Escape: Zombie City

Happy Halloween! Tonight I went over to my friends’ house to help them hand out candy to the Trick-or-Treaters. Where I live doesn’t get many kids these days, but their neighborhood still does. I didn’t dress up (unless you count “woman with enough nerve to wear bright-ass lipstick” a costume) because obviously Halloween is amateur hour and as a cosplayer, I reserve that stress and work for convention times. I kid, of course. I tried on a couple old costumes this afternoon but I couldn’t muster up the excitement to wear any of them. Ugh, wigs. Ugh, shapewear. Ugh, costume makeup. Not today, Satan. Not today.

Anyway, at our little get-together, my pal Jason brought a game he had helped fund on Kickstarter called Escape: Zombie City. Seemed pretty appropriate for Halloween! Each game session was 15 minutes long. There was spooky background music that timed the game and helped set the mood. We played four games before we won (on the easiest mode, it must be said). It’s very fast-paced, and since there weren’t turns (everyone plays at the same time), you didn’t get bored waiting for someone else to make a move.

The plot of the game is that you’re survivors of a zombie apocalypse, and you need to explore a randomly and continuously user-generated city to find items, return them to your safehouse, stock up your escape van, and leave the city. All while avoiding the undead, of course. We started playing on the coffee table, but then when we kept adding map tiles that went off the edges and dropping our dice, we moved to the floor. I’m pretty sure my back is going to punish me for that tomorrow.

It was really fun! (Once we figured out what we were doing!) It’s fun and fast, and everyone eventually was yelling at each other for assistance. I liked that it was a cooperative game, not pitting us against one another. I look forward to playing this one again!