Women Like Board Games: Review - The Walking Dead Board Game

I have a love/hate relationship with The Walking Dead; something about the zombies grosses me out, but I enjoy the drama and psychological/philosophical musings of how people would react to such an apocalypse, yet somehow nasty zombies always pop up to ruin the only thing I do enjoy about the show. I’ve only seen the first season fully and snippets here and there from other seasons. I’m not saying I’m opposed to zombies in general, I just think they’re really gross on The Walking Dead, and they die in really gross ways, and they sound gross, and I just don’t like them. So when my (non-gamer) friends said they had a Walking Dead board game they’ve owned for years but never played because the rulebook seemed confusing and asked me to help teach them the game, I agreed, because that’s what you do for friends. For what it’s worth, this review is based only on the 4-player game.

When I saw the rulebook was only a few pages my first thought was, “why couldn’t they have figured this out?” but upon actually reading the rulebook I understood. This is one of the simplest games imaginable – a roll & move die fest – but the way the rules are presented the game isn’t entirely intuitive and the fact that there’s an FAQ at the end for such a simple game is telling. It’s not the worst rulebook ever, but for a game that’s supposed to appeal to mass market fans of The Walking Dead there’s certainly a barrier to entry that’s off-putting to non-gamers.

Ok, the rulebook isn’t great but how does the game play? As noted, it’s really simple. You chose a character, roll the die, move that many spaces in the direction of your choice, and resolve an encounter (unless you landed on a no-encounter space). You’re trying to get to all 4 corners and return to the middle as fast as possible to win the game. And that’s it (for the most part). While the premise is simple, encounters are deadly affairs and you’ll have to deal with them almost every time you move.

But before we get too deep into gameplay, it’s important to remember the game is based on Season 1 of the TV show. When you set up the game you get to choose between playing Rick, Shane, Lori, Dale, Andrea, or Glen. That’s right, by the time you play this game many (if not all) of these characters are long gone, and most were crappy characters anyway. But this can be fun – I bet you never thought you’d play a Walking Dead game where someone calls dibs on Dale!

Now back to the game. To resolve an encounter you’ll role the die, add any attack modifiers from Scrounge cards, and hope you end up with a number equal to or higher than the zombie’s value. The key here is that you have a limited number of scrounge cards at your disposal which are usually lost once played. Play too many too early and you’ll be left exposed, but if you don’t play them at all it’s almost impossible to kill most of the zombies you’ll encounter (not entirely impossible – more like 83.33% impossible since a roll of 6 always wins).

Let’s take a look at these scrounge cards for a minute. Trying to keep with the theme of the walking dead, each scrounge card has a still-shot from the first season of the TV show and tries to be thematic in terms of how the modifier works with the picture, yet this consistently falls short. A shotgun card has a modifier of +5, and a chance that you’ll attract other zombies and need to resolve another encounter if you roll a 1 while using it - and this makes sense; it’s a good card and fits with the theme. Yet a sack of guns only give s you a +3 modifier. It’s a SACK full of GUNS, why does the modifier make it seem like you’re using it to whack away a zombie as if it’s trying to steal your purse?

Baseball bats are cool because you get them back if you win the fight – but only if you used only bats in the fight, and they only offer a +1 bonus. It’s rare you’ll have more than 1 of these in your hand so you’re bound to lose them. And crossbows are cool too because you can reuse them if you rolled a 5 or a 6 in the fight. But wait… why a 5 or a 6? I’m pretty sure Darryl gets most of his arrows back if he kills a zombie, so why not just get it back if you win the fight or lose it if you don’t? This is the tip of the iceberg of things to ponder during your play of The Walking Dead Board Game, but at least it gives you something to think about in an otherwise mundane experience.

So what happens if you lose an encounter? Your allies get “bit” and you lose an ally token. If you lose all of your allies and take another bite you’re dead. The allies don’t do anything for you otherwise, they’re yet another thematic abstraction, as if you had a group of followers you were trying to protect and you can’t protect them all. I don’t mind this abstraction, it’s really cool that your life points are human shields!

Now some people say that the game doesn’t offer any decisions, but that’s not true. You have to decide which corner to go to first and each corner will provide you some sort of benefit, whether instant or lasting, so you have to decide which to prioritize. You’ll also have to decide which corner you want to go to next (though after 2 corners, it’s obvious which direction you’re headed). Since you have an encounter almost every time you move, sometimes you might want to go in the opposite direction just to land on a space that gives you an advantage instead of heading towards your target. Also, your scrounge cards are limited and you’ll have to decide when to use them and how many to use – and this will depend on your tolerance for luck. Granted, I just explained every decision you’ll make throughout the game in a single paragraph, but decisions do exist!

That’s not quite right, there’s one other decision you have to make in The Walking Dead Board Game: when to use your character’s special ability. Each charter in the game gets a one-time-use special ability. Some are thematic, others seem tacked on for game play reasons. For instance, Shane can steal scrounge cars from other plays – definitely thematic, seeing as he tried to steal Rick’s wife. Lori though, can move another player’s piece to a corner. There’s no theme in this, but it certainly helps in the survivor’s ability to move around the board quicker. There’s no need for the special abilities and some games you won’t or can’t use them, but at least they add a spark of variety.

At this point you might be thinking, “This is a game about The Walking Dead and people who die turn into zombies so this can’t be everything there is to the game, right?” Of course there’s more to it, and this is where the game actually gets fun. The first two people to die become walkers whose goal is to kill the remaining survivors, while the survivors then just need to get 1 person to all 4 corners and back to the middle.

And I have to say, being a walker in this game is really cool. You can die as much as you want and still respawn, you can use sewers to take shortcuts around the corners, you can move up to the number you roll on the die instead of having to move the exact number (which is huge!), and you can even warp yourself across the board and attack a survivor while they’re having an encounter.

What, you don’t remember zombie teleportation being a part of The Walking Dead? Well who cares? It’s cool, it’s fun, being a walker is awesome!

Yes, being a walker is awesome, which is the biggest flaw of the game. Because being a walker is so cool everyone wants to be a walker and some players will rush to die just to become a walker. And walkers are so overpowered that the survivors really don’t stand much of a chance against them. You see, the survivors are still playing the game the same – resolving encounters pretty much every time they move, and running out of scrounge cards to help. By the time walkers enter the game and start using their teleportation abilities the survivors are toast. Sure the encounter card is replaced by a card the zombie choses so survivors are still resolving a single zombie fight, but if you lose that fight the walker player is right there on your space and able to get to you on their next turn. Even if you roll a 6 to get far away it really doesn’t matter what the zombies roll because they have cards that let them move even further and still attack after they’ve moved.

The game designers were well aware of this, which is why the rulebook includes an alternate scenario where you can start off as zombies vs survivors. This version of the game is so much more fun than the base game! In the regular game by the time two people turn into zombies the survivors usually only have 1 or 2 health left and 2 corners to visit. The alternate scenario seems better balanced, with survivors starting off with 4 allies and only having to get to all 4 corners between the two of them. And it’s still hard for the survivors to win.

While this review may seem positive in general, please do not mistake the fun I had with my friends for any sort of suggestion you should pick this up for yourself. The game is much too simple, not very engaging (unless you play as zombies), and 100% luck dependent. You could get the same feeling by playing a game of “hey everybody, let’s all take turns rolling a die to see who rolls a 6 the most!”

So should you get this game for yourself? No, absolutely not. Should you get this game for a friend that likes The Walking Dead? Heck no. There are plenty of other, better Walking Dead games out there (not to mention even better zombie games in general), that gifting this game would make you a bad friend. Don’t be a bad friend.

But what I am saying is if your friends have a copy of this game and want to play or if a well-meaning family member gets you this game because they know you like The Walking Dead and also know you love board games so by golly this must be the perfect gift for you, go ahead and give it a whirl. There’s still some fun to be had in playing the walkers and the game is so short you could play a couple of times taking turns as walkers and survivors. It’s an easy “beer and pretzels” game where very little thinking is involved. We had plenty of fun with times where the survivors should have been dead but were on a roll of 6’s that just wouldn’t stop, or put down so many modifiers they only needed to not roll a 1 and still rolled a 1, resulting in “oooooooohhhh my gaaaaawwwd” outbursts. The game can be fun, but don’t play the regular version of the game – skip straight to the alternate scenario for maximum entertainment.

Women Like Board Games Rating: