LackeyCCG

ZOMBIE CCG RULES

Objective: This is the zombie apocalypse, so really there is no way to "win" per se. The objective of the game is to not lose. The primary way for doing this is to have everyone else lose first. A player loses when all of his survivors are dead. Another way to lose is to have no cards in your deck.

Players take turns alternating from playing as the zombies menacing their opponent's survivors, and then defending their survivors against their opponent's zombies. While you are playing as the survivors, your zombie cards are just resources and not considered zombies. Your own survivors will not be harmed by your own zombie cards.

Card types:
Survivor: a character card representing one of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse.

Zombie: a character card representing one of the brain-eating, murderous zombies.

Item: an item representing weapons, armor, supplies, or barricades. Some items have permanent effects, and some items are discarded as soon as they are used. Some items are played to the battlefield, and some are played from your hand.

Zones of Play:

Any card not in a player's hand, deck pile, discard pile, or removed pile is considered to be "in play". Each player has 3 zones of play: the survivor zone, the resource zone, and the combat zone.
The survivor zone is the area of the table where you play your survivor cards and items.
The resource zone is where you play your zombie cards from your hand.
The danger zone is where you move your zombie cards so they can engage the opposing player's survivors.

Start up:
Determining who goes first:
At the start of the game, randomly choose a player. Starting with the chosen player, each player takes turns (in turn order) bidding for their starting food total. The player who bids the lowest starting food total decides what player takes his turn first. All other players start with the default starting food total of 10.

Initial game setup:
Each player draws 7 cards and, starting with the first player, each player plays survivor cards from their deck with a combined resource cost of no greater than 6.

Phases of a turn
Ready Phase: All players ready all spent cards. Any survivors with an infected token suffer a wound.

Scavenge Phase: All players draw 3 cards, then discard 2 cards.

Phases of turn:

Ready Phase: All players ready all spent cards. Any survivors with an infected token suffer a wound.

Draw Phase: All players draw 2 cards, then discard 1 card.

Build Phase:
Once a turn, you may play any card from your hand to your resource zone face down. (You may look at a facedown card you control, and you may do so at any time.) On your turn, these resource cards can be spent to play survivor cards and survivor abilities on cards. When it is not your turn, your resource cards are instead generic zombies with 1 strength.
There are two zones of play for your zombie resource cards. Resource cards are initially played to your resource zone (unless a card explicitly says otherwise). Later on, (in the recoup phase), you can spend any ready (unspent) zombies you have and move them to the combat zone. A players zombie cards are seperated in these two areas just to designate which are able to attack their opponent's survivors.

When spending your zombies to play cards and abilities (whether it's your turn or not), you can spend any number of ready zombie cards cards in either the resource or combat zone.

To play a survivor character or item card, you must spend X of your ready zombie cards where X is equal to the resource cost of the card. In addition to paying the resource costs of cards, some cards have additional requirements in order to be played.

Attack Phase
Begin Attack Step: All players have a chance to play cards and abilities before the survivor player declares how he will defend the attack. (The zombie player has the first priority to play a spell or ability).

Declare Defenders Step: The survivor player may assign any number of survivors to a fight with an attacking zombie. A zombie is considered attacking if it is in the combat zone and it is ready.
If there are any left over attacking zombies that aren't assigned to a fight at this point, the zombie player may assign them to fight any survivor. If this results in more than one zombie per fight, their power is totaled when determining which side wins.

Fight Step: For each fight, the survivor player determines the order the fights are resolved. When a fight begins, each side may play cards and abilities. When all players pass, the side with the greater power wins (with the zombie player winning ties). At the end of the fight, if the survivor lost, they receive a wound token. If the zombie(s) lost the fight, they are simply spent. If the power of the zombie(s) is double the power of the survivor, instead of suffering wounds, instead the survivor is overwhelmed and instantly killed.

When all assigned fights are resolved, proceed to the Recoup Phase.

Recoup Phase
Each player may play abilities that they can play during the Recoup Phase until all players pass.
During the Recoup Phase, players may play cards and abilities that say they can be played during the recoup phase. For example, the survivor player may spend a ready survivor he controls with the Scavenger ability to look for food. To do so, roll a 6-sided dice. If you roll 2-6, you gain one food point. If you roll a 1, each of your opponents may put the top card of their deck face down into is resource zone.

At the end of the Recoup phase, you lose one food point, and if you have more survivors than you have food points, you must put a wound counter (one at a time) on one of your survivors for each survivor you have in excess of your food points.

End Phase
The current player's turn ends and "until end of turn" effects wear off.

The cardback will have a generic picture of a zombie because face down cards played to the table are generic zombies with 1 power.

Zombies can be played (upgraded from face down normal generic zombies) if you meet their requirements. Some Zombies have keyworded traits, like "FAST" or "TOUGH", or other rules text. To play a powerful zombie, you might need to control 2 fast zombies and 1 tough one, for example. This mechanic makes it so you need to choose one or 2 zombie themes to be effective. If would be difficult to play a deck both with a zombie that requires 3 Fast+3 Tough zombies and also one that requires 4 Enduring + 3 Sentient zombies.

Zombie "Factions"
The zombie factions are: Rage, Horde, Contagion, and Weird.

Rage:
These zombies are filled with rage and ferocious energy. As soon as they see survivors, they will run towards them with horrifying speed, and they will pursue them with recklessness and savage intensity.
Gameplay mechanics include being able to attack immediately, surprise attacks, self destruction for temporary or instant effects.
Faction color: Red

Horde:
The true power of these zombies comes in their numbers. Horde zombies swarm and overwhelm survivors. They may not be the fastest zombies, but what's the point of running away from them, only to find out you are running toward more of them and you've been surrounded?
Gameplay mechanics include abilities to play a lot of zombies, zombies are more powerful when you have a lot of them, ways to draw lots of cards, and return discarded zombies back into play.
Faction color: Orange

Contagion:
All zombies are able to infect a survivor and thus turn them into a zombie, but Contagion zombies are blood-spitting, ichor-spewing, infection machines. Instead of killing survivors, why not just "recruit" them to fight for your side? There is no greater horror than to have a survivor have to face what used to be a family member or friend.
Gameplay mechanics include turning survivors into zombies, special abilities to use on ex-survivors who are now zombies, and damage over time effects.
Faction color: Green

Weird:
This group includes zombies that have been altered by science, and non-human zombie creations (such as zombie dogs), and everything else the survivors couldn't possibly expect.
Gameplay mechanics include being able to use some (crude) items, being able to able to counter survivor strategies, and a lot of other weird effects.
Faction color: Purple


Basic Keyworded Zombie Abilities
Infectious: When this zombie wins a combat, you may put an Infected Token on one of the defending uninfected survivors. When that survivor dies, you gain control of it. Remove all tokens and cards on it and place it in your zombie zone. It's game text is ignored.

Fast: When this zombie is moved to the combat zone, ready it.

Fierce: When this zombie wins a combat, it deals an extra wound to the defending survivors. This ability is cumulative.

Basic Keyworded Survivor Abilities:
Medic: During the recoup phase, spend this survivor to remove a wound counter from any survivor.

Scavenger: During the recoup phase, spend this survivor to look for food. To do so, roll a 6-sided dice. If you roll 2-6, you gain one food point. If you roll a 1, each of your opponents may put the top card of their deck face down into his resource zone.


Here are some sample cards: http://lackeyccg.com/zombie/zombie.txt

EDIT: just updated with some new ideas.

Deck Construction Themes:

Some kinds of survivor decks will be good at evading combat, some will specialize in using weapons, and some will special in things like healing and utility. Another theme is backstabbing where you can sacrifice some survivors so that others can live.

Zombie deck construction themes include: Swarming (lots of cheap zombies), Overpower (few but strong zombies), Infection (try to kill survivors by turning them to zombies), Weapons (where zombies can use crude weapons), Zombie pets (where you can attack with things like zombie dogs)

I was literally 100% until zombie weapons, which I just think don't make sense in the kind of zombie settings I like, but as I could see how it would be a decent mechanic I'm still at about 95%. Really hope this comes to fruition, sounds really fun

its awesome when you play as the zombies to pressure the other side by revealing zombies, can really spook the other player

the game has a great theme and great mechanics to appeal (especially if you add vampires, bloody twilight, even the x-men are fighting dracula now...), i also very much liked the different classes of both zombies and survivors

i didn't quite get why not to have a survivor deck and zombie deck like decipher's star wars ccg
also it feels the zombies kidna overpower in coolness the survivors

i think you should some fortifications for the survivors, like mines or hurdles, which of course zombies can jump over or secrifice lungs or something

it is deffinately an engaging and fun to play game in the making, hoping there will be actual tournaments not just at halloween, friday the 13th or a saw movie release

Quote from: Cyrus on November 10, 2010, 11:12:09 AM
I was literally 100% until zombie weapons, which I just think don't make sense in the kind of zombie settings I like, but as I could see how it would be a decent mechanic I'm still at about 95%. Really hope this comes to fruition, sounds really fun

I see where you're coming from, but I meant that some zombies that are sentient could use some items. In some movies you will occasionally see some zombies that aren't completely mindless. Consider the zombies in "I am Legend" for example. I definitely agree that mindlessness is one of the defining characteristics of zombies, but I was thinking that a not-completely-mindless zombie faction could be interesting for some players to use.

I was thinking along the lines of some weapons could have a "Crude" subtype, like bats or crowbars, and sentient zombies could use these kinds of items. I might just scrap the idea to simplify things and have items only usable by survivors. It depends if the added level of complexity is worth it. I'm currently on the fence. Even with the flavor of not-completely-mindless zombies, this could be reflected in other mechanics besides being able to use some items.

The more I think about it, the more I think I will abandon the idea of letting zombies use items. I don't think it's worth the extra complexity, and it could make it difficult to balance the power of items.

Quote from: yudencow on November 10, 2010, 11:40:37 AM
its awesome when you play as the zombies to pressure the other side by revealing zombies, can really spook the other player

the game has a great theme and great mechanics to appeal (especially if you add vampires, bloody twilight, even the x-men are fighting dracula now...), i also very much liked the different classes of both zombies and survivors

I think I want to keep the theme just zombies. When you add other fantastic elements it spreads the theme too thin. The game is a plain zombie survival game.

Quote
i didn't quite get why not to have a survivor deck and zombie deck like decipher's star wars ccg

I don't like the idea of having more than one deck. It seems like an inelegant solution. With the current concept, I imagined that each player was competing to see who could survive the longest, as if each player's survivor party was in the same city, but were not traveling and working together. So the zombie cards in your deck would be the zombies that are chasing after your opponent's survivors. I think a deck's zombie strategy and survivor strategy should be linked.

Quotealso it feels the zombies kidna overpower in coolness the survivors

Survivors can be pretty bad ass too. Especially with shotguns and stuff. But I think the overall feeling I want to convey is the horror of the zombie survival genre. In a zombie apocalypse, you don't really win even if you survive the day.

Quotei think you should some fortifications for the survivors, like mines or hurdles, which of course zombies can jump over or secrifice lungs or something

Those kinds of cards are represented by Item cards. One subtype of item is a barricade, which can be used to block zombie attacks instead of direct combat with survivors.

Another element I want to incorporate is the idea of fleeing. I want to do this by giving some items a passive keyword "stationary". For example, a barricade would be stationary. When players flee, they need to discard stationary items.

There would have to be some other penalty for fleeing, such as maybe losing a placed resource (and thus zombie), otherwise players could continually flee if they haven't played barricades, and I don't think it would make too much sense to only allow fleeing from barricaded "locations," because realistically you'd probably want to be fleeing from those types of areas less than open areas. Could be as simple as a mill effect as well, and having an exhausted deck also means defeat, so you'd have to choose your battles wisely...

I like the idea that the resources interlink between Zombies and survivors. If I use my resources to play survivor cards, I wont be able to turn them into zombies.

If I turn over my resource cards into zombies, I wont have that much resources to use for my survivors.

this is more or less the same mechanic as the shadow pool in Lotr, but more directly interlinked, which I like. Lotr had the problem that even though playing a lot of free people cards allowed my opponent to play more shadow cards, it had almost no effect on the shadow cards in my deck. It made me feel like I was forced to shuffle 2 decks together and play with it. the resource system you have here is quite nice.

It also allows you to shift focus if you want to, a feature other dual deck systems (like lotr) never had. "So my survivors are getting banged up?", I?ll save more resources to be able to help them. "my zombies are getting run over?", I?ll turn over more zombies to eat some brainssss!

A neat idea, and quite balanced. You just would have to make sure that both players won?t resource-hog enough to "overwhelm" the other player. Like playing nothing for 10 turns (survivors), then turning over 10 cheap zombies and kill the opponent.

Will zombies be turned back face down at the end of each turn? or will they stay face up? will a player still be able to use that zombie as a resource?

To ease up on rule problems, I would delete the "generic 1/1 zombies", and only use zombies that are turned face-up. they would stay turned face-up, and thus your survivors would lose one resource, in effect.

It will be HELL to balance it correctly, but it would make for a great strategic element. Maybe turning zombies face-up could be tied to tapping resources too?

there definitely needs to be some fail saves, like a big fat zombie that can be turned face up if X survivor has 10 or more power for example, or a chainsaw that discards zombies if there are 5 or more in play. You?ll always have players that will focus just on one side of the equation. (lotr Horn deck anyone?)

Simple rules always work the best I say: Forced 50/50 decks, minimum 60 cards. Last survivor wins!

to add more room for balancing, I would "up" the starting cost of survivors to 8, that way, survivor characters can be ranked between 1 and 8, creating more room for balancing and diversity.

The problem with each playing having its own turn (I prefer equal turns) is this:
Player A uses some resources to play some survivor cards, taps some resources, combats player B's zombies and end turn.
Player B then DRAWS a card, uses all its resources to play massive amounts of survivor cards. Because player A used some cards, his zombies or soon-to-be zombies are less effective, because he has insufficient resources "left", and has effectively at least -1 card  in hand to combat the survivors.

I would change the turn structure into this:

Phases of a turn
Ready Phase: Each player readies all cards he controls that are in play.
Draw Phase: all players draw a card.
Prepare Phase: The survival player can spend his resources to play Survivor, Item, Action or Condition cards.

Onslaught Phase:
1. Begin onslaught step. The zombie player can spend his resources to turn over any facedown Zombie cards in he resource pile (assuming he meets the requirements for doing so printed on the Zombie card) or play zombie cards from hand (e.g. equipment, events etc.., not zombie characters direct).
2. Declare attackers step.All Zombies attack.
3. Ranged combat step. Both players can play Ranged combat step abilities.
4. Assignment step. For each survivor, the survivor player must choose to have it defend against one attacking zombie. If there are more zombies than defending survivors, the zombie player may assign an unassigned attacking zombie to any survivor he wishes*.
5. Combat step: The survivor player chooses a survivor character that has been assigned to a fight. Each player may then play as many card abilities and action cards as they wish until both players pass. When both players pass, the character with the highest power wins. If a zombie wins, put one damage counter onto the defending survivor. If the survivor wins, put one damage counter onto the zombie. For each survivor still assigned to a zombie, repeat the combat step. Any zombie with enough damage counter on it to be killed is placed face down as a resource again!

Recoup Phase: All players can play card abilities and Action cards that say they can be played during the recoup phase. This Phase probably is not needed, as it can be implemented into the End phase. delete it.
End Phase: This is the last phase of the turn.

I haven't decided anything for sure about exactly how the resource system will work. What I like is the ability to play any card face down as a resource, like wow lets you do. This greatly helps reduce the mana screw that can happen in magic. Losing (and even winning) games in magic due to mana screw feels really lame, and it can happen to anyone regardless of how well crafted their deck is. I also think its cool how the card back decoration will look like a generic zombie. But generic zombies will be pretty weak and it will be worth it to upgrade them to more powerful zombies with actual zombie cards. In a magic game, if you could play any card as a face down land that taps for colorless mana, you would still be able to ramp up to be on par with your opponents, but you wouldn't get a free ride because you can still get color screwed. I tend to think of color screw in magic to be more of a fault in the deck than plain mana screw. Also, plain mana screw permanently sets you back, whereas with color screw, once you eventually get the right color land, your power level will be in pace with your opponents.

One important mechanic that I want to have in place is a constant ramp up for both players. Each turn there are more zombies, and the survivors need to grow more and more powerful to match them. But the zombies will always win eventually. It's just a matter of if your opponent's survivors die first.

In most games, players look forward to their turns coming. This zombie apocalypse is different, and I think keeping along the idea of it being horror, I think players should dread it being their turn to play as the survivors. Each time your turn as the survivors is over, I want it to feel like it is a relief, especially in the late game when characters are wounded and on the brink of death.

I was thinking about it, and previously I was considering more of a "you need to control X zombies in order to turn this zombie face up" type of cost scheme is a bad idea. I think cards need to be actually spent. Once you have 10 resources, it is too powerful to just be able to play all 10 casting cards you have.

Here is what the play field might look like:
(http://lackeyccg.com/images/zombiefield.jpg)

I think this idea is pretty awesome and I wanted to offer some of my random thoughts.

In my opinion, creepy locations are an important part of the appeal of zombie apocalypses. Places like hospitals, schools, libraries, office buildings. Really any kind of public building. Add zombies to taste. If it were my project, I'd make some location cards, perhaps with special effects. I'll never forget playing certain parts of Silent Hill...

While surviving is a noble goal, I think you could do better. Characters in zombie movies are usually trying to escape to safety, whether or not it actually exists. And speaking of characters...I think survivor cards really want to have some personality of their own. Something like, Bob the Policeman begins the game with an equipment card, or Sally the Reseacher can search locations twice or whatever.

If players were trying to escape as a victory condition, you could have them desperately trying to get places. Entering a new location could let you draw from an event deck. You would be able to draw cards representing stuff like information leading to your next location, or weapons/equipment, or SURPRISE zombies burst out from the toilet or wherever!

It may be cooler to have zombies be put into play by the mechanics of the game itself rather than by players. Perhaps making it so the number of zombies continued to escalate the closer players get to endgame. And if a player's character died, they would naturally become a zombie. I would consider making this a co-op game for a more "us against the zombies" feel.

However, it sounds like you might already be taking the game in other directions and that's cool.

If you are adding in locations as the group of survivors attempt to move around to find an escape, remember that in all the movies, they move location and find more survivors. Moving to a new location could give the option of bringing into play a new survivor.

Alignment type issues could also be brought into play, someone sacrificing themselves because they are too injured to go on, leave them the handgrenade while the rest of the group run to the next location. The flip side to that is the mentality of "I don't need to be able to run fast, I just need to be able to run faster than you." Of course whenever a bad guy does this they normally run into trouble themselves and die.

Location cards are functionally the same as any condition cards. I think to capture the flavor of locations, without creating a specific card type, I will make item cards like "Makeshift Barricade" and condition cards like "In the open, on the move"

A condition card like "In the open, on the move" might have text like "Stationary items are discarded and cannot be played. Zombies that aren't fast get -1 power.".

Another condition could be something like "Shopping in an abandoned store" which could have text like "At the end of your turn you may draw a card or return an item from your discard pile to your hand."

Remember that for each card type, you need to have ways of dealing with those card types. Adding Locations as kinds of cards doesn't really give you another kind of effect other card types don't, and its one more kind of card you need to be able to deal with. I think I will make some condition cards with the subtype Location and have the passive keyword "Stationary".


I want the decision to hunker down and fortify to be contrasted with the choice to flee. I think both would make interesting gameplay choices and a player SHOULD decide to do each at different times. Where there are too many zombies in an area, it might be a good idea to try to find a different place to go. But then again, if you stay in one play, you have the opportunity to fortify it a bit. This is typical in zombie movies. A group will find an abandoned store or school or something, and the first thing they do is lock the doors and set up barricades. But usually this is done for the short term.
Different kinds of decks may have survivors better at fleeing/fortifying and they will have a different feel when you play them. I haven't decided on the best mechanic for fleeing, but it should entail some extra risk (as well as discarding stationary items and conditions), but it should also reward you if you pull it off by getting rid of the ever growing amounts of zombies you need to deal with.

Here are some sample cards: http://lackeyccg.com/zombie/zombie.txt

I agree with Trevor here. Location cards are cool and all, but if you are not centering your gameplay around them (e.g., like having a victory condition tied to locations), they are merely condition cards.

I am not sure that the whole "your survivors will eventually die" argument will last, because if that is the case, players will abandon any serious ideas about protecting their survivors and simply go-for-the-kill with zombies, then the game will not be: "Keep my survivors alive while getting some zombies into play to annoy my opponent", but the game will dwindle down to: "Who can get the most and powerful zombies out the fastest to kill the survivors."
Gameplay and deckbuilding will all be focused on the zombie part... I personally think that the survivors should have a "way" out, e.g. win the game..

but it?s your idea, just throwing up 2cents here.

You seem to have a good idea of where you want the game to go.

About stationary items...if they are all barricades you might as well just make the name 'barricades'. I can't really think of any other examples of stationary conditions.

I'm just thinking that without a focus on changing locations your survivors might feel like they're not moving much, like that plants vs. zombies game. But again, its your game so its your call and I wish you the best with it.

This thread has gotten me a little interested in trying to make my own zombie game.  ;D

I am really into where this game is going, Trevor. Not sure what help I could offer, but I offer it :D

As far as people only playing as Zombies, I don't necessarily think it would happen if the cards were designed well enough.

Basically, to make a Survivor victory possible, you'd want to design late-game bombs, somehow in the form of Zombies, most likely the Sentient kind, or combination Sentient-Fast or something. So, like in other game's control decks, you'd be sitting back, fortifying your survivors, not much worrying about making an offensive with your smaller generic zombies, opting instead to use those resources for fortifications, weapons, or maybe some sort of counterspell-esque events? Regardless of the way control is represented, its end goal would be to punch through enough damage with a couple late-game super Zombies. I, personally, would probably play this game that way if the cards allowed for it.

Other players, especially those fond of red decks in Magic, would probably favor the all out Zombie assault plan. But as long as the Survivors are designed for late game wins with big baddies I think it would be a playable archtype.

I'm really just ranting because I want this game to get made lol, sounds like a lot of fun

Fleeing mechanic...

I want the zombies to be able to build up faster than the survivors in power. But I want to give the survivors a mechanic to deal with that. At the end of the survivor's turn, they can choose to stay or flee.
If they flee they do 3 things:
1. They need to discard all cards with the stationary passive keyword (such as fortifications).
2. Flip a coin, and if the zombie player wins the flip, the Zombie player chooses one of his zombies and one of the survivors and there is an additional combat phase.
3. All zombies are turned facedown and turned back into resources. They will need to be paid for again to be used.

There will be other cards that affect this fleeing mechanic, like a card named "Hobbled" might give a survivor the stationary keyword. Or some zombies might have an ability to make them avoid being fled from, ie, they wouldn't get turned face down.

So the core gameplay mechanic is that the survivor player needs to choose when to flee, but it should only pay off to do this every 4 turns or so, depending on the zombie and survivor player's deck strategy.

Zombie faction descriptions:

Rage:
These zombies are filled with rage and ferocious energy. As soon as they see survivors, they will run towards them with horrifying speed, and they will pursue them with recklessness and savage intensity.
Gameplay mechanics include being able to attack immediately, surprise attacks, self destruction for temporary or instant effects.

Horde:
The true power of these zombies comes in their numbers. Horde zombies swarm and overwhelm survivors. They may not be the fastest zombies, but what's the point of running away from them, only to find out you are running toward more of them and you've been surrounded?
Gameplay mechanics include abilities to play a lot of zombies, zombies are more powerful when you have a lot of them, ways to draw lots of cards, and return discarded zombies back into play.

Contagion:
All zombies are able to infect a survivor and thus turn them into a zombie, but Contagion zombies are blood-spitting, ichor-spewing, infection machines. Instead of killing survivors, why not just "recruit" them to fight for your side? There is no greater horror than to have a survivor have to face what used to be a family member or friend.
Gameplay mechanics include turning survivors into zombies, special abilities to use on ex-survivors who are now zombies, and damage over time effects.

Sentient:
Not all zombies are completely unthinking forces of nature. Some posses a minimal level of sentience. Instead of trying to bash through a door with bare fists, these zombies might try turning the doorknob. This group includes zombies that have been altered by science, and non-human zombie creations (such as zombie dogs).
Gameplay mechanics include being able to use some (crude) items, being able to able to counter survivor strategies, and a lot of other weird science related effects.


There are 4 basic classes of zombies. A deck will usually use 1 or 2 kinds of zombies.

Just a few questions/comments:

1. I would assume it's a 1 resource per turn mechanic, at first I thought that you could destroy your opponent's resources by killing the zombies, but apparently that just spends them.  Since a defeated zombie is just spent, it's a renewable threat/source of damage.  Can I assume that a resource that is spent to purchase something is unable to attack that turn?

2. Make sure that your design works, and that you want it to work, when over-spewing a single concept like:

-What happens if someone ignores actions/equipment/barricades and just has a deck full of zombies?

-What about a deck full of actions (which are all free) and just plays a face-down zombie each turn, attacking with all of them and using actions to support? (this seems the most effective that I can see so far, constant, immediate pressure and ignoring the fleeing mechanic that I can tell.)

3. The flee mechanic seems either terrible or too good, leaning towards too good.  I imagine a player spending their resources for a turn to bring out a very powerful zombie, the opponent then flees and suffers a 50/50 chance of getting impacted by that card, but otherwise time-walking their opponent.

4. Can I assume you're thinking of a "summoning sickness" on zombies?

5. What happens to face-up zombies that are destroyed?

topdeck, all your concerns are valid. I haven't finalized how things will work. I know what kind of gameplay I want to exist, and the trick now is to implement a simple and elegant set of rules to obtain that gameplay.

There are intrinsic problems in making a deck is essentially 2 decks in one, ie, a survivor deck and a zombie deck. One such problem is the risk of not being able to draw the kinds of cards you need to have a cohesive deck theme. I need to think of a good way of doing that.

One example would be action cards that act like split cards in magic, where one half helped your zombies and another half helped your survivors.
Another mechanic that I think that is needed is some kind of accelerated card drawing. For example, I might have it so you draw 2 or 3 cards each turn and then you discard some of them. That will help you draw the kind of cards you'd prefer to play at that time, but still have things interconnected in the same deck.

I intended for Action cards to be paid for like other cards. The difference between an action and another kind of card is actions are one-shot effects.

I think there will be a summoning sickness like effect. It can be a little imbalanced and swingy if people don't have a little time to plan for a battle.

I don't know how to balance the flee mechanic yet, but I want it to be costly, but eventually worth it.

http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/Zomb.html (http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/Zomb.html)

These are rules to a card game I found on the internet (unfortunantly, you have to make the cards yourselves). This game (Zombified) sounds very similar to your CCG idea, in the sense that one plays as both the Survivors and Zombies.

I would love to help with this game, as I am a huge fan of Zombie films (My username is Italian for "Dawn of the Dead). I tried to make a Zombie CCG once, but it came out too complicated. Your ideas are really great; I hope I get to see the final project!

I'll check that out. I kind of figured that there were several zombie themed CCGs already. I'll take a look and see what other ideas are out there, and I will take what works and leave what doesn't.

I haven't studied any zombie ccgs yet, so I wonder how much my game has in common with them.

After looking at Zombified, I don't think I like any of their ideas, where they differed from mine. Having a communal deck, randomly being assigned a survivor, allowing only a single item equipped, and having tons of dice rolling all seems like really bad ideas to me.

I tried to play "Zombified", but it was very random (especially because of the dice). I was thinking that you could use some form of the Fleeing mechanic that they had, since it was about the only thing that played well in the game. (However, there still is the problem with the overuse of dice).

Chaos Isle was another zombie Card Game, but I don't think I've ever seen an official zombie CCG.

Here is an idea of the zombie layout.
(http://lackeyccg.com/zombie/images/zombietest.jpg)
This is just a mockup and all the textures, symbols, and aesthetics are not done, but you can see the general layout.
The symbol on the very top left is the card type, zombie in this case. Then there is the card name. Below that on the left is the cost of the card.
Below the cost is the attack power and stamina stats. I'm actually gonna add a small icon for each.

The line where it says zombie is the card type line. Above the card type line is the card text. Below the card type line is the symbols for core abilities. A core ability would be something like Flying or First Strike in magic. One cool thing about my design is that if there is no special text, the card text field can be omitted. If a card has core abilities, you can still see it has them by the symbol. In this example, I put reminder text for those symbols, but that reminder text could be omitted. Most cards will not need card text fields, so the art will look cooler. In my game, these core abilities will be things like "Infectious", "Fast", "Stationary" and things like that. All of them will have rules associated with them, but there will be very few different kinds of core abilities so players are not overwhelmed. Any item with the stationary symbol is discarded when the survivors flee.

Here is what a card might look like with no special game text.
(http://lackeyccg.com/zombie/images/zombietest2.jpg)
In magic, the designers refer to cards with no game text as "vanilla" cards. Cards with only a basic ability, like flying, and no other game text are referred to as "french vanilla". With my design, all vanilla and french vanilla cards can be done with their text boxes omitted.

I like the font size. Even scaled down to 200 pixels wide, everthing is still readable.
(http://lackeyccg.com/zombie/images/zombietest200.jpg)

Can I make a suggestion about generic zombies?  Why not let the zombie player have the option of paying [1] to put the top card of the deck as a zombie (or maybe not even pay - say a fixed 4 per turn)?  That way you are not limited to your resources.  Zombies (generic or otherwise) should also return to the bottom of the deck when they are 'killed'.

Equipment:  if equipment has a cost, you can always give special zombies the ability to use weapons with cost X or less, typically 1.  This, after all, reflects of the difficulty of picking up such an item.

Resources:  There should be a cap.  But I also think the most powerful cards should require you to burn or bounce a resource (to keep you in check).  Alternatively, which might be an answer to the all-zombie deck, the powerful zombies have to be played from the Resource pile, thus depleting the pile.

Finally states:  I think the idea of a state deck would be fun, maybe 15 each.  So players can chose to run to the sports shop, without waiting for it to be in their hand.  But the main reason is that it gives your opponent the opportunity to scare you into a state of their choosing.  That could also be achieved by zombie-faction state cards, but I do like the idea of flicking through your state deck and saying, "You should go THERE".


The only thing I dislike so far is the idea that the two games are completely separate.  I would like there to be effects that affect all zombies or all survivors, and indeed you need ways for the decks to interact.  Another reason for a state pile is that you can have survivor faction cards that can hurt the opponents team if they are in the same Location state.  Kneecap your friends so you can survive!

I think that changing the idea of the fleeing mechanic from costly to ideal could work out with stationary items.  There can be lots of items besides barricades that can be stationary.  Weapons like "tank with no gas", "chain gun" anything you can't carry.  Healing items like "running water: restore x health at end of turn." The survivor area could have 3 sections, 2 active locations would be allowed and splitting up the survivors would be allowed.  Some survivors are meant to die, and allowing them to die at a weak location to gain some kind of benefit could be a theme.  Survivors could flee to the other active location or a new one, losing the stationary items that have been built up.  When you flee to a totally new location as opposed to the other active location, the location gets put into a the 3rd area of the survivors (really a holding pile) along with any stationary items built on it.  Survivors from either active area can then next time flee to that held location and the location they just left would enter the 3rd area.  If next time survivors flee to another completely new location, the one in holding is discarded and replaced with the location that was just left.  This keeps the focus on bunkering down and running for survivors.  Zombie abilities could set conditions on where survivors could flee to.  "If X horde zombies are in play survivors cannot flee to last location."  "Fast zombies are considered in play in both active locations but can only attack in one."  Lots of strategies could revolve around the locations and running back and forth between them.  Zombies strategies would be more than attack, they would be to control movement between locations.  Survivor abilities could affect stationary items like "mechanic: can move one stationary item from one active location to the other." "strongman: can bring 1 stationary item from his location to the location he flees to." An all zombie deck would really have a hard time defending survivors.

Resourcing would work along with you building up zombies quickly.  All cards on the back would be a 1/1 zombie.  Each turn after drawing a card you would put cards face down into play as a zombie until your hand is again 5 cards.  If you have any cards in your hand that you meet the requirements to play you can do that now.  Then if there is a face down zombie card that you meet requirements to play you can turn over one per turn.  Any killed Zombies just return to your hand.  Any zombies "left behind" by fleeing are returned to your hand.  The zombie horde constantly builds increasing pressure, there is strategy in which cards you will keep in your hand, and there is never really a shortage in resources as the number of zombies in play and face up "played" zombies can be your zombie resource and actual cards played on your survivors and locations are your survivor resource.  You should be able to execute the ideas of your deck because your cards are continuously returning to hand to be chosen.   At this point maybe letting a survivor die to prevent your opponent from getting cards back into his hand also becomes a strategic choice.  Playing a card or leaving it as a zombie would really affect your play style and could be very fluid depending on what your opponent's strategy seems to be.  Do you go for powered zombies, heavy defense, allow your swarm to build, try and set up a combo?  I would guess powered zombies could require some kind of actual discard of cards, or could impose resource use limits so there would be an actual reason not to leave it as a regular zombie.  Or maybe the only way to play a powered zombie is to turn it face up, allowing for only 1 powered zombie per turn and making the decision to fight it or flee and important one.

There could be 2 combat phases with the zombie attack and then the survivors must attack or flee.  If all zombies are eliminated then the survivors may still flee, split up into any combination that results in only 2 active locations. Special abilities, items, or actions may alter when a survivor or his group at a location can flee. Ranged combat phase would be eliminated in favor of range being a combat ability, maybe like 1st strike or double damage in the right location.

I think with all this, the game definitely would seem to focus on survival because it is inevitable that the number of zombies will just keep growing and eventually spitting out more powerful zombies.  The choices are about how much and when to invest in protecting your survivors.  Can you afford to flee or do you have to try and fight?  I don't think a set-up like this would need a "survivor win condition."

The CCG sounds pretty awesome, but could you explain how zombies/resources work again?

Quote from: teapower on January 01, 2011, 06:24:47 PM
The CCG sounds pretty awesome, but could you explain how zombies/resources work again?

I haven't decided that. I will need to think about that and the other things mentioned.

The problem with this idea is that if the Zombie side is an ever increasing difficulty, and there is really no way to win with the Survivor side, why bother with it?

Players would play the minimum amount of protection for their survivors, since after all, those wont win you the game, only make you lose it.

So players will focus only on the part with which you can actually win with, the zombie side. The game will be a race who can kill their opponent?s survivors first. Even though that is a good plan, it makes for an imbalance in the game and that will not be much fun.

compare it with a soccer match, if the rules are: first team to score wins, there is very little incentive to play with 8 or more defenders, as they won?t win you the game. They might stall, but the rules don?t allow a stall tactics to be the winning one.

I would favor a more balanced split of power, but I can?t wait to try out what this game has is mind though!

good luck. I am working on my own "zombie" game right now, with different rules. All based on the Walking Dead miniserie which is so awesome by the way!

xchokeholdx, there are many ways to build a deck. One style may favor the zombies, one style may favor the survivors, but the task of the CCG designer is to make it always in the player's best interest to use both offensive and defensive cards. Zombie survival movies are not about winning, but more about not losing. This makes the flavor unique as far as CCG design goes. One aspect of the design so far is the ability to play any card face-down as a generic zombie. So the opponents will always have to contend with an increasingly difficult horde of zombies to deal with. On the other hand, if you neglect to put any zombie specific cards in your deck, you can't expect to do a lot of damage to your opponent's survivors, thus buying him time until he can play his zombies to kill yours. So you need both offense and defense, and many cards in the deck will be usable for both sides.

Here's an idea for a rule. When you are playing as the zombie player, if you draw survivor cards (which you otherwise couldn't use) you can play those as an extra face-down generic zombie (perhaps for an extra low price).

One thing I like about my design is the foregone conclusion that the zombie player will always win, and as time goes by the zombie player gets stronger and stronger and the survivor player will eventually get overrun. The fairness comes into it where each player has to take turns as the zombie player.

To start the game, players will secretly bid something (like the number of initial damage counters on their survivors), and the winner of the bid chooses if he wants to play as zombies or survivors first.

Alright, I see where you are getting at. Your survivors WILL lose, but you can more or less decide (by playing survivor cards) how long it is going to take, AND how much time your survivors buy you to win the game with your zombies yourself.

So, all cards are a standard 1/1 facedown Zombie. Tapped resources can not be used as zombies.

I love the idea of having to balance the use of your resources between your survivors and zombies:

let?s say you have 4 resources ready, those are also normal 4x 1/1 zombies. Opponent plays his survivor turn, you tap 1 resource to play a 2/1 zombie from hand. Opponent has to fight 4 zombies this turn; 3x 1/1 and 1x a 2/1 zombie.

defeated zombies return to the resource row. Slain zombies are discarded (should be HARD to do). normal
your survivor turn starts, your resources DO NOT untap yet, so you have 3 resources to use (1 tapped zombie). the played 2/1 zombie does not count as a resource, but stays in play until slain.

I now can use those 3 resources for my survivors.

maybe readying resources should be done just before you take your Zombie turn..

I just tried this out with some pieces of paper, and even though the idea is good, there are a few problems:

a slain 1/1 zombie effectively reduces a player's resources.. not good.

Maybe a better idea is to keep the resource share between zombies and survivors, but simply let the zombie part be more powerful in cards and rules. just by playing a few times, I got confused about my resources and tapped and slain zombies and opponent?s cards (maybe less of a problem with real cards and card backs) for example:

Zombies that are defeated are tapped and placed to the side until untapped again. Slain zombies are discarded.

Some zombies will infect a player when slain (e.g. poison damage).
Slaining a zombie can only be done by (for example), some special weapons, doing 4 or more damage in one turn or discarding a certain item, etc..

dunno if you played Vampire (Jihad), but they had a similar system, where only aggravated damage would send a vampire back to its coffin.

or a simple: All zombies "heal" 1 wound at the beginning of your turn. rule would work too.

gah... care to team up with a bunch of guys here and really make this work trevor?

Resources and how they work are really important and something that needs to be done right.
I will need to think about it.

Sure, let's try working on this together and see if our visions align. I was also inspired by the Walking Dead.

Alright, lets get this Dead walking then!

Ideas more or less already in place, or have a good chance of making it to the rules to be play-tested:

? shared draw deck between Survivors and Zombies (Walkers).
? You play both sides at the same time, and the objective is to survive as long as possible, while your Walkers try to defeat your opponent?s survivors.
? For the moment, it is impossible to WIN the game by surviving. The game will not allow you to survive it, by an ever increasing number of Walking dead.
? Your survivors will move and flee from location to location, trying to outrun the ever increasing Horde of Walkers. Your group of survivors might be forced to split up, and even some survivors are meant to be left behind...
? Maybe players use 1 starting location for their survivors, and during the course of a game, play more locations to move to. A maximum of 2? locations in play at a time, while a 3rd played new location causes the last one to be discarded, along with all items and survivors. Walkers go back to hand or are unassigned to be reassigned to a new location next turn.
? Items come in 2 flavors: Stationary and Carry-able. Stationary items "stick" to a location and can note be taken with you. Carry-able items move with characters and are often (maybe fixed rule: always) attached to a character.

Things to be Decided:
? naming convention. Card types, Survivors vs Zombies/Walkers? Icons, traits and abilities. Turn structure.
? A working resource system that works for both your Survivor as your Walker deck.
? Summoning sickness effects can easily be created by all new Survivors and Walkers come into play tapped.
? Moving from one location to another can only be done if your survivor/walker is in the "ready" state (untapped) perhaps. Items can be used to "prevent" your character from being tapped while moving/fleeing?
? How many card types?
   - Walkers
   - Survivors
   - Items (both Stationary and Carry-able)
   - Locations to flee to and from. Will zombies have  locations to play?
   - Action cards that shape combat and have a one time effect on the game
   - Condition cards that have an overall, longer lasting effect on the game.

? Balancing card sides.
It is no fun having to draw just a single card each turn and topdecking like madmen, especially if you are playing 2 decks in one. I propose a similar style drawing like the LOTR:TCG had. at the end of each turn, players draw cards until they have 7/8 cards in hand.
? Defeated Walkers could, instead of going back to hand, be "unnassigned" from a location in play. The Walker player must then move them again to a location in play, causing them to tap out and unable to immediately attack.
? Maybe some items and Action cards allow a survivor player to Slay a zombie, causing it to be discarded or returned to a draw deck from play. This needs testing, as I am afraid that the buildup of zombies will be very, very fast, and if the survivor player do not have a location to flee to quickly, the game might be over in just a few turns.
Talking about that, will we aim for a MTG style?, e.g. the game can be over in just a few turns, or a more drawn out game , like the old Startrek:TNG CCG was, where both players at least get a few chances to win the game?

? So far, I love the Walker factions, where a player can focus their deck around. We should stimulate this by creating synergies between cards from the same Walker factions:

Zombie factions are Rage, Horde, Contagion, and Sentient:

Rage:
These zombies are filled with rage and ferocious energy. As soon as they see survivors, they will run towards them with horrifying speed, and they will pursue them with recklessness and savage intensity.
Gameplay mechanics include being able to attack immediately, surprise attacks, self destruction for temporary or instant effects.
Faction color: Red

I see these Walkers as types that don?t need to TAP to move, or ready themselves at the end of a turn. They will have high strength, but low on life and probably easier to be slain than other Walkers. They wont have the option to not attack, they will be forced to, even though they will lose a battle.
(aggression)

Horde:
The true power of these zombies comes in their numbers. Horde zombies swarm and overwhelm survivors. They may not be the fastest zombies, but what's the point of running away from them, only to find out you are running toward more of them and you've been surrounded?
Gameplay mechanics include abilities to play a lot of zombies, zombies are more powerful when you have a lot of them, ways to draw lots of cards, and return discarded zombies back into play.
Faction color: Orange

I see these Walkers as types that can come into play anywhere and automatically brings other zombies from hand/discard/deck into play. they?ll have average strength and will be very hard to be slain.
(swarm, general)

Contagion:
All zombies are able to infect a survivor and thus turn them into a zombie, but Contagion zombies are blood-spitting, ichor-spewing, infection machines. Instead of killing survivors, why not just "recruit" them to fight for your side? There is no greater horror than to have a survivor have to face what used to be a family member or friend.
Gameplay mechanics include turning survivors into zombies, special abilities to use on ex-survivors who are now zombies, and damage over time effects.
Faction color: Green

I see these Walkers as types that infects survivors, or even locations (add penalties for being there). they sacrifice themselves to deal damage to a large group of survivors if they are able. Any infected survivor turned into a Walker will have a great benefit on them.
(poison, combo)

Sentient:
Not all zombies are completely unthinking forces of nature. Some posses a minimal level of sentience. Instead of trying to bash through a door with bare fists, these zombies might try turning the doorknob. This group includes zombies that have been altered by science, and non-human zombie creations (such as zombie dogs).
Gameplay mechanics include being able to use some (crude) items, being able to able to counter survivor strategies, and a lot of other weird science related effects.
Faction color: Purple

these are the impossible to slay Walker types. They will be able to pick up left behind items, to prevent your fleeing plans. some of them can even jump to a new location played instantly!
(control)

I highly urge each and every lurker and poster on this board to give you input. First thing to figure out will probably be a good resource system.

The final resource system will probably resolve around one type of resource, both used for your Survivor and Walker's side.

PROPOSAL # 1 (xchokeholdx):
I propose a system not based on Land or cards-played-face-down-resources, but a Token style resource called THREATS.

Each new Survivor played, each new location played, each item, each Action and condition played to help your survivors survive will add THREATS. these THREATS will be used by your opponent to play Walker cards. This system is similar to the LOTR:CCG style Shadow pool system, only that I propose that THREATS created this way will NOT go away at the end of a turn, and will be available for the Walkers until used.

Trevor will post his proposition on a resource system when it is ready.

Any ideas on new, working, balanced resource systems are welcome!

I have been following this thread and I defnitely like how this game is shaping up.  I'm not a huge zombie fan, so please bear with me :)

In MtG and many others, resources are a build-up mechanic.  Meaning, part of the game is increasing your supply of resources to be able to do bigger and better things.  However, zombie lore really works the opposite of that, especially with this game set up as a race to kill the survivors.  IMO, the survivors should start with more options, then quickly lose them as the game goes along.  So, I would suggest some sort of diminishing resource- kind of similar to V:TES.

I would suggest a system where each player starts with a fixed # of survivor resources- perhaps the starting # could be impacted by deck design?  Anyway, as the player uses the resources for survivors, they are then permanently converted into zombie resources (for the player, not his opponent, so different from LoTR.)

For example:
I start with 30 survivor resources and 0 zombie resources.  In the first turn, I summon a strong survivor for 3, then equip him with a gun for 2 more.  I now have 25 survivor resources and 5 zombie resources.

Once the survivor resources are used up, only zombie resources remain.  I think the zombie resources should be reusable.

I think this system will help create the atmosphere of escalating panic on the survivors side, as they have less and less resources available and the oppozing zombies get stronger and stronger.  Also, would provide some interesting options in game play- how long do I hold on to these survivor resources to be able to save my butt when the real tough zombies come out?  But keeping my resources as survivor side means my opponent isn't facing my toughest zombies.

This would definitely need some playtesting, but I think it might be a good fit with the other mechanics that have been determined so far.

One additional question for Trevor:  Have you considered multi-player for this game?  I think it could work great as either heads-up or multi-player.

BrotherM, that sounds awesome, and a really good way to give each survivor player the feeling of "losing the battle slowly" over time.

I thought about implementing it in deckdesign, but the problem is that it is easier to "cheat" that way, and deck-checking all decks before you want to sit down and play is a bit cumbersome to do...

What about implementing it on Location cards? Lets say a survivor player is forced to use (lets take a number here) 6 location cards. Each location cards is numbered 1-6, and will show each player how many resources he or she may spend each turn. Survivor players will start at location 1, and move (flee is a better word) during the course of a game to other locations to stay "ahead" of the horde of Walkers, following the numbers, 1.2.3.4.5.6.

for example:

The roof:
(1)
Survivors: 5
Walkers: 2

Sewer escape
(2)
Survivors: 4
Walkers: 3

Times Square
(5)
Survivors: 2
Walkers: 5

due to the (basic) difficulty of removing Walkers permanently from play, Walkers will slowly build up their force on one location. when a player decides to "flee" to a new location, Some (slow) Walkers are temporarily left behind on the old location, at the price of less resources to spend each turn for the Survivor player, while the Walker player increases the resources it may spend.

a simple table will do, but can be changed easily with the addition of gametext:

Location number   Resources Survivor   Resources Walkers  Gametext
1                        6                            1                         -
2                        5                            2                         -
3                        4                            3                         -
4                        3                            4                         -
5                        2                            5                         -
6                        1                            6                         -

And with sample gametext:

Location number   Resources Survivor   Resources Walkers  Gametext
1                        4                            1                       At start of turn, draw a card
2                        6                            2                       No Walker may be discard from play
3                        6                            2                       At start of turn, discard 1 Item or 1 Survivor
4                        2                            2                       All cards with cost 4 or more cost 3 to play
5                        1                            1                       Walkers attack twice each turn
6                        6                            6                        At the end of each turn, discard your hand.

Sample and broken of course...

any takers?

I think location cards should be simple things, and not something as complicated as a path. LOTR used a path system, and it probably was the worst and clumsiest component of the LOTR CCG. I like the idea that a locations are simple things, that function like any item, except all locations have the active keyword "Stationary". So, when a player moves, they are discarded.

Forcing a movement path seems like it complicates things too much, and it will spread the other aspects of the game too thin.

I'm not exactly sure how movement should work, but it should be tied closely with the resources system. How I want the game work is this:
The power of the zombie side grows steadily, and WILL eventually overpower the survivors. The survivors can choose to flee, and they should need to eventually flee, and they choose when to flee. There should also be some mechanic in place that limits the amount they can flee, either an arbitrary amount (x fleeing per game or X fleeing every Y turns), or fleeing should be cost prohibitive such that fleeing too often would hurt you more than it helps you.
What fleeing does is somehow ebb the growing zombie horde such that the survivors aren't overwhelmed as quickly, but remember that the zombies will eventually overwhelm the survivors.

As far as what mechanics work to this end, I am not yet sure.

Regarding the system LOTR uses, LOTR is a survival CCG, but both good and evil sides of a deck had a shot at succeeding. People looked forward to playing the good side in LOTR. I think its cooler to dread playing the survivors. Every turn as the survivors should be a desperate fight to not die. Playing the zombies should be a fun attack, and if you don't quite finish them off this turn, you know you have a good chance of doing it next turn. Playing the zombies is care-free in the sense that you can't lose the game at that time, and you are guaranteed to at least make head-way.

Quote from: BrotherM on January 14, 2011, 04:27:11 PM
I have been following this thread and I defnitely like how this game is shaping up.  I'm not a huge zombie fan, so please bear with me :)

In MtG and many others, resources are a build-up mechanic.  Meaning, part of the game is increasing your supply of resources to be able to do bigger and better things.  However, zombie lore really works the opposite of that, especially with this game set up as a race to kill the survivors.  IMO, the survivors should start with more options, then quickly lose them as the game goes along.  So, I would suggest some sort of diminishing resource- kind of similar to V:TES.

I would suggest a system where each player starts with a fixed # of survivor resources- perhaps the starting # could be impacted by deck design?  Anyway, as the player uses the resources for survivors, they are then permanently converted into zombie resources (for the player, not his opponent, so different from LoTR.)

For example:
I start with 30 survivor resources and 0 zombie resources.  In the first turn, I summon a strong survivor for 3, then equip him with a gun for 2 more.  I now have 25 survivor resources and 5 zombie resources.

Once the survivor resources are used up, only zombie resources remain.  I think the zombie resources should be reusable.

I think this system will help create the atmosphere of escalating panic on the survivors side, as they have less and less resources available and the oppozing zombies get stronger and stronger.  Also, would provide some interesting options in game play- how long do I hold on to these survivor resources to be able to save my butt when the real tough zombies come out?  But keeping my resources as survivor side means my opponent isn't facing my toughest zombies.

This would definitely need some playtesting, but I think it might be a good fit with the other mechanics that have been determined so far.

Quote from: BrotherM on January 14, 2011, 04:27:11 PM
I have been following this thread and I defnitely like how this game is shaping up.  I'm not a huge zombie fan, so please bear with me :)

In MtG and many others, resources are a build-up mechanic.  Meaning, part of the game is increasing your supply of resources to be able to do bigger and better things.  However, zombie lore really works the opposite of that, especially with this game set up as a race to kill the survivors.  IMO, the survivors should start with more options, then quickly lose them as the game goes along.  So, I would suggest some sort of diminishing resource- kind of similar to V:TES.

I would suggest a system where each player starts with a fixed # of survivor resources- perhaps the starting # could be impacted by deck design?  Anyway, as the player uses the resources for survivors, they are then permanently converted into zombie resources (for the player, not his opponent, so different from LoTR.)

For example:
I start with 30 survivor resources and 0 zombie resources.  In the first turn, I summon a strong survivor for 3, then equip him with a gun for 2 more.  I now have 25 survivor resources and 5 zombie resources.

Once the survivor resources are used up, only zombie resources remain.  I think the zombie resources should be reusable.

I think this system will help create the atmosphere of escalating panic on the survivors side, as they have less and less resources available and the oppozing zombies get stronger and stronger.  Also, would provide some interesting options in game play- how long do I hold on to these survivor resources to be able to save my butt when the real tough zombies come out?  But keeping my resources as survivor side means my opponent isn't facing my toughest zombies.

This would definitely need some playtesting, but I think it might be a good fit with the other mechanics that have been determined so far.

That is an interesting idea about dwindling options as the game goes on, but I think it is intrinsically flawed. As games progress, I don't think people should have fewer options. The idea of being more and more under-the-gun with more pressure is cool, but I think restricting what people have to work with is a bit too restrictive. I think you can get the feel of more and more pressure by having the zombies just grow faster than survivor resources.

QuoteOne additional question for Trevor:  Have you considered multi-player for this game?  I think it could work great as either heads-up or multi-player.

This definitely should be a multiplayer game, though I haven't thought too much about the mechanics for that. I think multiplayer should work like every player controls his survivors, and they try to have each other player's survivors be killed. I considered having an option to have multiple players play as survivors, and one player play as zombies, but that doesn't mesh well with the 2 player concepts.

@Trevor.

Having location cards just as an "artistic" addition to a game, or just to have a visual picture present on table to assign cards to, is more or less the same reason I dislike Magic: You are "forced" to have them in your deck, but do very little gamewise. And drawing them late game is always a "sigh" on a player's face..

Location cards are VERY important to the survivor player. I think a split in benefits on location cards can do the trick:

ok,so a fixed "path" is not the way (pun not intended) to go. How about this:

Simple, but effective locations:

just 1 number and some game text.

the number is the amount of EXTRA resources the Zombie/Walker player gets when the survivors moves/flees from this location. the game text is mostly useful game text for the survivors, like:
? (3) When you flee from this location, take 1 stationary item from here back into your hand.
? (5) When you flee from here, Tap all zombies present.

This way, nothing dwindles down. the survivor player still get to use good game text on location cards, but at the same time, the amount of resources the Zombie/Walker player has increases a bit each time the player is forced to move/flee.

Locations ARE already tied to resources, if you include stationary items in the game. Each time you move, you are "paying" for it with cards you can?t take with you.

I think that with Zombie/Walker cards that are HARD to get rid of permanently, a "land" based resource system (e.g. where you play cards from hand and tap them each turn), can be tossed out of the window. A simple X resources each turn can do.

Quote from: Trevor on January 17, 2011, 02:26:59 PM
That is an interesting idea about dwindling options as the game goes on, but I think it is intrinsically flawed. As games progress, I don't think people should have fewer options. The idea of being more and more under-the-gun with more pressure is cool, but I think restricting what people have to work with is a bit too restrictive. I think you can get the feel of more and more pressure by having the zombies just grow faster than survivor resources.

QuoteOne additional question for Trevor:  Have you considered multi-player for this game?  I think it could work great as either heads-up or multi-player.

This definitely should be a multiplayer game, though I haven't thought too much about the mechanics for that. I think multiplayer should work like every player controls his survivors, and they try to have each other player's survivors be killed. I considered having an option to have multiple players play as survivors, and one player play as zombies, but that doesn't mesh well with the 2 player concepts.

I admit, it is a system that presents some real difficulties.  I haven't tried playing with it at all or anything, and it may very well prove to be unfeasible.  It just seemed like a fairly original system that would work well with the theme and the mechanics you have already.  YMMV :)

I think there may still be something valuable in the concept, but that's really up to you.  Perhaps the resource split between survivors/zombies could be manipulated via cards- that should provide a pretty wide design space for cards.

I think you are right about multi-player.  I think the notion of several groups of survivors being chased around by the swarms of zombies is right in line with the genre, and it could be really really fun.

Good luck in your future work with this. :)

I suspect we're all going to come at this from a different angle.  This is an approximation of the rules I came up with.

Step 1:  Redraw to your hand size
presumably zombies have ways of reducing this;  maybe based on number of wounded survivors (ooh, ditch your wounded, get more cards!)

Step 2:  Repopulate zombies:  next zombie player puts 4 cards from his hand and/or top of deck face down at your current location.
Zombie cards can only be 'played' from these face down zombies.

Step 3:  Human actions
There is an action limit.  Either fixed, or increases with fewer survivors (so the lone survivor gets more actions but fewer options).  Some cards will require multiple actions.  The number of actions should be sufficiently low (about 2-4) so that even 4 zombies a turn is bad.
Automatic actions:  Any character can attack the zombies.  If Attack > Stamina, zombie dies, no retaliation. Only one zombie at a time can be killed this way, and this automatic action can only be taken once per turn.  If a generic zombie is killed, the current zombie player chooses which one.

Step 4:  Zombie actions
You may flip a number of Zombie cards equal to the number of human actions taken.  Zombie reactions can be flipped during the Human actions step, but only up to the number of human actions taken at that point.  Some zombie cards should require the discard of generic zombies.  Some will have abilities which take a zombie action.

Step 5.  Zombies attack
Add up the Attack of all the zombies at this location.  Subtract any human protection (normally from barricades).  The final amount is how much damage must be absorbed by discarding barricades, wounding humans and sacrificing wounded humans (the stamina of each deducting from the amount).  Humans sacrificed this way become zombies, the barricades are removed from the game.

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Locations
My mind is sticking with a location deck.  Each player gets 10 locations (probably fixed).  They are largely blank, but might contain a number indicating how many barricades it can take.  Equipment, and some barricades, are tied to location type (bar, sports store etc).

Running requires a card action.  This lets there be multiple variants, each with different quirks.  Survivors cannot run to a location where there is another group of survivors.  By default, barricades and other human cards tied to the location (the tumble drier?) are discarded.

Whenever a human player runs, each other player finds their location card with the same name and puts any remaining zombies on it.  They become active whenever a human player runs to that location.  Yes, even your own zombies can hurt you.  However, there is only ever one zombie player at a time:  they cannot use the abilities on other players' zombies, but those zombies do add their values to the zombie attack.

Edit:  I should have re-read the thread ahead of time.  Some of the ideas here run quite differently to the original sequence you proposed.  However, this has been running round in my head, and I like the idea of the inevitable approach of the zombies rather than a giant battle sequence each round.  Also, this way, if you opt to take no actions as a human, you will never destroy any zombies.  As for a state of being "on the run", perhaps one of the locations types IS On The Run - which will lead to some very interesting decisions about playing zombies there.