just sacrifice half a life to try again. You see, these dogs only scratch, rather than bite. Once the dog or dogs are killed (players keep them to try and reach the goal of 25), they can then move based on a dice roll, fight more dogs if need-be, and then move the dogs either out of their way or towards their fellow players. Dogs move up to 2 squares and 2 dogs can occupy the same spot.

Don't like a card? At end of turn, you can ditch 1 and 1 only.
Didn't get away from a dog? Die the death and return to start, with half your dogs, no face up cards, and base health and bullets (3 of each).

The cards do many things--you can use them to help yourself (teleport, swing from the trees, gain weapons), hurt others (move them about, move dogs to them, etc.), or prepare the spell in the cabin. Because you only get 3 cards at a time to play, however, deciding between keeping for the right moment or cycling for more helpful cards right now is part of the strategy.

It all sounds pretty good, until you sit down to play.

Because there's almost no rules about tile placement, after the cabin shows up, each player tries hard to take and expand the game as far away from the goal as possible, to keep the dogs at bay. Essentially, the mechanic is useless once the cabin is there, as the added stuff and dogs are for the most part ignored. A main game mechanic should not be so easily dismissed, especially since theoretically it could be dismissed as early as the first turn! Unlike those set in a city, there's no way to force the tiles to be played as part of the goal.

Secondly, the dogs themselves are not something to be encountered if at all possible. A zombie game should make the player attack the zombies. This one, with the double movement and the ability to place new tiles anywhere, actually makes it more of a racing game--how far away can you keep the zombie dogs. And the dogs placed on tiles that came out after the cabin may as well be left unplayed. They're more likely to get accidentally knocked by the dice than by a player.

Because the dogs are harder to kill, this game added a 1/2 heart system. You'd think these two would balance, but they don't. In the end, fighting a zombie dog can be more of an annoyance than fun. "Oh crap, I had to roll 5 times on that one damned dog," is a statement heard far too often. Bullets aren't all that useful when you'd blow through them by playing on a rolled 3.

Lastly, and perhaps most annoyingly, the spell book pages make the game's ending a total matter of luck. No one is going to use the powers of the book in the main game, when keeping them aids in the final dice roll. But since you can't do anything to increase your chances of getting pages--other than card cycling, and even then it's random--whether or not you win is not a matter of just managing to get a little lucky with your zombie fights, now it's a matter of did you get lucky in drawing cards, too.

I realize that these games are meant to be light and fun. And for the first twenty minutes or so, this game is fun. But once the dice have led to several deaths and you're putting out yet another useless tile, it's a lot less fun. I'd left this unplayed for a fairly long time, and now I see why. It's really only good for scratching a zombie itch, and if you have one of the other, earlier editions, there's not much point in playing this one. I'd call this a fair time-filler at best, and that's just not something I'd be willing to recommend.

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Steve56 — 2008-07-20T14:11:19+00:00

German Edition: Höllenhunde

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CovertDad — 2008-04-07T22:38:55+00:00

Scan of Zombies!!! 4 Cover

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Ceryon — 2008-04-03T00:42:58+00:00

So many dogs

Thread: Expansion / Not an Expansion

skelebone — 2008-03-30T18:12:30+00:00

I've changed the entry for this game to remove the "Expansion for Base-Game" category. This was done primarily because the BGG system is programmed only to rank games, and not expansions (there is similar programming also yields a separate ranked list for all games categorized as "Wargame"); and because this game is stand-alone playable (though it can be incorporated into other games in the Zombies!!! canon. For now, I will put a link in the game description noting that it is an expansion of Zombies!!!, but it will not have an "Expansion for Base-Game" category.

Thread: Re: 2nd Edition?

Apparatus — 2008-01-22T15:52:13+00:00

Its due out March 2008 according to:

http://www.twilightcreationsinc.com/onthehorizon.php

Thread: Re: 2nd Edition?

bknightsb — 2007-07-18T17:22:32+00:00

No, not available yet as a 2nd edition!

Thread: 2nd Edition?

jcb231 — 2007-07-18T15:02:47+00:00

Does anyone know if the second edition of this is out yet? The one that matches the Director's Cut version of the game?

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BuddhaPhi — 2007-07-15T04:52:18+00:00

Zombies 4 (and some other expansions) in play at Origins 2007

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por666 — 2007-06-23T22:23:58+00:00

Thread: Re: Weird scenes inside the gold mine

UniversalHead — 2007-06-04T05:16:52+00:00

Verbalcody wrote:
YES, FLACK!

heh!

Thread: Re: Weird scenes inside the gold mine

Verbalcody — 2007-06-01T19:25:21+00:00

in all fairness to my ratings system, 8/10 brains is nowhere near as good a score as 2/7 spells in runebound or even 5/14 hairy potters in tigris and euphrates

YES, FLACK!

Thread: Re: Weird scenes inside the gold mine

Surya — 2007-05-29T09:17:03+00:00

8/10 for the components? OK, the plastic dogs are cool, but the cards get wear quite fast, their quality could be better. The biggest problem are the tiles: they are so thin they don't stay in place. They should be thick cardboard stock, not card stock.
Oh, and the tokens are fairly thin too.

Thread: Re: Weird scenes inside the gold mine

UniversalHead — 2007-05-27T22:58:27+00:00

It gets a lot of slack

Flack?

Thread: Weird scenes inside the gold mine

Verbalcody — 2007-05-27T20:56:51+00:00

ZOMBIES!!!
Well if you look at my ratings you will notice that I am quite a fan of this series. It gets a lot of slack from the community because of the screw your neighbour factor and length of play but for one, length of play in the series isnt half as bad as people make it out to be, and screw your neighbour? That's the *BEST* part!

I am going to review the first and only stand alone expansion in the series. Zombies!!! 4: the end. This is of course not the end, because I do own zombies!!! 5 and have 6 pre-ordered but anyway, lets get on with it.

Components
Twilight creations, I believe, give you some of the best 'bang for your buck' components in the industry. This set cost me 16 bucks Canadian and comes with a really cool "widescream" edition box, beautifully printed tiles and cards whose artwork is hilarious, and a bag of 100 zombie dog figurines. 16 bucks! Can't beat that.
The cards for the Zombies!!! series are hands down the best board game cards ever printed and this set adds 50 more with hilarious captions, hilarious artwork, and hilarious abilities. Also the cards and figures are interchangable with other games in the series. My collection is up to somewhere around 400 zombie miniatures. Awesome.
Score 8/10 brains

Gameplay
Hilarious. That's what this series is about. You're not getting much in terms of depth. heck you're not getting anything. You lay tiles down, put undead creatures of the night on them, and stumble your way through the cabin with your starting gun and anything else you may pick up along the way including pages of the dead which will help you undo the zombie spell and send them all back to... well, college i guess as that's the theme for the next game in the series.
This game has my favorite tiles in the entire series. I love the plain woods tiles, which are open on all sides, making it really feel like you are lost in the woods. The other advantage is that in this game for a change every tile is adjacent to every other one so you don't end up with weird layouts or dead ends.
The game is fast as always, with no downtime. In our session nobody died and I won on zombies while someone else was in the cabin. 3 players = about 40 minutes of fun.
The core mechanics are the same - Kill zombies until you get 25 to win. Play weapons and abilities, steal weapons from other players, shoot shoot shoot and run. It's all in good fun and if you have a group of younger or drunker people you're going to have a blast.
Score6/9 Romaro movies

Longevity
Shelf life of the game is going to be sporatic. We loved the hell out of Zombies!!! when we first got it, played every night for 4 or 5 nights, then once a week, then it was shelved until I bought some expansions, and it was fun again, then shelved until more expansions and you will likely experience the same thing. Great game but very very repetitive. This will still hit your table for a laugh once every month, or when you have new players over who will be obviously curious about Zombie games.
2/5 Cujo's

Final whatever
If you love the series as I do, its a no brainer

get it? BWA HAHAHA

anyway, if you don't care for the series or find it's getting old, this is not going to be enough to make you want to play it again so you're going to want to pass on it.
If you're new to the series, I recommend picking this game up first actually, before the first one, since it plays a bit quicker.

So there you have it

final verdict

16/24 piles of dead rotting flesh

Thread: Re: Not quite the end

SliverXII — 2007-01-28T21:01:35+00:00

PandaGamer wrote:
The rulebook found on the official Twilight Creation Inc. homepage clearly states: (first sentence on page 2)

The winning condition is making it to the cabin, clearing all zombies
performing the spell or killing 25 zombies (dogs or normal).

Oddly enough I was looking under the heading Winning the game, where it is not listed. My mistake...I guess...

Thread: Re: Not quite the end

PandaGamer — 2007-01-28T12:59:00+00:00

The rulebook found on the official Twilight Creation Inc. homepage clearly states: (first sentence on page 2)

The winning condition is making it to the cabin, clearing all zombies
performing the spell or killing 25 zombies (dogs or normal).

Thread: Re: Not quite the end

SliverXII — 2007-01-28T12:31:43+00:00

mib668 wrote:
The object of the game is to be the first player to either kill 25 zombie dogs or to reach the cabin and csst the spell (by rolling a d6).

There is no mention of killing 25 dogs being a victory condition in the rules. This actually makes using it as an expansion with the base a little awkward in my opinion.

Thread: Not quite the end

sdonohue — 2007-01-28T06:12:10+00:00

Disclosure: I am on the publisher's comp list and received this game from them free.

First Look
This is a new version of Zombies!!! set in the woods. It is a new base base game, meaning you can play it without owning Zombies!!!.

Components
30 Map Tiles, 50 Card Event Deck, 100 Plastic Zombie Dogs, 6 Plastic Shotgun Guys (in new colors), Red Heart Tokens, Black Bullet Tokens, 2 Dice, Instructions.
The components are of the usual high quality found with Twilight Creations. There are enough parts that some work is needed to fit the lid back on the box. In short, there is plenty inside the box.

Game Play
The game play is very simple. On your turn, you turn over and place a map tile, fight any zombie dogs on your square, draw back up to three event cards, roll a 6 sider for movement, move up to that many spaces (fighting zombie dogs and collecting hearts and bullets as you go), roll a d6 to move that many zombie dogs one or two spaces each and then discard a card if you'd like.
For the most part, you can play an event card any time you'd like, but only once for each round of the table (so if you play a card on your turn, you can't play another until your turn again. If you play one on another player's turn, you still can't play one until YOUR next turn.
The object of the game is to be the first player to either kill 25 zombie dogs or to reach the cabin and csst the spell (by rolling a d6).

Changes from Zombies!!!
There are a few changes, mostly related to the dogs. The dogs can move either 1 or 2 spaces and up to 2 dogs may share a square. The dogs can only be defeated on a 5 or 6 (instead of 4,5, or 6 for Zombies!!!) and they only hit for 1/2 heart of damage each time. That said, they are tougher to beat than the regular zombies!!! and getting a weapon is critcal in the game.

Strengths
The gameplay is very simple and easy to explain.
The game is very visual, with good art and tons of pieces.
The new pawns is new colors is a great idea, allowing 12 player Zombies!!! games.
The card mix is better than in the original game, with comparatively fewer cards to stop your rivals from winning and more to help you win.
The tiles are less restrictive, meaning more tiles can be played in more places.
The system is simple and everyone is sure they can fix it.

Weaknesses
The game doesn't offer a lot of strategic choices.
Many people have trouble identifying the "Book of the Dead" pages, which have a different background than other cards.
The system is simple and everyone is sure they can fix it.

Overall
Zombies 4: The End is a worthy addition to the Zombies!!! line up. That said, if you've always hated Zombies!!! this probably won't change your mind. It is a good game and lots of fun even as a standalone. You can also combine the bridge with original to use this as an expansion.

Thread: Re: Mixing Doggy Zombies and Human Zombies?

SliverXII — 2007-01-20T16:44:20+00:00

While we were playing Zombies!!! 4 last night, I wanted to allow human zombies on the board as well. We were not using any other zombies expansions. So we decide since many of the Z4 cards specifically mentioned the dogs, half(rounded up) of the zombies you placed when drawing a tile had to be dogs, the others were up to you. I felt this worked pretty well.

Thread: Trouble in the woods...

SliverXII — 2007-01-20T00:12:53+00:00

Q. and I found ourselves with the car broke down near a rickety bridge. Through the woods, we could vaguely make out some buildings and thought that was our best shot for help...we were wrong. Shortly after crossing the bridge we were separated by some decayed people and some sickly looking dogs. Q. decided after a couple of bites to look for help in the nearby boathouse, while I wandered looking for any sign of help.

Q. found a spear and some first aid, but it wasn't long and he was waking up on the rickety bridge again. I eventually found a cave with some supplies and I also found a strange amulet in an area full of broken down cars.

So far the experience has been rough, we both get to the edge of death and fight our way back to some supplies and find some way to get our strength back. We were also finding strange pages from an old tattered book. I had found 2 and Q. had found 2, but had lost them when he woke up on the bridge. Eventually I found a cabin and felt compelled to read the poages after I had cleared out the baddies. The trouble was over, except that we still had a broken down car on just the other side of the bridge...

The game was played by removing 5 plain woods tiles. We also allowed regular zombies to be used, but when placing zombies on a tile we required that 1/2 rounded up must be zombie dogs since there are many cards that refer specifically to them. Play time was about an hour, slightly distracted by conversation in the coffee house.

Thread: Making an expansion out of this expansion

ccarlet1 — 2006-12-22T03:15:23+00:00

My interest in the Zombie series has been rekindled lately by playing the expansions by themselves, with just my wife and I. The expansions are very quick, and down and dirty by themselves with just half of the 3.5 deck.

We tried the core game with shuffling in the heli-pad in the bottom half and that worked well too.

So we hadn't played Zombies 4 in quite a while, and never with 2, so we tried it.

First game

One of the big differences with the zombie dogs is that you can place them two to a square, and that it takes a 5 or 6 to kill them. To compensate for that, there is a lot more open space in this expansion than on the streets of the other expansions. However, as our first game unfolded, we discovered that there were 17 open woods tiles in the game.

By unspoken mutual consent, we tended to put all the woods on side on the board just to get them out of the way, so we could get to the good stuff. With two players, there just were too many of them.

There were, however, some very good cards. Penny played a spear card and made good use of it. The weapon cards in this expansion usually just require you to be on a named tile.

My wife also got the sickle card, which is also very good because you get plus one on one dog and can move the other one to an adjacent square. Nevertheless, she was killed twice. With so many dogs around in the empty woods, you could really harass your opponent.

Penny did play the "Werewolf" card on me and sent me back to the bridge, but I was back in the woods in no time, and killed 25 dogs before the cabin even came out (we had shuffled it into the bottom half of the deck, but it was the last card.

Second Game

We decided that this expansion needed to be modified to match the kind of play we were getting from the other expansions being played as stand alones.

So we took out ten of the woods tiles and shuffled the cabin in. If it was the first tile out, so be it.

This played much better. Knowing that the cabin could come up at any time, we discarded every chance we got so that we would have pages when the cabin did appear.

There are some good cards in this expansion, and we played as many as we could. "Monkeys are Funny" was very useful to get through the woods and into the buildings. We each also played "Fully Loaded" which allowed us to match our opponent's bullet and life supply. This is a good card to balance things out and keep the game flowing.

The cabin came out about 2/3 into the deck. We were tied for pages so we rolled and my wife won. Of course she placed the cabin very close to her. I was on the far side of the board. I fought my way to the cabin, hoping that Penny would do all the work killing the dogs before I got there.

I played the "Return to Sender" page card, planning to get Penny out of the cabin on my next turn. She then played "We're all Friends Here," and took that page card! ARRRRRGGGGGH!

Well, she then had five page cards and an empty cabin--she rolled a one and won.

Removing ten of the open woods tiles, and shuffling the cabin gave this expansion a great boost for a two player match. It felt tense and fast, just like playing the expansions as stand alones.

Morever, the cabin is a different kind of endgame, and that tile can come up very early and the game is still on as you have to clear the cabin and get the right roll.

We will definitely try this variant again.

Thread: Re: Dogs vs. Humans and Heart tokens...

SliverXII — 2006-06-02T11:12:51+00:00

As far as running out of dogs, you could swap out regular zombies for dogs that are in the players collections since the dogs in the collections are essentially just counters to see who reaches 25 first.

Thread: Re: Dogs vs. Humans and Heart tokens...

cdefrisco — 2006-06-01T15:43:42+00:00

Thanks Steve. That's pretty much what we decided/agreed upon. Good to get confirmation.

Thread: Re: Dogs vs. Humans and Heart tokens...

sdonohue — 2006-05-31T03:51:26+00:00

cdefrisco wrote:
1. When a card indicates zombie dogs (i.e. populate the pet cemetary with zombie dogs...)and there are no zombie dogs left in the supply, but there are normal zombies: A. Can you use normal zombies instead? and B. Should you use normal zombies but use them like dogs (i.e. half-heart and 5,6 to hit)? We went back and forth on these with no real resolution.

I don't think there would be an official answer to this. Now that you know the problem could come up you could make an agreement before the game starts. I think if I did place a zombie, I'd make it a normal zombie just so there isn't confusion later. You could also consider swapping out dead zombies (of either type) for some sort of marker or you could buy an additional bag of dogs.

cdefrisco wrote:
2. Your character just expended his last heart token. Is he dead at that moment, or is he dead on his next lost roll?

The official rules say you're dead when you run out of heart tokens. I've seen many people play (and explain) the game as "a heart buys you a reroll", but that's not really what the rules say. I don't think it makes a substantial difference in game play, so I'd say whatever your group agrees on would be good.

Thread: Dogs vs. Humans and Heart tokens...

cdefrisco — 2006-05-30T22:02:35+00:00

We've played zombies a number of times now, but over the weekend we combined Zombie dogs with the original for a double-sized game.

A few arguments ensued over these two issues:
1. When a card indicates zombie dogs (i.e. populate the pet cemetary with zombie dogs...)and there are no zombie dogs left in the supply, but there are normal zombies: A. Can you use normal zombies instead? and B. Should you use normal zombies but use them like dogs (i.e. half-heart and 5,6 to hit)? We went back and forth on these with no real resolution.

2. Your character just expended his last heart token. Is he dead at that moment, or is he dead on his next lost roll?

Thread: Re: How many dogs can go on the cabin card???

RichardC — 2006-04-25T10:47:53+00:00

Oh, OK thanks...I guess I should have read the rules a little better....

Thread: Re: How many dogs can go on the cabin card???

SliverXII — 2006-04-25T03:19:17+00:00

The rules say that the dogs may be placed in buildings. They are not restricted to buildings like the other Zombies!!! expansions, only life and bullet tokens must be placed in the building. So the 9th dog acn be anywhere on that tile outside of the cabin. At least that is how I understand the rules.

-Mike

Thread: How many dogs can go on the cabin card???

RichardC — 2006-04-24T16:59:03+00:00

the rules state that up to two zombie dogs can be put on a square..but the tile for the cabin has 9 for the number of zombie dogs written on it but only 4 squares, hence 8 zombie dogs...is this a typo..or if not, where does the 9 dog go??

Thanks

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zombiegod — 2005-12-28T02:29:04+00:00

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Surya — 2005-11-02T20:32:25+00:00

You don't wanna be the green guy here, with only 1 bullit and one life token left. Guess what? She died

Thread: Re: User Review

DiverB — 2005-08-07T22:59:33+00:00

the first time you run through a corridor and they smash through the window surely caused thousands of gamers to drop their pads in shock - myself included!

Drop their pads? The first time that happened to ME, I THREW my pad up in the air with a "WAAAAA!!!"

Todd

Thread: Re:Question on Page Cards

Alphawolf — 2005-04-22T05:17:51+00:00

bobm174 (#452619),

So here is the answer I promised:

Your are right in the way you use this cards:

- You place these "book pages (page cards)" in front of you. Like weapon-cards.
- If you use the effect of the "page" - card against another player, the card goes back to the pile.
- If you enter the cabin and, taking your example, have two pages cards in front of you, you need to roll a 4 or better.

The way I understand the rules (Winning the game) and that's how we play it, is, that, if you roll for example in your turn a 1, you are not able to perform the spell. In your next turn (if your still alive and in the cabin) you have another try. If you roll a 4 or better, you win. You can use the "pages" as long as you want - until you suceed or use their "effect" against another player.

Due to the fact that this game is open for house-rules you might play it in the way that you have only one try and then the cards go back to the pile. But this would lead to a much longer game. Experience shows that usually (if you play with more than one person) the others would use every card they have against you if you are in the cabin or attacking you with zombies or dogs or (if you use this rule) try to shoot you down.

House - rules and the large amount of cards (we mix them all together if time allows) makes this so exciting for us / me. I can hardly wait until the skeletons arrive.

Hope this helps / clears the thing for you.

Thanks for asking.

Alphawolf

Thread: Re:Mixing Doggy Zombies and Human Zombies?

docwhat — 2005-03-15T02:05:59+00:00

Da Black Gobo (#90793),

Nifty. Thanks. Doggies of doom! Bwuahahahaha.

Ciao!

Thread: Question on Page Cards

bobm174 — 2005-03-13T23:10:19+00:00

I understand that if you put your spell cards
in play (up to one per round) you can save them
until the end when you reach the cabin and the number
of cards you have will decrease the die roll of 6 required by one per card.

So if you have 2 spell cards at the end and role a 3, then next turn do you only have to role a 4 or greater again or do you only have one chance to use these spell cards at the end to reduce the die roll required?

Thread: Re:Mixing Doggy Zombies and Human Zombies?

Da Black Gobo — 2005-02-28T05:43:56+00:00

docwhat (#90750), You sure can, and the rule book covers that. It also is completely compatible with the other zombie games.

Sean

Thread: Mixing Doggy Zombies and Human Zombies?

docwhat — 2005-02-28T03:23:53+00:00

I read the reviews. None of them mentioned if the game could play with Human zombies combined or not. Are there any rules for mixing the Doggies into the older games or Humans into this one?

Ciao!

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Walt Mulder — 2004-08-03T02:00:48+00:00

Thread: Re:User Review

RaistlinMajere — 2004-07-21T22:38:21+00:00

zombiemonkey wrote:

They do however, provide the first and arguably best scare of the entire Resident Evil series - the first time you run through a corridor and they smash through the window surely caused thousands of gamers to drop their pads in shock - myself included!

Eheh, every Bio Hazard player will remember that scene!

Thread: Re:User Review

zombiemonkey — 2004-07-19T11:44:58+00:00

HBGlover (#44734),

You're right - the zombie dogs are quite prevalent in Resident Evil, and this is where the idea originates. They are the first enemy you come up against in the first game, and although they aren't quite as common as the human zombies, they are pretty memorable. They do however, provide the first and arguably best scare of the entire Resident Evil series - the first time you run through a corridor and they smash through the window surely caused thousands of gamers to drop their pads in shock - myself included!

Thread: Re:User Review

HBGlover — 2004-07-11T23:05:32+00:00

robartin (#44069),

I'm pretty sure the zombie dogs come from the Resident Evil series of games and movies. In the games I've played, and in the first movie, zombie dogs are about as common as zombie humans. They are actually pretty scary since they're naturally well equipped for killing.

Thread: User Review

robartin — 2004-07-09T20:26:50+00:00

Zombies!!! 4 is a new standalone expansion to the Zombies!!! line of games. This means that you don't need the original game to play this latest chapter in the story. So how does the game compare to the original?

Theme
This expansion takes the story in a different direction, leaving the town, mall, and army base of the previous chapters behind and heading for the forest. Instead of human zombies, we're fighting dog zombies this time around. I have no idea where they got this idea - the closest thing I've seen to a zombie dog is a sort of demon dog in the movie Hellraiser 4.

Components
In trademark Twilight Creations fashion, you get a whole pile of awesome components for a reasonable price. Since this is a stand-alone expansion, you get 6 new shotgun guys in all new colors, 100 plastic zombie dogs, a new deck of cards, a new deck of tiles, 2 dice, and a sheet of bullet, heart, and half heart counters. Everything is up to the same amazingly high standards set by the original game in the series. The zombie dogs are particularly cool looking, and will reportedly be released as a Bag-O-Zombies also at some point.

Gameplay Changes
I'm not going to review the gameplay in detail, because it's very similar to the original Zombies game with just a few changes. I'll highlight those here instead.

The first big difference is that the tiles can be placed basically anywhere because there are no roads. Most tiles are just grass and trees, so you don't have to worry about connecting roads together any more. This gives the board an even more freeform feel, and players are pretty much free to go anywhere that they want to.

Next, the zombie dogs are different than the human zombies. First off, two of them can share a space. Also, they're harder to hit - players need a 5 or 6 to hit a zombie dog instead of the 4,5,6 that can hit a human zombie. This is balanced by the fact that zombie dogs only do 1/2 heart of damage. This I think breaks with a theme a bit - I'm thinking a zombie dog could do some pretty serious damage with its teeth, but it's really the only way to balance the increased difficulty in hitting them. Finally, zombie dogs can move 2 spaces instead of just one like their human counterparts.

The other change from the original game is the end-game. In Zombies 4, the objective is to get to the Cabin tile and recite a spell to send the zombies back to Hell. In gameplay terms, this means getting to the Cabin, killing all the zombies in it, and rolling a die. If you roll a 6, you've disspelled the evil. Luckily, there is a way to make this easier. The deck of cards contains a new type of card that represent pages of the Book of the Dead (Evil Dead anyone?). These are played like Weapons in the original game. For each page you have in play when you attempt the spell, you can add one to your roll. The other interesting thing about these cards is that they can be discarded to activate event card-like powers that often provide your player with some help. So you have a choice of hanging on to the cards for the end-game or using them during the game to give yourself an advantage.

Overall
Zombies!!! 4 is another good addition to the Zombies!!! line. Probably any fan of the original game will want to buy this. Similar to the previous expansions, this one really doesn't make a new game out of the Zombies concept. It tweaks a few rules here and there, but mostly it's a change of scenery.

Still, the basic game is solid enough that its fans will appreciate the expanded possibilities. If you're considering this game versus the original, I still recommend the original. I think it plays a bit better and has better card artwork. Overall, this is a worthy addition to the lineup, but it's nothing revolutionary. On that note, I understand that this is not "The End" as the title would imply, but it is the end of the Zombies game as we know it. Sounds like the series will be taking a new direction in the future, which should be interesting

Thread: User Review

JoystickJunkies — 2004-07-09T20:23:25+00:00

Zombies!!! has been a really enjoyable series of games so it was great to finally see just one copy waiting there on the shelf ready to be snatched up...

Production Quality:

A top job all round - fantastic card art by Dave Aikins, great plastic pieces, another 6 shotguns guys in different colours, 100 zombies dawgs paw out ready for action and a load of tiles covering the forest and places of interest.

Initial Impressions:

Lots in the box, everythings included, nice packaging and the usual simple rules. Good value for money - even at our inflated UK prices!

Setting:

You've hacked and shot your way through legions of Zombies in pursuit of the mystery behind the terror plaguing the earth and this has led you to the old forest. It's a mix of Evil Dead, Blair Witch and the ol' Zombies genre. There's some nice touches of humour, as always, and it gives the series a nice balance - previous episodes have done the military base, the shopping mall and of course town so this more magic orientated one was just waiting in the wings, gibbering I suspect...oh look you've got drool on me..please!

Essentially you start on the old rickety bridge and move around the forest hoping to find a cabin where you must perform a spell to stop the dead rising. It's just crying out for a chainsaw guy but hey that might be pushing it...

Question - assume this just stops them rising - does it kill all the dead already risen?! :-)

Playing Comments

I'm not going to describe the rules in much depth - other reviewers probably will. Needless to say the Zombies!!! game system is simple, easy to learn and there's tons of extra ideas posted by people on the official site. TwilightCreationsinc.com. Okay on with the comments...

Whilst in the basic version of the game set in a town you are funneled through zombies and have to attack them, here you are generally able to dodge around the zombie dogs. After about the 6th plus tile being placed there was a growing number of dogs on the board which will never be moved because there's so many and so little opportunity to move them. We also found there were too many blank forest only tiles which meant you could be moving around for a long time without finding anything of interest. Whilst in the town life and bullets are hard to come by, in this woodland version there seemed to be so many available neither of us really risked dying.

I'm not going to turn this in to a gripe though - dah! If you don't like what's happening, it's simple - remove some blank forest tiles and if you're feeling hard then maybe roll 2D6 for the number of zombie dogs to move each turn. Try the official rules first though, who knows maybe we lucked out and got the worst combination of tiles when we played. The great thing about this game series is the designers encourage new rules and ideas and there's plenty of people doing it.

I'd also read somewhere that the tiles would show pathways through the woods which could be turned around by use of the cards to impede your progress - this had sounded like a great idea, and I think would have added a lot to the sense of being lost in the woods. So I was a little dissapointed that this didn't seem to be the case, however the mechanics may not have added up in playtesting.

We actually played a version with the basic town set - the town square at one corner, heli pad at the other and the bridge in the middle of the table - the game - place tiles to find your way to the bridge, then go cast the spell in the woods and then find your way to the helipad. The only tile placement rule being that you must always place tiles to allow for possible routes to the helipad and bridge. Whilst a longer game (about 2 1/2 hours) the game was really enjoyable and at several times one would be ahead, then to get teleported or distracted. I'd almost lost, then nearly won and then the girlfriend, with a mischevious smile dropped right in there and won the game.

Summary

Whilst not as exciting as opening my first Zombies!!! game, what sequel ever is? Kerry and Todd from Twilight have delivered yet another great Zombies package, easy to set up, easy to play and easy to change the rules or make it up as you go along.

At the relatively cheap price tag I'd say this is a great first time game, although if you haven't purchased the first set I'd recommend getting that first. If you're been collecting Zombies!!! sets and fancy a little more action it's a good buy but be prepared to twist the rules to your own taste.

Overall I'm really impressed by Twilight, a small company with lots of awards and obviously lots of passion for their products. Top quality goods and incredibly simple and elegant rules - why can't more games companies get it right more often. They deserve a great deal of success so we can go on enjoying their unique games.

Thread: Re:Conflicting Theme

JoystickJunkies — 2004-07-02T10:02:33+00:00

hi guys,

reading through the comments here I'd suggest that the story runs true that we've tried the other sources and the weird magic stuff happening in the woods - you know the one ma' used to go on about is probably the source of the zombies - oh didn't you just hear a maniac laughing and the sound of a chainsaw...nah....

but if the magic doesn't work - good grief, get on a boat and get out of here, or hole up in some old base in the mountains or something. Check out the stories at www.raptorman.us - there's plenty of folks just trying to survive the plague there.

Personally we play Zombies!!! with a rule allowing you to move one zombie as many spaces as the die shows or up to that many zombies one space. Otherwise you tend to get zombies backwards and forwards each turn.

We also let players trade in 5 zombies for a bullet and 10 zombies for a life.

Has anyone every produced any of their own tiles? - this game is crying out for some custom maps...

ahem...and finally we look forward to getting our greedy paws on no.4 - Bbetty! fire up the chainsaw!!!!!!!

Image

Ryhesling — 2004-06-30T00:43:29+00:00

Image

Ryhesling — 2004-06-30T00:43:15+00:00

Thread: User Review

cdwalkley — 2004-06-29T23:11:13+00:00

Zombies 4 is the latest set in the popular Zombies series. Unlike the others, this expansion works as a stand alone game and actually plays quite differently to the first base-set.

There are two main differences in this set which are of great importance. Firstly, the zombies are dogs rather than human undead and, secondly, the action takes place in a forest/woodland rather than the roads (or mall corridors) of earlier sets.

The dogs work well and are a pleasant (?) change to the human zombies. There can be two dogs occupying one square, they move 2 spaces instead of one, they need a 5+ to hit them and they only do half a heart damage (counters are provided to indicate this). This makes the game feel quite different to the earlier sets. I found you ran out of bullets a lot quicker and, although they hurt less, a pair of dogs in your square could be very deadly if you are out of ammo.

As the game takes place in a forest, movement is a lot more free as players are not restricted to moving along roads. This helps make gameplay quicker as you don't have to work your way though a maze to reach your target location.

There are a handful of named tiles in this set, enough to keep it interesting, and few enough to make it exciting when you turn one over. They feature 'typical' forest locations (cabins, boat houses, caves) and also a couple of more unusual ones (ritual stone circle, pet cemetery [yes, there are cards which fill it up with dogs...]). The rest of the tiles are 'empty' forest. This is actually not as dull as it sounds, as each has 1d6 zombies on it, so you never quite know what you will get...

Victory conditions are also altered, again refreshing the game. Instead of trying to make your way to a heli-pad, the objective is to find the cabin in the woods and recite the spell to de-animate the zombie horde. This is quite a neat change. You have to clear the cabin of zombies before you can make an attempt at casting (once per turn). It is simple enough, mechanic-wise, as you just need to roll a 6 on a die. However, this can be augmented by having pages of the spell book in play (+1 per page). This makes drawing cards more important and you have to think carefully about how badly you want cards in your hand when you could discard them and possibly turn up an extra page in the next card draw.

The cards are of the usual standard and humour, with some interesting new effects and weapons, and the artwork is typically semi-humorous (or is it just me...) and gruesome.

The game seems to play quite quickly and, as far as I am concerned, goes a long way to revive what is considered by some to be a increasingly mediocre series of games. The novelty factor is now revived and, although I can't see this being placed a massive amount, it is certainly good fun and the first time a Zombies set has made me feel the same excitement as I did when removing the cellophane wrap from the first.

All this just considers the game as a stand alone product. I think having a selection of human and dog zombies will make me revisit the earlier sets too.

I consider this to be the best Zombies game since the original and it makes a fun change to earlier sets as there are changes and differences which actually make the game feel fresh and new. But whether this will make disillusioned fans want to give the series another go remains to be seen...

Thread: Re:Conflicting Theme

Bozzutoman — 2004-06-27T09:01:20+00:00

zombiemonkey wrote:
treece keenes (#29911),

...I would associate the term 'zombie' to mean a reanimated dead thing, without associating it with a spritual or magical element. A word such as Ghoul would be something I associate more with a mystical slant than science fiction.

I'd like to point out that the newscaster in NotLD refers to them as ghouls. Which is actually a more appropriate name, technically speaking. Ghouls are traditionally necrophages, whereas zombies are just animated servants.

Nonetheless, the source of infection—science or magic—is intertwined. As Aurthur Clarke frequently says, any sufficiently advanced science will appear to be magic.

Thread: Re:Conflicting Theme

maelic001 — 2004-06-26T05:01:53+00:00

From the rulebook:

"Well, you've made it! You have escaped the town, fought the uber-zombies at the military base and searched the mall for the source of the zombie scourge. All of your hard work has paid off and now you stand here in the dark and lonely wood. Don't worry about that howling in the distance. It's probably nothing. Who ever heard of a zombie dog anyway...

The goal of Zombies!!! 4: The End is to be the first player to successfully "undo" the spell that is making the dead rise. To do this, you need to find as many pages from the Book of the Undead as possible; make it to the cabin and perform the spell before the other players. But, watch out for the "dead" dogs."

Interpret the above as you will. The game may be called "The End..." but ellipsis generally indicate that there is still more.

Thread: Re:Conflicting Theme

Magic Pink — 2004-06-25T17:55:53+00:00

Does it specifically say in Zombies4 that magic is the CAUSE or is magic just one of the first located SOLUTIONS to the problem?

Thread: Re:Initial impressions

spacerx — 2004-06-20T03:24:54+00:00

On the Zombies Yahoo group, Kerry posted that the colors were chosen with colorblind people in mind.

Thread: Re:How about some more images?

The Jakster — 2004-06-19T18:43:08+00:00

Komodo (#40784),

nice pictures!
Still my copy isn´t in sight (I already ordered and now all I can do is wait).
Whoever first post a picture of the doggies is my hero

Thread: Re:How about some more images?

Komodo — 2004-06-17T16:52:49+00:00

I will try and set it up and take a few pictures tonight.

Thread: How about some more images?

The Jakster — 2004-06-16T14:51:29+00:00

The game isn´t out here in germany and I guess it will still take a while, so could you lucky owners of this game post some pictures (components would be most interesting)?

Thread: Re:Initial impressions

zombiemonkey — 2004-06-14T11:07:41+00:00

The Jakster (#39387),

After being in a couple of games shops in London last week, it appears that the game is widely available, as I saw it everywhere!

Thread: Re:Initial impressions

cdwalkley — 2004-06-10T08:24:28+00:00

Both

Regarding the colours: I figured they were to allow more players, but there may have been better colours to choose! They also chose a horrid light blue. Can't imagine anyone I know wanting to play a shotgun guy that colour! Bleh!

Regarding the game: I got it from my local game store here in Cardiff, UK. They happened to have a single copy of it and I snapped it up! Not sure what the release date was meant to be or how they got their copy.

Cheers
Chris

Thread: Re:Initial impressions

The Jakster — 2004-06-09T15:11:23+00:00

Chris,

how did you get it? As far as I know the game is not coming out before the 20th something this month.

Bernd