Chaos Isle: Zombie Deck is a card game about zombies. The players are stuck on an island infested with zombies and all sorts of monsters. Each player plays a different character, with different abilities. Each player is also given a secret mission, and in order to win the game, you need to be the first to complete your mission. You are also given some equipment (e.g. weapons) at the start of the game, which can be helpful. You may collect more equipment during the game.
On your turn, you turn up 3 cards from the discard deck or draw deck, and decide what you want to do with them. Most of them are zombies / monsters, and if you run faster than them, you can decide whether to fight them. If you are slower, you are forced to fight. Killing a monster provides some reward, however you may not always decide to fight, since the reward may not be what you are looking for to achieve your goal. Sometimes you get special events from the deck. Sometimes you get small missions too.
Fighting is done by rolling dice, and is quite straight-forward. In case you get killed, you become a zombie and join the bad guys. Instead of sitting around looking ugly (death by zombie is never pretty), you get to attack one human player every time your turn comes around. You can even win the game, if all the humans (the living ones) lose.
This is a simple game with some role-playing. Not very interactive, as you don't really interact much with the other players. Rolling dice for the monsters attacking your right neighbour doesn't really count as interaction. If you are looking for a simple zombie-themed game, this is one. It isn't very interesting to me though. Not many interesting decisions, and it seems luck plays quite a significant role.
If you prefer more player to player interaction and a greater degree of strategy, I would recommend playing with the 3rd expansion for the game, The Lunatics, which has more interactive equipment and the cooperative 'Save the Isle' game style.
ReplyDeleteSeveral things I like about the game are that 1) it's expandable, but not collectible, so I don't have to take out a second mortgage in order to get enough packs to get every card, 2) when you're killed, you're still in the game (as a Zombi character that can attack player characters) and 3) the core set comes with 4 ways to play (including solitare), and each expansion adds 2 new ways to play.
ReplyDeleteI also like the fact that the company has an organized play program with tournaments and such.
How often can a player(s) win after being killed? I don't quite remember how it is supposed to work, since it didn't happen in our game. I assume to "win" as a zombie you need to kill all the other humans (i.e. drag them down with you). If it is too hard to win as a zombie, then this aspect of the game may not be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI too prefer games which are non-collectible. One of the expandable games that I like a lot is Blue Moon. Too bad I don't get to play it as much as I like to.
What you're talking about is the main game, I think it's called a Campaign. You play to a predetermined number of points. Your missions are worth between 3-5 points depending on their difficulty and you get those points when/if you complete your mission. If you get turned into a zombie you get 2 points for every character you kill while the hand is still being played. We always play with 4-6 people, it can get crazy as players begin turning into zombies, making it harder to finish your mission and makes your decisions more difficult. Some strategies of this style of play (there are quite a few ways to play the game) involve knowing what cards to discard by paying attention to what your opponents are collecting for zombies, and killing zombies you don't need to throw off the other players from figuring out your mission
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