By Chris Jones, Zombie Game Connoisseur
Our upcomming Games for Everyone – Spiel Nominees day in August will feature some great games – among them is Zombie Teenz – Evolution!
Zombie Teenz Evolution is a family friendly zombie romp that is quick, exciting, and easy to pick up! Each player picks a teen of their choice, and begins in the center of the board: the School. The School is your main base, and where you’ll be bringing all of your supplies.
In Zombie Teenz Evolution, referred to as ZTE from here on out, your goal is to retrieve the supply crates from each of the four corners of the playboard ( The Police Precinct, Burger Joint, Hospital, and Arcade) and bring them to the school before the zombies overrun the entire board.
Zombies emerge from color coordinated sewer drains on the board. They will constantly be crawling out of there throughout the game, as each players turn starts with rolling the white die contained within the box. This roll either moves/summons a zombie of the same color, or triggers an event from the event card stack. Players may spend a turn action to fight a zombie and prevent them from overrunning one of the four corner locations. This is important as when a location becomes overrun, the next time a zombie moves into or out of that space they will use their zombie trampoline to bounce directly to the next location immediately overrunning that space also.
Event cards vary from pacifism, chaos, and respite, and are reshuffled once the small starting pile has been gone through. Each players turn has the option to perform two of three actions: Move, Fight Zombie, or Pass Supplies. Players must coordinate with each other by passing the supply crates to each other. A player may not move a crate across a dotted line on the board: they must pass it to a player on the adjacent tile. Focusing on moving the crates is your easiest path to victory in ZTE.
As you play, there are a TON of progress options, bonuses, and rules changes I won’t spoil. The rules book has a significant amount of space dedicated to this progress, and stickers to mark your progress.
I would recommend ZTE to anyone looking to include the family or friends they’re trying to get into board gaming. It can be learned quickly and the games are fun and don’t go on too long! The added bonus of legacy progress that brings on new rules and features will keep you coming back to the table to see what the next mystery envelope contains.
