Background

Another great game from designer Steve Jackson. I love this game. In zombie dice you are a zombie trying to eat brains. My family takes this game of trips to play before bed. My sister wanted to play “The brain game”, we had no idea what she was talking about so we asked her to go get it. Then she brought in this game. It is based on a push your luck mechanic, and this game is simple enough a 5 year old can play it, but adults can also enjoy it.

So, gather your horde, sit down, and try to be the first to eat thirteen brains with Zombie Dice. 

Rule Clarity

The rules are very clear because it's like many other press your luck games. Roll the dice until you don’t want to risk it anymore.

Time to Explain to Newcomers

The time to explain is very fast because it is a simple push your luck game with a lot of strategy. It should take no more than five minutes to explain.

Gameplay

Zombie Dice has a push your luck mechanic. You grab 3 dice from the bag and three colors could come out. Red (hard), Yellow (Medium), and Green (easy). There are three things you can roll on the die. The footprints which means the person you were chasing got away, a brain meaning you ate them, and shotgun blast which means they shot you. The red dice have 2 feet, 1 brain, and 3 shotguns. The yellow dice have 2 of each die face. The green dice have 3 brains, 1 shotgun, and 2 runners.

You roll the three dice and check the outcomes. Any shotguns, you set aside. If you have 3 shotguns or more, your turn ends and you get nothing. If not, you can bank the brains rolled, reroll any footprints, and draw back up to three. You keep pushing your luck until you want to bank the amount of brains you have collected. Or, when that third shotgun blasts you. It is your choice when to quit and score the brains.

The endgame starts when a player gets 13 or more brains. Make sure every player has taken the same amount of turns. The most brains, wins!

Replayability

The replayability is very high because it has a feeling of (i can do better). Each game will be different because you can stop early or vice versa. Also, you will roll different dice and get different results from them. It also depends on who you are playing and how well they are doing. How hard do you have to push your luck to beat them?

Lunchtime Potential

You can play this game in a lunch hour at least once because the time playing can go from fast, to even faster. I can imagine playing this game more than once. Me and my family take this game on our vacations. We play this game back to back many times. Each game takes around 10-20 minutes. So you can play this game at least once, even in a lunch half hour.

Artwork

There is very little artwork in this game besides the icons on the dice. That saying. The symbols are nice and it gets the point across easily. Well, there is also the fun zombie art on the boxes and rules. Properly gross, but not over the top and inappropriate for families. I mean, my sister is okay with it. Nice art by Alex Fernandez.

Expansions

There are two expansions to Zombie Dice. 

Double Feature (2012)

This adds three new dice: the Hunk, the Hottie, and Santa. That’s right, Santa. Santa is a red die. The other two are black dice. The Hunk has white engraving, the Hottie has hot pink! You can add either the Hunk and the hottie, and/or Santa. Technically, there are three different ways to play this expansion: Big Summer Action Movie with the Hunk and Hottie, Santa Claus Meets the Zombies with Santa, or Direct-to-Video Sequel with both.

Big Summer Action Movie

For Big Summer Action Movie, the Hunk and Hottie are added to the dice supply and two yellow dice are removed. The Hunk has two footprints, two shotguns, a DOUBLE SHOTGUN, and a double brain. The Hottie has three footprints, two shotguns, and one brain. The are rolled like any other dice but with one exception, they can rescue each other. This means if you have eaten the brain of one of them, and the other rolls a shotgun, the rescued die goes back in the bag.

Santa Claus Meets the Zombies

Add the Santa die and remove one green. Overall, he has one brain, one double brain, one shotgun, one footprint, one energy drink, and one helmet. The Energy Drink makes you a fast zombie, and all future footprints are now brains. The helmet makes you a tough zombie. Place this die in front of you. It now takes four shots to kill you. The other special rule is that if you make it all the way through the dice bag and go to reset, you do NOT put Santa back in the bag.

Direct-to-Video Sequel

Place the three new dice into the bag removing the ones I mentioned. Now, Santa can rescue the Hunk and Hottie, and they can rescue him. The only catch, if Santa is showing two brains, he cannot be rescued. This result shows that Santa brought you two brains for Christmas!

School Bus (2014)

This adds an oversized yellow d12. It is large and obnoxiously loud when rolled. It also comes with Brains and Shoguns counters.

After your initial roll of three standard dice, you have the option to try and catch the bus. Declare you are trying to catch the bus, and roll it along with two standard dice.

Now, the d12 has some new icons and old ones. A brain, take a brain counter. A shotgun, take a shotgun counter. Brain AND shotgun, take the appropriate amount of each counter. Stop sign, ends your turn scoring what you have (unless you have too many shotguns). Yield, all shotguns become footprints on this roll. Dead end, all footprints become brains. Tire treads, you are run over by the bus. Lose a brain die or counter, if you have any. You can continue your turn as normal, but you can no longer roll the Bus die.

Okay, when playing a round with the Bus die, if you roll footprints, you have two options, chase them or let them escape. If you chase them, you must get off the bus, rerolling the footprint dice with whatever makes up to three standard dice, and this ends your time with the bus die. Letting them escape removes the footprint dice from your available ones for the round, but you can continue rolling the bus die.

If you choose to, you can use both expansions together. Remove the dice as described and go for it. You must resolve the Hunk, Hottie, or Santa BEFORE the bus. Pure chaos!

Other

There is another version of Zombie Dice. It is the Horde Edition that collects it all in one box. It also comes with a nice cloth drawstring draw bag. 

Then, there is the Deluxe Edition. This newest edition has opaque dice of the color instead of all black with colored engraving. It also adds nice dry-erase boards for each player. The player boards have funny names for each of the “Characters”. Two of my favorite names are “Gooey Louie” and “Dead Ed”

Bang for the Buck

The base Zombie Dice is a low $15.95. It is definitely worth the price. In our household we have played it over 20 times. Most of those have been on vacation. If you are looking for a game to take on trips, this is definitely the one.

Double Feature retails for $7.95 and School Bus is $8.95. We do not use them often, so you might want to skip them. However, there is a Horde Edition that retails for $24.95 and comes with all the expansions. This might be a good way to get it all at once for a good deal.

The Deluxe Edition also retails for $24.95. This is the edition I would recommend with the dry-erase boards.

We have Horde and Deluxe because Dad is weird. Just get the Deluxe.

Component Quality

The dice are good and engraved. The dice are custom D6 with rounded corners. Each die has colored engraving that is easy to read. The standard version comes with a shaker cup for drawing the dice. A score pad (which we recommend laminating around 5 or 6), is standard pad quality.

Summary

In summary Zombie Dice is a game about pushing your luck to eat brains, and not get shot. Its BGG stat is 6.2 with over 19,000 ratings. The description is “Eat as many tasty brains as you dare, without getting shotgunned.”.  The complexity rating is 1.09/5 with around 870 votes. This is one of our family' s favorite games to take on trips due to the small box size. And as the tagline on the box reads: Eat Brains. Don’t get shotgunned!