Game: Zapp Zerapp

Thread: what glue for shakers?

gbergs — 2008-07-01T17:43:19+00:00

finally the shakers need gluing if we don't want pellets all over the place. but what type of glue is appropriate? what have you used to remedy the situation of ill fitting caps? thanks.

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eklp fistronek — 2007-12-30T09:02:33+00:00

Let

Thread: Re: Zapp Zerapp – A shaking good game

TGov — 2007-12-27T18:19:05+00:00

What a wonderful review!! Thanks!

Thread: Re: Zapp Zerapp – A shaking good game

ixnay66 — 2007-11-22T15:49:36+00:00

This is a great gateway game. Everyone I've shown it to has had a great time.

Thread: Zapp Zerapp – A shaking good game

Doomfarer — 2007-11-22T11:20:17+00:00

Zapp Zerapp – A shaking good game

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Now for some lighter fare. Zapp Zerapp is a children’s game somewhat similar to the old Parcheesi/Ludo game we all played as kids. You move around the board trying to get your pawns to your safe zone without being sent home by the other players. It is a very novel take on the mechanism though as you shake some tumblers instead of just rolling the dice and then move. Lots of player interaction.

The story behind the game is that a magic mountain looms over the plains. The mountain is protected by a peculiar curse that turns everyone that goes near it into statues that will stand forever at its foot. This curse is used by the most powerful magicians of the world as only they can lift it. Every 13th year they gather at the foot of the mountain with their apprentices to see which one of them is the mightiest. By shaking the magic containers they can lift the curse for a short while allowing their apprentices to move on the path around the mountain. The magician who first gets his apprentices to run around the mountain to their home town gets the coveted title ZAPP ZERAPP for the next thirteen years.

Let’s take a closer look at the game.

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Zapp Zerapp comes in the standard German games sized box of good quality. Inside you’ll find one big map board, three apprentices (pawns) in each of the four colours, two fairly big dice and finally thirteen plastic shakers and some metal pellets. In the first edition of the game it seems the shakers were made of wood instead of plastic. No idea if it was better or worse? I would almost think the plastic is better than the wood here as wood would probably be too slick when shaking them.

The map and the pawns are of top notch quality but the tumblers could have been better made.

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Here’s a first edition shaker. The shakers are numbered from 1 to 13 and filled with that number of lead pellets. So the “1” shaker has one pellet, the “2” shaker two and so on up to thirteen. One problem with them is that the cap is somewhat loose. If you don’t hold the cap tight with one finger when shaking you risk having the cap come loose, sending pellets all over the room. This is a problem in a kid’s game as they don’t always remember this. I guess you could glue them in place but for now I just stuck some paper in-between the shaker and the cap to make a tighter fit. The plastic shakers are nice otherwise, made of thick plastic that is somewhat coarse so it won’t slip when you shake it.

The game board

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The game board is nicely made, brightly coloured and fun to look at. It’s easy to use too, no real complaints here. Oh wait, the kids don’t like the orange town as it look too boring with the result that I always have play orange. I guess this is what they call a minor problem.

If you are on a space with the same colour as your playing piece you’re safe. There are also four double coloured spaces (marked with towers in the two colours) that are also safe zones if using the advanced rules. They are actually transport spaces too but more on that later.

Set up

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Place all thirteen shakers in the middle of the board. Then each player chooses a colour and gets the corresponding pieces which are really only three apprentices (pawns). I like the fact that not only do the pawns have different colours they have different shapes too. You place your apprentices on you starting area (colour coded) and now you’re ready to go.

Game play

Game play is very easy.

1) Roll the magic number
2) Shake
3) Move

One player doesn’t matter who, rolls the two dice and sums them up which will give a magic number between 2 and 12. Now all players simultaneously have to find a shaker with an equal or lower number of beads in it. You’re only allowed to hold one shaker at a time and no peeking. When you think you have found a suitable shaker you place it in front of you and wait for the others to finish.

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This is the fun part of the game. It’s devilish hard to hear the difference between similar number of beads and you only get to move if you have an equal or lower number. The twist here is that you get to move as many spaces as the number on the shaker you picked so you really want a number as close as possible but still lower than the one rolled. As you’re only allowed to hold one shaker at a time you can’t really compare them to each other and there’s always the risk that someone else picks the shaker you just put down. If you don’t need to move far you can of course pick a low number shaker. This is a common strategy throughout the game for some persons too.

Once all have picked a shaker you turn them over and check the number. If it’s higher than the magic number your spell fizzled and your apprentices are frozen. The ones with strong magic gets to move one apprentice a number of spaces equal to the number on the shaker. Highest number always goes first and then the rest go in descending order.

You can only move your apprentice clockwise and not past your home town (why you would want to do that is beyond me?). You have to move the full number of spaces unless you get to your home town, no staying in safe zones.

If you pass or end up on the same space as another players apprentice you get to send it home like in Parcheesi. You can’t send home apprentices who are on safe zones of course. There’s one important exception to this which people seem to forget. Apprentices that moved out of their start position this turn are too weak to send another apprentice home.

Game end

The first player to get all his apprentices to their home town wins the game and the game is then over. No playing for second place. The unlucky apprentices stuck on the mountain will have to spend the coming thirteen years as statues.

Advanced rules

In the advanced rules the four neutral spaces with the towers are consider to be transportation spaces. If an apprentice is on a space with a same coloured tower a passing apprentice can pick it up. The other player doesn’t have to but if he wishes to he simply moves the apprentice to the same space as his moving apprentice. You can pick up your own apprentices.

This way someone can move you past your home town forcing you to do an additional trip around the mountain. It’s also possible to get two apprentices home in one move if you pick up one of your own apprentices.
We play with the advanced rules from time to time. Not really needed and it doesn’t have a big impact on the game imo.

Verdict

I guess it’s too light for grown-ups, but all kids age 5 to 9 I have tried this game with have loved it. It is fun and fast with lots of laughs when someone picks the totally wrong shaker. Be aware that there’s a bit of take that in it when people get sent home. Don’t play it with kids/people who can’t cope with this. I guess you could play a no send home variant too, and I have done so occasionally, but it’s just not as fun to me.

Rating: 8/10

NB: In this review I have used some pictures from the gallery here at BGG instead of taking my own. A big thanks to the people I have borrowed from. If I have used one of your pictures and you would rather that I had not, let me know and I’ll remove it.

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Doomfarer — 2007-11-19T11:16:04+00:00

All thirteen shakers

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Doomfarer — 2007-11-19T11:15:43+00:00

Game at start

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Doomfarer — 2007-11-19T11:15:12+00:00

Game board

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Doomfarer — 2007-11-19T11:14:39+00:00

Better version of Swedish box front

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Werbaer — 2007-05-05T18:24:45+00:00

game action

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Werbaer — 2007-05-05T18:24:12+00:00

game in play

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droolster — 2007-01-11T17:32:51+00:00

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droolster — 2007-01-11T17:32:49+00:00

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droolster — 2007-01-11T17:28:26+00:00

Thread: Another Thursday at Shire Games ... (and Nick wins some games!)

Moviebuffs — 2005-08-05T09:29:58+00:00

Another Thursday at our shop, and the first arrivals (after Sue and I, of course) are Tim and Nathan. Therefore, it seemed like a good idea at the time to bring this fun game out for its first ever Shire Gamers outing.

The rules are explained pretty instantly, and we let Tim and Nathan have a play with the shakers to give them a feel for what they are doing (well ... it's only fair).

Players: Sue, Nathan, Nick, Tim

For the first few rounds, we all tried our hardest to get going, but none of us moved very far at all. Nathan took to the game very well, not getting a shaker wrong for about 6 turns, and was the first player to get one of his pawns round to his safe area, but as soon as he tried to sneak off, I popped out of my home behind him, and then sent him back to the beginning with my next move.

It was a strange game dice-wise, as we had very few low numbers (just a couple of 3s, and even fewer high numbers (maybe an 11, but I don't remember a single 10 or 12)

So ... nearly every number was between 5 and 9, and therefore there was a fight for the same shakers again and again. This also meant that no-one made a huge leap forward with a high number.

I spent most of the game making errors, but nearly all errors were only one point higher than required, which was very frustrating!

During a spell where five or six 6's were rolled consecutively, Sue got the first pawn home. At this point, Tim had a couple of guys in the safe zone, Nathan was close to his home with his first guy, and I was pretty much still in my home with all three pawns!

Nathan got his first guy home with his next move, and then a few turns later Sue got number two home.

I was still pretty much bogged down, due to my shaking and guessing getting progressively worse, and Tim was starting to recover from some early errors in judgement (I think Tim won the prize for being furthest out with a guess, picking a 10 on a roll of 5!).

Sue managed to get a clear run going, and I was the one who had the best chance to stop her. Unfortunately, Sue picked the exact number and I went one over again, giving her a free run and allowing Sue to get her third pawn home.

We played on for a little while until Nathan put his second pawn home to claim second place (a quickly devised house rule to put Tim and I out of our misery!). I conceded third place to Tim as two of my pawns were still in their house!

Final Result:

Sue - 3 home
Nathan - 1
Tim - 0
Nick - 0

Thread: Comment on 2nd revision.

Sunfox — 2003-12-20T04:21:12+00:00

With the second release, the shakers are now made out of thick plastic, with plastic end caps (some assembly still required). The wooden pawns and dice remain the same. Full color German, English and French instructions are included.

Thread: Session Report

bengkohn — 2003-08-20T13:40:25+00:00

The description in BGG is very accurate when it says this brings back memories of Sorry and other such games.

We played two player, and I don't think this would see the table with less than the full four. The frantic interaction is what makes this game fun.

Carla started out with a lead, obtained by her skill on picking the correct shaker (vs. my initial complete inability to do so!)

However, by the end of the game I'd picked up the knack and ended up winning by just two spaces.

With only two players, there wasn't a lot of the Sorry type sending people back to start.

The one major complaint we had was the difficulty in making some of the shakers stay together. With the larger numbers, the metal beads would impact the end cap and loosen it enough to make it fall out.

Zapp Zerapp: BRAD, Carla

Thread: Session Report

hinj — 2002-11-10T18:54:51+00:00

It being the sparky hours of the morning (y’know, when you see those sparks at the edges of your peripheral vision?), we got out something fluffy and fun: Zapp Zerapp. I like this game. It’s fun. It’s noisy. It’s cute. Men *hate* this game. Maybe because they’re bad at it. That’s right folks, women can pick up a piggy bank, shake it, and tell you within 4 cents how much is inside. An excellent skill to have for this game.

For those of you who don’t know, Zapp Zerapp is a game of skill. Yes, that’ s right, skill. First the dice are rolled. Dice? Skill? Dice? How’s that work? Let me ‘splain. When the dice are rolled, everyone starts wildly grabbing the “madness kegs” in the center of the board and shaking them. Inside each keg is a certain number of stones. If you pick a keg (and you can shake as many as you like, but you can only have possession of one keg at a time) which has a number of stones equal to or less than the number shown on the dice, you get to move that number of spaces.

Once on the movement track, the game plays a lot like Pachisi. But I really like the schtick of the madness kegs. The person who maintains sanity the best (i.e. guesses best with the kegs) and moves all of his pawns home
becomes the Wizard King for the year. Until the drumbeat of the kegs is heard again…..

Results:
Alyssa won. Mark didn’t even want to finish. Jen and I laughed.

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Sorry everyone! Just noticed that my translation effort is a little skewed.

Specifically, the rules for Transportation spaces. I can't seem to figure out exactly how they are supposed to work. Can anyone shed any light on this for us all?

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

The rules for the transportation spaces (the ones with the little towers) is wrong in the translation. The translation says "Apprentices who are on transportation spaces of other colours are not carried forward but also are not banished."

Rather they should state:

"Apprentices who are on transportation spaces of other colours are not carried forward but banished instead."

This agrees with the example given on page 8 of the rules.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-07-08T08:58:51+00:00

I knew Marianna hated Parchisee type games but I did want her to try this one. When I set this up you could see the look of disappointment in her face. I tried to point out the virtues but she would have none of it but being a real trooper she would play (a bad game is better then no game). After explaining the rules I think everyone was a little taken aback by the ruthlessness of the 'send back to start' rules. You do not have to land on someone to send them back, but are only required to pass them. The exceptions to this are if you are on one of your safe spaces or you are being passed by someone just coming out of there home.

After about the second dice roll everyone was really getting into the game. We actually had a lot of turns that there were a 4 or 5 number spread on our chosen shakers. I did make an interesting observation about the game. When a 5 or less was rolled the energy level went up about a hundred percent. That was when the game got very interesting. As a dirty little trick try placing the shakers that you know are not good in front of other players (on the board of course). Marianna kept picking up that 1 shaker I would put in front of her.

Another observation that I noticed was that everyone was smiling a lot. This is just an unpretentious fun game.

Stephen won this one with the rest of us having two dobbers in. Karen claimed second place as her third piece was only 2 spaces from home but I refused to recognize that. Ok, the third game that I came in last. I still have a chance to turn this around. (By the way one of the dobbers is very nasty looking. I chose not to bring this up at the time.)

Ratings: David 8, Karen 7, Marianna 6.5 with a bullet (but she liked it), Stephen 7

Thread: Session Report

wavemotion — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

SSG Session Report for January 13, 2001

We had 13 in attendance tonight which comes close to our high water mark (we actually had 14 but Walter could not stay long). Tonight was also special in that Alison had finally received our mega combined Adam Spielt order and she was giving out game bundles to eager hands! The shipping was really reasonable when you get enough people to place a big order. Although I like to support US retailers, a few games tend to be very pricey and those are the games many people seemed to target for purchasing in this order - Barbarossa, Zapp Zerapp I think at least one Carabande set, etc. Anyway, we proceeded to play many of these games straight away!

Roll Call: Dave Bernazzani, Alison & David Hansel, Mark Edwards, Craig Massey, Andrew, Jenn, Jonathan, Pat, Rich, Matt, Campbell, Tamara

Games Played: Zapp Zerapp x2, FlickWerk, Barbarossa, Attila,
Carabande, Taj Mahal, Settlers of Catan, Kohle, Kie$ & Knete, Medici, Werewolf x4

Here are the games I played. If anyone wants to comment on the others (or even these), feel free!

A cute children's game (the only kind it seems I stand a chance at these days!) where the object is to get 3 of your dobbers around a circular track into a home base. There are 13 "salt shaker" like containers which are labeled 1-13 on their respective bottoms and contain from 1 to 13 little metal beads (to match the number written on the bottom). To move, one player rolls the dice and then each player then tries to quickly shake the shakers (which are shuffled randomly in the center of the large circular track) to try and guess the shaker that has that number of beads exactly or less. This part is very frantic as you are searching for the "perfect" shaker to match the dice (usually - sometimes you do want to go a bit less than the number rolled to place your dobber in a better zone). Once everyone has a shaker, you turn them over to look at the number you selected. If the number is higher than the dice rolled - you do NOT get to move. If you pick a number equal to or less than the dice roll, you move the number on the shaker you took. So the object is to usually get as close to the dice rolled number as possible without going over the total. It's amazing how often the dice came up 7 or 8 and someone would shake and grab an 11 or 12! Also, several times I was looking for a 10 and picked out a 3 or 4. To make matters a bit more interesting, if you pass another player along the circular track, you can bump them back to their starting position - unless they are in a "safe zone" which is spread throughout the board. It's really light and I like the fast and frantic search for the perfect shaker. Highly recommended for kids - and for adults who don't mind a bit of silliness in their games. David, Jenn and I played two full games. I won the first game, Jenn won the second game. Everyone enjoyed it.

Thread: Session Report

DangerMouse — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Zapp Zerapp: Dave, Brian, Dan and Zack

from Dave:
We started with Zapp Zerapp - a game that was just perfect for Zack and for
us older kids! Dan and Brian were the two other players - and we shook and
shaked those little shakers of pellets to try and find just the right one.
It took the new players a few turns to get the feel of the different shakers
so I had a definite advantage and got one of my dobbers home before too
long. Zack did fine pulling out just the right shaker - and always waited
patiently until everyone had their shaker before we turned it over to see
what we drew - I tell ya the kids is better behaved than some adults I play
against! hehheh... Brian was also working hard but often underestimated -
well at least that let him move around the track. I'm not sure what Dan's
story was - he was pulling 12's when we rolled 4 and pulling 3's when we
rolled 10's and I don't know that he got a single dobber home - but he
seemed to enjoy it.