Zombie Dice: Have Brains, Will Nom

You are suddenly conscious.  You are lying on your back and it is very dark.  You are so very hungry that you can’t think of anything else.  You begin to hear something… Its food!  Food just a few feet away!  You must claw your way to the food!  As you break and claw your way through the dirt, the noise of the food gets much louder!  You only have a second to realize that you emerged in hillbilly farmland before — BLAM. BLAM. BLAM.   Silly zombie, everybody knows that hillbillies are always armed.

At least, that’s what happened in my mind last night, when my friends and I began playing [amazon_link id=”B003IKMR0U” target=”_blank” ]Zombie Dice[/amazon_link].  This is another quick dice game from Steve Jackson Games.  And personally, I found it to be very fun!  It seems to work as well for two players as it does for seven (the largest number we’ve tested it with so far).  There is even some solo potential!  Although you normally compete with others to see who can get thirteen brains first, at least half the fun is seeing how many brains you can collect before being gunned down.

The rules are fairly simple and easy to explain in a minute or two.  The concept is simple; eat as many brains as possible without getting gunned down.  There are three icons on the Zombie Dice:

• Brain – obviously this means you get to eat the brain
• Footsteps – these are the runners (the ones just a little quicker than you, but they tire easily so you get another chance at them)
• Shotgun Blast – you’ve just been shot… get shot three times and lose all the brains that you’ve eaten that round and your turn ends.  The strategy involves the color of the dice.

There are thirteen dice total: (6) Green-3 brains, 2 footsteps, 1 shotgun; (4) Yellow-2 brains, 2 footsteps, 2 shotguns; (3) Red-(1) brain, (2) footsteps, (3) shotguns.  Each round you shake the thirteen dice and pull three dice out of the cup without looking.  You roll those three dice and set aside any brains and shotgun blasts that you get.  If you get footsteps then you use those on your next roll by pulling enough dice out of the cup to equal three counting the footsteps, i.e. if you roll a brain, a shotgun, and footsteps, then you would pull two dice out of the cup and add them to the footsteps for your second roll.  I’ll let you figure out for yourself how brave you want to be, but if you roll a green shotgun and two red footsteps near the end of the game you will have a hard decision to make!  You can end your turn at any point before getting shot three times and add the brains from that round to your total.  The object of the game is to eat a total of thirteen brains — om, nom, nom!  Once someone gets thirteen brains, play continues around the table for one full round, giving everyone a last chance to make up the difference.

The game is quick.  With seven people it took approximately 20 minutes.  I highly recommend this game for everyone!  It’s a great starter to get everyone into the gaming frame of mind, or it can take the place of longer games by playing several back to back to see who wins the most!

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