Zombie Stomp! Game Board Sketch

So, as planned, here is the sketch for the Zombie Stomp! Gameboard.

There are a couple of things to note here:

1. Humans start with one pawn in Engineering, two on the Bridge, and three in Habitation.
2. All eight zombies are split evenly between the two cryopods.
3. Zombie are too stupid to use hatches (the little lens shaped things with T’s on each side). Only humans can use them.
4. The Port Cryopod, the Aft, and the outside of the ship are vacuum. Humans cannot enter these spaces unless they go through a hatch and suit up. Zombies can enter these areas just fine using regular doors. No significant depressurization of the ship occurs.

I plan to work on a better board, making it real purdy-like and everything using GIMP, over the next couple of weeks. Once it’s ready I’ll post it. I’ll probably post some preliminary stuff as well so you’ll see the sausage being made and too keep feeding y’all content.

I also intent to work on the rules and play-test them over the next couple of weeks. Expect those sooner as writing documents is easier than using GIMP. And please, play-test the rules yourselves and give me your feedback. Either send me an email at guy@guyroyse.com or drop your feedback in the comments on the blog. The more data I have, the better.

And, of course, if you give me play-test feedback you’ll get props in the final PDF. And who knows, maybe in an actual print version of the game some day.

Once I get the game finished I may make new maps if their is interest. I’m thinking that a classic dungeon for a nostalgic D&D feel might be fun or perhaps a small town Main Street—complete with a theater showing a zombie flick— for that real B-movie experience.

This game will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license so that you and your friends can take this content, remix it, create maps, expand the rules, or whatever. I heartily encourage you to do this. Right now. Right this second. Go crazy! Just be sure to post links to your stuff in the comments so everyone else can share in the fun.

— July 7, 2009

Coming Soon: Zombie Stomp!

“Hey! Hey! Do the Zombie Stomp!”

Okay. So that’s Ozzy but it’s still a cool song. The Zombie Stomp never really took off like the Monster Mash or the Transylvania Twist but don’t short it. It’s damn cool. Cool enough to be a game. That’s right. I’ve been inspired to make a game, a board game, by Ozzy Osbourne himself.

Actually, this is all a lie. Well, not all of it, just the Zombie Stomp! part. It’s still a game. But Zombie Stomp! has a much to do with Ozzy as Java (that’s a programming language for all those non-techies) does with coffee. The only thing they have in common is the name.

Imagine if you will a subluminal ship deep between the stars. A skeleton crew mans the ship while the colonists slumber thoughtlessly in cryogenic suspension. But, of course, something goes wrong. A strange artifact impacts the ship and the folks in cryo wake up with a craving for braaaaiiiiinnnnnssssss.

Zombie Stomp! is a game of this particular space horror. Two players face off—zombies vs. humans — on a game board that is the deck plans of a deep-space colony ship. Pawns representing humans and zombies are placed across the board as the players try to eliminate each other.

The rules are simple:

• Humans run two squares.
• Zombies shamble one square.
• Move one pawn per turn.
• Humans may move two pawns one square on a turn.
• An attack counts as one.
• Zombies go first since no one expects a zombie attack.

If there is an attack, each side rolls a six-sided die:

• High roll wins.
• Ties are just that: a tie. Try again next turn
• If the winner is a zombie, the human pawn becomes a zombie pawn.
• If the winner is a human, the zombie is removed.

I’m not sure how balanced this game is, so I plan to do some play-testing to see who wins more often. If there is an imbalance, I’ll give the zombies or the humans the advantage of winning a tie and see what that does.

I plan to produce a PDF containing the rules and the game-board once play-testing is completed. There might be a few surprises in there. We’ll see what I can come up with for you.

This game could easily be played on a chess board. Take eight white pawns and place them at one end of the board. Take eight black for the other side and just start playing. You’d need at most eight additional black pawns to play in case the zombie get lucky.

In fact, why don’t you play some games on a chess board—or some other board of your devising—with your buds and tell me about it in the comments. I’ll incorporate your feedback into the game, maybe include some of the boards, and give props to everyone that helped.

— July 2, 2009