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Review. Zombie Teenz Evolution
Second Wave
Those that have been through it before recognize the signs right away: supermarkets alarmingly show empty shelves in the toilet paper aisle; talk shows repeat the same topics and guests ad nauseam; once behaviorally inconspicuous fellow human beings protest for their right to rant. We are in crisis mode once again . . . the next level.
By UDO BARTSCH
It began with Zombie Kidz Evolu- tion. Here stupid hordes stormed the schools. No, not the protes-
tors on their undaunted search for truth and enlightenment, but zombies on their hunt for children’s brains. The players had to defend themselves and ap- peared to be successful. The zombie inci- dence was bludgeoned to just below 100. Now let’s quickly increase the threshold values and the government can officially declare the apocalypse as averted. All’s well that ends well in the game.
As if! If only they had listened to the zombiologists! So, the inevitable hap- pens: the second wave rolls in. Or rather, it shuffles in: Zombie Teenz Evolution. The undead of the new generation are a little more cunning than their former wild type. Recently, they started crawling out of the sewers and instinctively wobble towards the hospital, burger joint, police station, and arcade. This is where they
find ketchup, fries, athlete’s foot cream, and a half-eaten donut – and pharmacists will knowing- ly nod at this point: these are, of course, the four essential ingredients of the fantastic antidote that can – if so desired – transform zombies back into inconspicuous
fellow humans.
Unlike in real crisis situations, we play cooperatively. Our task is to rush to the four overrun buildings in the corner squares of the small game board, grab the magic ingredients, and bring them to the place that, unfortunately, is the far- thest away – the school, located directly in the center of the board.
Possibly for insurance reasons or just to annoy us, the ingredients are packed in oversized wooden crates. One person alone cannot carry them. We have to form a chain, just like when moving. At least two players have to work together. And we also have to act quickly because zombies can’t be killed. They come back again and again and again.
Before I can take two actions on my turn (move one space, pass a crate, take a crate), a dice roll determines what the zombie horde does which will not do us well. If the die lands on a colored side, the corresponding zombie will either crawl out of the sewer or, if already on the board, advance its zombie clockwise by one space. If it lands on the question mark, nobody knows what will happen next. We will have to ask the event card deck.
Once a building is reached, it is over- run by the hordes. If all buildings are lost, we lose as well. But, hold on ... we are heroes! Servants’ duties won’t keep us
content for too long – we itch to fight. If a creature and I are on the same spot, I can take an attack action and send them back to their home cave.
These simple rules create a micro game of fifteen minutes. Simple, but with pizzazz. We have to coordinate. The ingre- dients push us into the outer limits. This, unfortunately, is risky because near the center you have more flexibility to react to unannounced zombie moves. It is more effective to only go to the corners of the board when zombies hang around there, then you can beat them up while moving crates around.
You can get lucky or unlucky. If the zombie I want to attack next round moves away from our shared space, I am left by myself and look stupid. If I lie in wait one space ahead of the zombie, the joke is on me if he ends up not moving. Similar to the random events, the card “Invasion” that moves all zombies from the outside in is useless when all zombies already stroll the promenade. And it be- comes a bad joke if we had just fought for and won a gathering ban in the pe- destrian zone.
After a few games, Zombie Teenz Evolution would have revealed all of its gameplay secrets – if most of them weren’t hidden in the 14 envelopes that you only get to open little by little. We use
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Photos: Bartsch, Becker