31 Days of the Walking Dead - Day 11

On day eleven the town of Woodenvale will be the unfortunate victim to a plague of un-death. For the citizens of Woodenvale this could be their Last Night on Earth. I know… a way too obvious pun but it is too good of a segue to pass up! Flying Frog Productions offers up a great and easy-to-learn board game that I recommend to any zombie gaming enthusiast.

You start off the game by randomly generating the portion of Woodenvale you will be playing in. You also get to randomly pick which four of the eight main characters you will be playing as. Of course you can knowingly pick which town pieces to play on and which characters you want to play as most. But the randomness, I think, adds to the suspense of the game.

The objective of the game really depends on the particular scenario you will be playing but each session you play will track its progress via a countdown to dawn system. On the zombie player’s turn the marker will move forward a notch. I like this approach as it adds a sense of urgency to fending off the ever-tightening gap between you and the Zeds and completing the main objective.

The game also uses a card system with which each turn the zombie player draws up to a hand of four. The heroes however have to search the buildings in town to draw their cards. Each card has the potential to stick it to the other player be it as item/stat enhancing cards for the heroes or cards that likewise augment zombie movement/attacks but also have the potential to restrict heroes from entering buildings and/or adding more spawn locations.

Last Night on Earth really shines, like most games, in its cooperative play. The base game allows for two to six players and with more players comes more strategy. You still keep the four heroes and the same total of zombies but if you have three players you divide the zombies amongst two players. Six players give you two teams of zombies and four individual heroes. Basic math I know but if you throw in the cards you’re given a great opportunity for scheming and plotting. The best part though is that cards can be played, unless worded otherwise, at any time allowing for some great on the fly strategery.

The game however can be a bit pricey but it offers some great fun, it is easy to setup/cleanup, it only takes an hour/hour-and-a-half to play, and it comes with its own soundtrack. Yeah, it comes with a disc to play during each scenario!

Good luck citizens of Woodenvale, see you at dawn… or at least those of you that survive that long!