Matthew BaileyGame #18 and the third “Then” game of the “Now & Then Summer Marathon 2024” is “Zombie Dice,” played with Jack(9), Toby(6)b and Henry (3). No photos of the kids I’m afraid as it was super warm and they decided they all wanted to play in their pants and I couldn’t be bothered to argue.
In this review, I will talk about both expansions as well.
“Zombie Dice” was the 16th review (and that’s using the kindest of terms imaginable) that I produced on the site, and in that review, both “Zombie Dice” and “Martian Dice” essentially received half a sentence each saying that I recommended them.
So let’s talk about “Zombie Dice” properly. “Zombie Dice” is a push-your-luck dice game where you are trying to gain enough brains without being shot by a shotgun. While this all sounds rather violent, and the picture on the side of “Zombie Dice” is a tiny bit scary, this game is perfectly suitable for children in a “Plants vs. Zombies” kind of way. You might want to cover up the image on the side of the tube, as it is a bit dicey (wasn’t actually intended when I wrote it).
You start with 13 dice in the cup. These dice represent your victims. Each die has three symbols: brains, footsteps, and shotguns. There are three colours of dice: green (easy victims with more brains), yellow (a bit tougher), and red (toughest, with more shotguns).
On your turn, you shake up the dice in the cup and grab three of them, without looking. You roll these three dice.
When you roll the dice, you’re looking for brains, footsteps, and shotguns.
- Brains: You keep these to the side; they count as points.
- Shotguns: You also keep these to the side; three shotguns and your turn ends.
- Footsteps: These mean your victim ran away, and you’ll reroll these dice if you decide to keep going.
After your first roll, you can decide whether to keep rolling or to stop and score your brains. If you choose to keep rolling, grab enough new dice from the cup to make sure you’re rolling three dice total. If you have footsteps from your previous roll, you reroll those plus enough new dice to have three in total.
Your turn ends when you either decide to stop and score your brains, or if you roll a total of three shotguns. If you get shot three times, you lose all your brains from that turn and score nothing. If you stop before getting three shotguns, you add the brains you collected that turn to your total score that is now “safe”.
You keep playing in turns until someone reaches 13 brains. Once a player hits 13 brains, every other player gets one more turn to try and beat that score. The player with the most brains at the end wins!
“Zombie Dice” is a super simple game, and it’s a really good way of teaching children to manage risk versus reward. Pushing your luck further and further can be quite addictive. I have played this game with everyone from small children all the way up to adults, with everything in between, and I’ve never met anyone who didn’t find it enjoyable and compelling. In my original review, I gave it a good recommendation, and if anything, three years down the line, I think it is even better and possibly one of the purest push-your-luck games that exists.
Now, there are also two expansions: “Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature” and “Zombie Dice 3: School Bus.” One of these I would say is essential, and the other one I don’t really ever touch.
“Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature”
This expansion adds three new dice that bring a bit of Hollywood flair to your zombie rampage. Here’s what each new die does:
- Hunk (White Die): Double brains and double shotguns, meaning higher risk but higher reward.
- Hottie (Pink Die): Adds a lot more feet, making her quite hard to catch with only one brain on the whole die.
- Santa (Red Dic):
Adds a few new symbols such as:
Helmet: Gives you an extra shotgun life.
Energy Drink: Turns all green feet automatically into brains.
These dice are powerful, but as there’s only one of each, they don’t overtake the game. I would say they are an essential purchase and massively increase the overall appeal of the game. They pop up occasionally, so don’t overstay their welcome and add that little bit of extra spice to make things more appealing.
“Zombie Dice 3: School Bus”
This expansion introduces a large, special 12-sided die representing a school bus. At the start of your turn, you can choose to roll the school bus die instead of drawing three dice from the cup. If you choose the school bus, roll it along with any other dice you have.
- Stop Sign: Ends your turn immediately.
- Yield: You decide whether to stop or continue rolling the school bus die and any footsteps.
The school bus die also includes symbols such as three brains, two brains, a shotgun, and a variety of other permutations.
The thing I don’t like about this expansion is that because of the stop sign, it adds a forced element to your turn which essentially kind of ruins the push-your-luck nature of it. Statistically, the school bus die is also quite strong as there is a really good ratio of brains to shotguns. While I have not done any mathematical analysis, I’m pretty confident that, generally speaking, you want to be using this die on all of your turns, which then totally kind of defeats the point of taking the other way more interesting dice out of the pot and playing with those.
If you really love “Zombie Dice,” then yeah, fine, go for it, but otherwise, I would say get “Zombie Dice 2” but not “Zombie Dice 3.”
In case you haven’t realised, I am a massive fan of “Zombie Dice.” The whole thing is well made with really nice dice that come in a really nice pot that also fits all of the expansions quite nicely without the need for extras. There are some brain and shotgun tokens that could be a little bit less flimsy, and I have definitely lost a few of those over the years, but overall, this is one of my longest-standing games that comes out super regularly, and I cannot recommend it enough.
