Zombies At Your Heels - 2 player prototype available

I like how simple it sounds. I love a quick filler game. I'll print this out and give it a try as soon as I find someone to play it with.

Are we supposed to make room for the new runner, or place it next to another?

For example, the board reads (numbers indicate speed):

Bunker 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Horde

And I want to place a 4, does the board now read:

Bunker 7 6 5 4 4 3 2 1 Horde

Or does it read:

Bunker 7 6 5 4 4/3 2 1 Horde

with the new 4 & the 3 on the same line, now adjacent to one another?

When playing, or activating "Charlie Harris", does that split all the runners into 2 lines?

If so, I'm not too fond of that ability. I'm not sure why yet, but it seemed to make things less fun for me - like it simplified an otherwise dynamic board.

I think you're right, but the rules could use clarification. An example would be ideal.

Regarding Charlie, I wonder what the outcome would be if the starting lineup was:
7G 6 2G 2 4G 5

Would it be:
7G 2G 4G 6 2 5

or
7G 4G 2G 6 5 2

In my one playtest so far, zombies didn't get to eat much at all, which was a bit unsatisfying.

The rules update looks good. I was going to complain about the Doctor, but as you stated his Skip Escape Phase only applies when you use his ability. :) We weren't playing that way haha. We also didn't read the escape phase too well and we were escaping a runner (if ours) AND eating a zombie, regardless of whos it was lol.

Do you have the color versions of the cards available?

Also, would you like me to test this with 3 players? I could do that this Saturday if I had another player's worth of cards.

I just played your game again.

My biggest concern is that the momentum feels off. The game starts off really complex, and then gets more and more simple as things proceed. That's the reverse of what I would expect, and want in a game. When you start playing, you have 4 cards on the board, and 7 in hand. You get to choose one of your 7, giving you 7 possible actions. But then you also get to activate one of the 4, giving you 4 more actions. All together, there are 28 different scenarios you could choose as your first move. That takes a lot of time to process, especially when you then have to factor in what your opponent will do next based on the 4 cards of his that you can see. Each game I've played I've stared at the board and my cards for about 10 minutes before making my first move. Even then I wasn't confident that I was making my best move. I just didn't want to take up any more time. Contrast that to the end of the game, where I still have 4 cards on the board, but only 1 in my hand. Now I only have 4 scenarios to choose from. I have to play my card, so I do, and then I have 4 choices. And at this point, my opponent's last move is easier to predict. Plus, I've been looking at the board for a while, so I have a better idea where everything stands. It's not all hitting me at once. Every turn is giving me 4 less scenarios to choose from. So I go from 28 choices to 4. That changes a bit if more than 1 runner is eaten on a single turn, but the basic flow of complex to simple is the same. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed playing more and more as we got closer and closer to the end of the game.

I'd suggest talking to others and see if they share my concern. If they do, perhaps try a different structure to limit the decisions on any 1 turn. Some possibilities:
You draw 3 cards, play 1, then shuffle all your cards again, draw 3 more. That'll limit you to no more than 12 scenarios to choose from.
You only get to play a card, not activate another as well. This might cripple too much of the strategy, but might be worth playtesting.
Start with an empty board, and a small hand size. No escape phase until there are 8 runners on the board. Then players could ease into the thick of things at least.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I'd be curious to find out if anyone else shares my concern or not.

For the most part the game feels pretty balanced. As long as players get the same cards, it pretty much balances itself, which is clever. But players don't always get the same cards, since a runner starting on the board is different than a runner in your hand. And because 2 cards from each players hand are randomly left out. Thus, here's one small balancing issue I found so far: Professor Jane Tam
If my opponent draws her into his hand, and I don't, I feel like I have a sizable advantage. Why? You only get 7 cards to play, and this has to be one of the ones he plays. Yucky for him, because when he plays her, he'll have to skip his escape phase, and have no chance to score points (and unless I'm missing something, scoring points is FAR more important to winning than getting your opponent eaten by zombies). Yes, I'll probably lose a runner because of her, but because of her low speed score, it'll almost certainly be the one at the end of the line, which he could have chosen to make me lose anyway. Now I lose that same runner, but he has lose to Professor Jane as well. And not score. That's pretty awesome for me, and not so good for him. I'd prefer if either you didn't have to skip the escape phase, or you could choose ANY of the runners to be eaten along with her.

Hope that helps some. Like I said, I'd like to try it with 3 players, and in color. The cards I printed out thus far aren't that pretty to look at, mostly because I inversed them first in photoshop. There was so much black on them that I didn't want to kill all my printer ink.

I agree that the very beginning of the game takes awhile. Going through your hand, and figuring out what's already on the board is kind of tiring. As you suggested avalaunch, some way of building up the board to 8 runners yourself, instead of just random 8 runners, may make it more manageable. I like that idea. Also, maybe each eaten zombie is -1 point? This way, forcing your opponents runners to be eaten can be a good thing.

Played Zombies at your Heels again last night, and am back to report our impressions.

Note: This was another 2 person playtest. Hopefully I'll get a chance to playtest with 3 or 4 sometime soon -- just didn't happen last night.

The overall impression was that the mechanics worked well, but something was holding it back from being fun. We analyzed it for a bit, and I'll do my best to summarize where I think the problem (at least for us) may lie.

The main issue we both had was that while there is a lot of thinking involved, and very little luck (maybe too little?), the thinking didn't feel like strategic thinking, as much as it did "puzzle thinking". That is, you don't get the feeling that there are a number of possible strategic paths you could go down to potentially lead to victory. Instead, it feels like if you're willing to put forth enough time and mental energy up front, you could definitely discern an optimal series of moves. I suppose you could say the same of a lot of games, but with Zombies at your Heels, it feels as if there is clearly a single optimal strategy right from the get go, and if you don't put forth the energy to figure it out, you're doomed.

We also compared your game to Guillotine, which is another "move the line" game, where you line up 12 nobles, and then play action cards, which more often than not, move the order of the line. That game is silly, with more luck than strategy, but manages to get away with it and remain fun because of the goofy theme. I'm not suggesting you should go down that path - just thought it might be interesting to look into if you hadn't heard of it before.

I feel like I probably haven't been all that helpful. I wish I had more solid suggestions, but I'm not sure what might solve the issues we were having. I'll keep thinking on it though.

Last Saturday we did use the 3 card hand rule, but not the play all cards rule. We each randomly set aside 2 at the beginning per the old rules. I agree that playing with a 3 card hand is better than a 7 card hand. I also think it'll work better the direction you went, going through all the cards, but leaving 2 at the end that aren't played at all.

I'm still looking to play again, hopefully tonight, with 3 or 4 players. If I do, I'll let you know how it goes!

And good luck with your indiegogo campaign!