Monday June 17, 2013

Review: AMC'S THE WALKING DEAD CARD CAME by Sam Faulkner
Company: Cryptozoic Entertainment

Ages: 15+
Players: 2-6 (Hero Mode), 3-10 (Survival Mode)
Game Time: 10-30 minutes

"This could become a family favorite, so long as grandma doesn’t mind a grinning corpse staring up at her."



Following on from last issue’s preview of The Walking Dead Card Game, TWDM has got its hands on Cryptozoic’s new game to take it for a spin (or a deal, so to speak). Based on the rules of 6 nimmt! (created by the award-winning game designer Wolfgang Kramer), this game has a Walking Dead twist and will give card game fans a simple but tactical and addictive experience.

The game can be played by 2-10 players and in 2 different modes – Survival and Hero. The object of the game is to either accumulate (in Hero mode) or avoid (Survival) walker cards. On each walker card is a number of bullets (which vary from card to card), and the player with the most bullets is either the winner or loser, depending on the game mode.

At the start of the game, each player is dealt 15 random walker cards, which they play either one or two at a time per round. Four rows of additional cards make up the game board, and once players have decided which cards from their hand they wish to play, the order in which they are placed on each row is dependent on the numerical value of each card. Cards are laid next to each other in increasing numerical value and when a row reaches six cards the whole row is scooped up by the player who placed the last card.

It sounds kind of complex, but it really isn’t. We spent maybe 10 minutes reading through the rules and soon picked up how to play. And with games lasting no more than half an hour, we were easily able to blast few a through games in a row.

Both Hero and Survival modes are fun to play for a group of any size (up to 10). However, we did find that a two-player duel possessed a tactical edge that bouts with larger numbers didn’t quite share, although there was still plenty of tension borne from the unpredictability of having so many hands in play at once. We can definitely see this becoming a family favorite around the holidays – so long as grandma doesn’t mind a grinning, desiccated corpse staring out from the deck of cards. As well as the walker cards, six survivors from AMC’s TV series – Rick, Maggie, Glenn, Daryl, T-Dog and Andrea – also feature, but in truth, this is about as far as The Walking Dead connection goes. So, before everybody races to get their hands on Daryl, it should be noted that all of the ‘heroes’ serve the same purpose, to jump the numerical queue and potentially steal a row from under the nose of an opponent.

As such, The Walking Dead feels like more of an aesthetic addition to the game rather than at the core of it, but the gameplay mechanic is what’s really important here, and we’re happy to report that Cryptozoic’s new game really is fun. It won’t take long for players to figure out the tactics and within minutes of picking up the game they will be setting traps for each other. Poker faces will be tested.

Cryptozoic.com
Read the article from The Walking Dead magazine