The Zombie Game: Beaver Town Edition!

After some delay, the CGC Xmas Game for 2012 is finally happening! We will be having our annual party/game this coming Saturday. Shane has generously offered up his place as usual, and Billy has threatened to bring something likely to upset our doctors, so another good year is in the offing.

This year, it's The Zombie Game (TZG), only on steroids. John Sanchez deserves all the credit for the creation of TZG, approaching me with the idea quite a few years ago now. We collaborated on the rules, and we have run it as an exclusive-to-the-CGC-and-friends events at cons and elsewhere ever since. The core rules are solid and a lot of fun, although the success of the game relies considerably on table layout. In its original incarnation, the game takes place in a sleepy highway town somewhere in the deserts of Nevada. A truck wreck has spilled "something" that has caused the dead to rise from their graves in search of human flesh, and the players must shut down all the zombie generation points in order to win. The zombies are all on autopilot, operating under a simple AI, as it were. Players must cooperate to win, but, thanks to the "Something Good, Something Bad" card concept, must often screw their neighbors over.

This year's event is TZG: Beaver Town Edition. It is much larger than the typical TZG, and takes place in an urban, as opposed to rural, setting. Everyone will play two characters, a hero and his/her sidekick. In order to win, a player must complete a personal objective, and survive to be extracted before the bomb (set to blow by Beaver Corp, the evil corporation responsible for the zombie outbreak) explodes, destroying all the zombies, and any players who didn't get away in time, as well as all the evidence of Beaver Corp's complicity in the chaos.

Here are some preview snaps of the layout for the game, just to whet everyone's whistles:

Above is a view of the police station and the Sleven, a local mini-mart chain. In the background, one can see the infamous "wrong side of the tracks."

The Beaver Town "Heroes of Beaver Town Memorial Cemetery," located in the heart of Beaver Town Park. Guess what might be spawning here...

Beaver Town Happy Acres Trailer & RV Park: It is here that the trouble began, when, in the wee hours of the night, Beaver Corp sent a truck load of Compound Zed-Zed-Alpha to bury secretly in the park, thinking that the residents wouldn't notice. Unfortunately, the Beaver Corp workers ignored the no smoking or open flame labels on the chemical drums, and they burst into flames, sending toxic smoke over the city...

A most-of-the-city view. Sorry the lighting is bad. This time of year the window of opportunity is pretty small.

One last view, this time looking from downtown - over the back of the Beaver Town Theater - across town. Next to the theater is the Beaver Town Bank, and next to it is the Bus Station. In the far corner at the top of the photo is the trailer park.

This is all in 28mm, with the buildings being mostly Rail King O Gauge structures that come fully finished. The Sleven is a MBA building, and the trailers and vehicles are from a variety of manufacturers.

I'll post an after-report of the game... after the game!

Cheers!

- Rod