Aha! I actually found time to make another blog post…being on vacation with the family in Cape Cod. Since the last time I posted, I’ve had the privilege to play some new board games which are always a fun time. As of now, I want to do reviews for Zpocalypse, HeroClix, and Dungeon Command. I recognize that HeroClix is a Rules Engine that has various incarnations. I will review HeroClix based on the way I currently am using the system, which is with the Pacific Rim line (Giant robots and Godzilla monsters). If I go in order of acquisition for the list of games, Zpocalypse would be first.

Zpocalypse

Zpocalypse is produced by the game company Greenbrier Games.

http://www.greenbriergames.com/gbg/

 It was a kickstarter project that was quite a success. The kickstarter concluded before I became aware of it and therefore I was unable to contribute anything. I was however exposed to Zpocalypse all the way back in April of 2012 at the Pax East convention. I was perusing the board gaming section of the convention with some friends when the game’s booth caught our eye. We played a demo of the game….and then stuck around to play another round…and another. Flash forward to now, and I’ve had the opportunity to play the game at a few other conventions and finally purchased a copy of my own 2 months ago.

                               

The Setup

Zpocalypse is a 2-4 player zombie survival-horror board game. It blends tabletop combat with card-based mechanics to create a fun game of resource management and zombie killing. Each player controls a party of survivors dependent on the number of survivor cards the player has in their hand. The resources used are Food, Scrap, Ammo, and Medical. In order to fight zombies, each survivor in the party must be fed; ergo 1 Food card feeds 1 survivor. Scrap cards are used for building fortifications which I will get into in a moment. Ammo reloads gun item cards, and medical cards heal survivors.

Each player is provided with a player board of sorts for tracking a plethora of stats. The boards are of good manufacture; sturdy and cleanly cut. Even better, the boards outline the course of 1 full turn of gameplay so everyone can quickly figure out the flow of the game. The boards keep track of things like Health, Armor, Melee, and Firearm Skill, and Smarts. Health and Armor are straightforward, these are used during combat. Melee and FireArm Skills affect the combat aspect of the game, determining if special abilities can be used. Smarts are important for event cards.

The game also utilizes an Experience Point system. Surprisingly the game gives one a board with spaces marked 0-60 and little colored figures. This is how the Experience Points are tracked in the game. Zpocalypse calls them ‘Victory Points’ but coming from a tabletop wargaming background, it is not the right use of the term ‘Victory Points.’ Oddly though, the points earned on this board determine the winner as well…regardless, to me they’re Experience Points.

The Turn

A turn of Zpocalypse is broken up into 4 phases; Scavenge, Feed& Fortify, Something’s Happening, Combat. The turn itself represents a full day of survival. The game is designed to end at the end of Day 4 but can be played for longer. The Scavenge phase, each player pulls a Scavenge card. The Scavenge card outlines a scenario that the player’s survivor group goes through. There are things like raiding a candy store or inspecting the local police station. Each card makes the player roll a skill check. The skill is displayed on the card. If the player passes the check, they usually get good loot or survivors. A failure is not devastating but does make things more difficult. Each Scavenge outcome will make zombies spawn on the board.

After every player has executed their Scavenge card, the Feed & Fortify phase is next. Personally, this is part of what sold the game to me as a good game. Only survivors that are fed with Food cards can participate in the Combat phase later on. Players can trade with each other or hoard Food cards depending on their tastes in diplomacy. Next is the Fortify aspect, or where the strategy begins. This is the part where the players build things. Now in reality these objects are 2d counters placed on map tiles on the game board. However the gameplay mechanics make them neat. Players can expend survivor and scrap cards to build things like walls, gates, lookout towers, or traps. Each object has abilities that will help the players survive the night of combat and each object built nets the builder Experience Points.

Once all players have placed their structures on the board, they move to the next phase; ‘Something’s Happening.’ One of the player’s draws the card from the appropriate deck and reads the text aloud. The gist is that each card puts a modifier on the conditions for that Night’s Combat Phase. This is a cool way to make Combat rounds more unique and unpredictable. For example the last time I played the modifier was : a rain storm had rolled through miring everything in mud, this in turn hampered our Survivor’s movement, making maneuvering through the map more dicey.

Now that all the logistics have been taken care of, it is time to smash some zeds! The Combat Phase represents the rest of a Turn (Day). Players take turns moving their survivors about the map killing the zombies that had cropped up during the Scavenge and Something Happening phases. Players as a group also alternate with the Zombies taking turns. Zombies by default move towards the ‘bunker’ (a location on the map that represents the home base of all players) unless a survivor gets within 4 squares to lure them away….(or play the guitar as some sort of psychotic pied piper).

Once the players have killed all the zombies on the game board, a new Turn starts back with the Scavenge phase…or all the players are dead which means time to start a new game…or ragequit, heh.

Net Result?

The end result is a really fun game of zombie survival. There are enough Scavenge and Something’s Happening cards to keep the game fresh for quite a while. Players can even come up with their own scenarios in no time to expand on the basic formula. The Combat phase is fun and made even more exciting with the ability to affect the game board in some capacity with the construction of obstacles.

Game Mechanics that really stood out for me were as described above, the Fortify phase, and the use of a bit of RPG elements like Melee and FireArm skills. I also loved the use of an expanding game board. Overall play time is somewhere in the 2hr range easily. This may put people off but the best part is any give group does not have to play the full 4 days to enjoy the game. Even 1 or 2 Days (turns) are enough for a casual game night, and played this way slows the burn out rate of the game.

Price Point

So, Zpocalypse is a bit steep at 60$ which is the cost of an average video game. I only recommend getting this game if you have a group of regular gamer friends. The game operates best at max capacity with all 4 players present on the game board. Although the game is 60$, you get a good amount of stuff for 60$. There are 4 different types of starting area for the game board with all map tiles being printed double sided. The card art is a bit basic but fun, the text being the more important and fleshed out part. A bit of caution though, the card material felt thinner and flimsier than what I’m used too so try not to bang up the cards too much. The game also comes with specialized six-sided dice for making rolls. For miniatures, you get single-colored figures of the survivors (gray) and a bit of variety of zombie figures (dark green and neon green). The figures are decently detailed and pretty sturdy.

The box set also comes with full-colored rulebook that is about 20 pages. The rules are straightforward but the layout of the pages in the rulebook are bit a jumbled. There is a decent amount of information that the rulebook has to cover, and for me at least, I had a bit of trouble teasing information out of the rulebook due primarily to the page layouts and presentation of information. Fortunately the rules are easy to pick up. When it comes to rule books, I have begun looking at them as a programmer. Although flowery descriptions and layouts are nice to the eyes, I prefer bulleted lists and tables for the rules, with the whole If/Then/Else schtick

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Final Thoughts

Zpocalypse is a good game. I’d give it 4/5 rating. It doesn’t rely solely on a single gimmick or two. It dabbles in a few types of interaction and does a good job of balancing card and tabletop play. The game has resources to manage, and combat to win. There are opportunities aplenty to screw over your fellow survivors for those precious Experience Points or pieces of loot. I’m much more of a team player though, and the team aspect really shines through when the game reaches Fortify phase where players put down strategic obstacles for added defense. The price point might be a bit steep for the casual gamer, but the game itself will not disappoint. It has quality components and a bit of dynamism thrown in as well.

Back of envelope notes

A good thing to keep in mind is that Greenbrier has moved to expand Zpocalypse in several ways. Each new pack adds a new element to the game for added variety. One modification adds the role of ‘Zombie Master’ who is able to control all the undead along with a group of new undead. This reminds me a lot of the ‘special infected’ from Left 4 Dead series of video games therefore I look forward to picking up a copy. Another game type removes the ‘bunker’ aspect and makes the players wander the wasteland, revealing game board tiles as they explore. It’s always good to see a company support their product and recognize that many veteran players want more of a game they like, but not always more of exactly the same. 

Was gone for too long.

    Yes, it has been over a year since I’ve made a post on this blog. I have not been idle however. Since the last post in here I have:

-        Created and released a video game with my cousin.

-        Moved to a new apartment.

-        Worked on my comic art and writing.

So although I’ve been absent, stuff has still been completed. This is a return post of sorts. I would love to promise a blog every two weeks, but as with most side-projects I usually fail to deliver on deadlines. A more optimistic approach would be to make one post a month until that becomes a habit and then try for one every two weeks. The subjects of this blog are still the same; discussing the development process of board, tabletop, and video games. Along with this, every now and then I will review a board game or tabletop game I have tried. Ok, I think I have enough of the formalities out of the way, on to subject matter.

MetroSiege:

    Ah MetroSiege, the on-again-off-again tabletop game I’ve been working on for the better part of a year. There have been large breaks in between development periods, so maybe more like a total of 4-6 months. I picked up the torch again over this April, testing stuff as usual. There have been some significant shakeups though.

Original Attack Mechanics:

    One major change is how one unit attacks another unit. Originally we were using a single D10 roll and the result was checked against a chart with varying degrees of success.

ROLL	1 WPN	2 WPN	3 WPN	4 WPN	Critical Hit
1	M*	M*	M*	M*	Critical Failure
2	M*	M*	M*	1-H	Shield Emitter
3	M*	M	1-H	1-H	Shield Generator
4	M	1-H	1-H	2-H	Weapon Destroyed
5	H	1-H	2-H	2-H	Weapon Destroyed
6	H	1-H	2-H	3-H	Leg Damage
7	H	1-H	2-H	3-H	Targeting and Tracking
8	H	2-H	3-H	4-H	Reactor
9	H	2-H	3-H	4-H	Capacitor
10	H	2-H	3-H	4-H	Critical Failure

This was a straightforward way to keep most information on one table. M = Miss, H = Hit, M* = miss, ammo expended. The number next to the H (i.e. 2-H) meant that two weapons have successfully hit the target. Depending on how many weapons were put into the group determined the odds of how many weapons were going to hit the target. The last column is determining which Critical Hit the unit has suffered. Critical Hits only occurred when all armor was destroyed and no shield tokens left to soak remaining damage.

    Original ruleset also included unit movement modifiers when either attacker or defender moved. If the Attacking Unit used the Cruise movement mode; it suffered a -1 to its D10 roll, -2 to the roll for Flanking. Also, if the Defending Unit used the Cruise movement mode, then an additional -1 was applied to the roll and -2 for Flanking.

    The net result was not very pretty. Of the handful of test games we played, the game devolved into stationary shootouts towards the middle and end of the game. Successfully hitting a Unit with one attack proved incredibly difficult. Even with attacking with 2-3 weapons, rarely would the Attacker score enough hits to do any last damage. Regenerating Shield tokens allowed the Defending Unit to literally undo the minor damage that did come through. So, this system had to be scrapped and we had to go back to the drawing board.

New Attack Mechanics:

    After a week of idle thought, I stumbled upon something that might work. I’m not going to claim that what I propose is at all completely brand new. There are only so many ways to roll D6’s. Oh, did I mention? Metrosiege is back to being a D6 game rather than D10; buckets of D6 ahoy! I have not finalized the complete set of new rules for attacking but I have a foundation that can be worked with. First was an update to the stats of Weapons. Every weapon has a ‘DMG’ stat which is short for Damage. Damage dealt by a weapon is still 1:1 to Shield and Armor tokens. The change now is, DMG also determines how many dice to roll. Therefore a Particle Beam Cannon has a DMG of 5, therefore the player using the Particle Beam would roll 5D6.

The second part of the equation now is the To-Hit number. Once the player rolls the requisite number of dice, each roll result must meet or exceed a given number. Going with our Particle Cannon example, the player rolls 5D6 for the attack. The results are a 3,1,4,2,3. The ‘To-Hit’ of the Particle Cannon is 3+, so out of the 5 dice rolled 3 dice count as hits. Therefore the amount damage dealt by this particular attack is 3. The intent of these changes is to make damage dealing easier to accomplish. Metrosiege is a game that should be able to be completed in under an hour, hence units should be able to constantly throw damage at each other. Fast and Fun are the pillars.

Energy/Shield Dynamic:

Original ruling on Recharging shields was the following. At the start of the turn, before rolling for initiative and after regaining the amount of Energy tokens equal to a Unit’s Recharge stat the player may choose to spend Energy tokens regaining Shield Tokens. This allows a Unit with depleted Shield tokens to regenerate spent tokens up to their max amount. The Original ratio was 2 Energy tokens to regain 1 Shield token. I have decided to change this ratio to 1 Energy token to 1 Shield token. This makes recharging Shield tokens easier but may come at a cost to game speed as Unit become more difficult to bring down.

Models:

Creating official resin or plastic models for the game is still a design goal of this project. Currently the scale I’m aiming for is 40mm base size for most mechs, maybe smaller bases for vehicles. A solution that I have explored recently was using Lego pieces to construct Units. It took a week to assemble some examples but the net result is pretty cool looking. A benefit of going the lego route is making assembly instruction and the cheap availability of parts. Still another advantage to using Lego pieces is they help enforce the WYSIWYG mantra of most tabletop games. WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get, if an item or model is not present in your army then you cannot have the particular item. Likewise if a model is holding a certain weapon, then unless otherwise specified, that weapon on the model is what the rules say it is.

Planned:

-More games, this is crucial. I plan on playing at least 10-12 games with the current ruleset.

-updated Vehicle Info Cards.

-New sketches for units.

-Explore new game mechanics like Electronic Warfare.

-Create a table of lego parts and their corresponding description.

Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All systems, nominal.

After quite a hiatus, I will be posting on this blog again, details coming soon.