Monday, June 2

Zombology - Get It While It's Hot!

Off the presses that is. Zombology, my 20 minute card game about the science of the zombie apocalypse for 3-8 players is now available for download again. I've decided to make the blind playtest of Zombology freely available here in the hope I'll get more people to download it and give it a try. As with the NaGa DeMon versions, I've put links to the PDFs of the game cards (in A4 and A3 sizes) and the rules at the bottom of this post. It's 5 double sided sheets of A3 or 12 double sided sheets of A4. Plus one doubled sided sheet of A4 for the rules. Please feel free to print and cut out a copy and give it a bash.

Please note that this is a playtesting copy featuring basic artwork and while I'm reasonably happy with the way the game is progressing, this version hasn't been extensively tested and isn't finished - this is a work in progress made available to get feedback and for testing. I've only played this version a few times, so there are a few things that are possibly flaky. I'm slightly concerned that this version makes it too easy for a spoiler to make a player win impossible, so that's something to be aware of. The game is a semi co-op with the players trying to beat the game, but with only a single winner. In the last few versions the players always won, which to my mind was a bad thing - there was no risk and no feeling of striving to beat the zombies before time ran out - the players always won comfortably with plenty of time to spare. In this version we've played four games, and won two. I'm aiming for a 70% win ratio, so 50% is a little worrying, but based on far too little data at this point. In one of the games one of the players was acting as a spoiler, trying his damnedest to force a loss on everyone. He succeeded. I hope that experienced players would be about to overcome that (at least 70% of the time!) but I'm concerned that as it stands it might be too easy, which could make the game less fun for everyone else.

If you do download it please comment on this post letting me know that you've downloaded it so I can get some idea of how many people are taking a look and if you play it I would really appreciate it if you would take some time to provide me with feedback via email.

Please email me at jackson dot pope at gmail dot com with Zombology Feedback in the subject line and answers to the following questions:

  • How easy was it to get people to play the game?
  • Did you like the theme?
  • Who played the game? Were they gamers?
  • How clear were the rules and the examples in the rules?
  • Do you have any rules questions?
  • What did you like most about the game?
  • What did you like least about the game?
  • Do you have any ideas to improve the game?
  • Did the players enjoy the game?
  • Would they play again?
  • Would you be interested in buying a copy of Zombology with decent art and production quality?
  • If so, how much would you pay for it (in your currency)?

Many thanks in advance for taking the time to try it out and provide me with some feedback. I really appreciate it and hopefully you help will make Zombology a better game.

Here are the links to the files:

Thanks again for your help, I look forward to receiving your feedback!

4 comments:

7isprime said...

Downloaded and printing.

Jackson Pope said...

Cool, thanks! And thanks for letting me know. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jack

Unknown said...

Downloaded and printed, will assemble this week and hopefully try it on Thursday :)

Jackson Pope said...

Hiya Nigel,

Great! Thanks :-)

Cheers,

Jack