![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dead of Winter
Apr. 11th, 2025 11:07 amYesterday, we played Dead of Winter - a post-apocalyptic, co-operative board game, with lots of zombies.
I wasn't initially enthused, because there was the possibility of a hidden betrayer and I'm not a massive horror fan - but wow, did we go on a journey with this game!
There's quite a lot to it - a crisis that needs to be averted each round, an overall game objective, secret objectives for each player, and story cards that may or may not get triggered on every player's turn.
Aside from that, the mechanics are quite simple - you roll action dice and can then use them to send your characters out into the dangerous world of the game to kill zombies, search for supplies or add to the colony's defences.
It was the random aspects that really brought our game to life, though...
We were supposed to be killing zombies and collecting samples to research a cure, but a lot of the time, the dice were against us and we kept failing. Sparky, the stunt dog, came to the rescue, though, and managed to collect about 75% of the required samples - largely using his sniper rifle...
The story cards often related to specific characters that may or may not be in play at the time. As the last action of my turn, I found and recruited the truck driver, Rod, and brough him back to the colony. I was then in charge of implementing (if relevant) the story card for the next player, so the very next thing that happened (because the story card was specific to Rod) was that Rod had a heart attack and the next player had to decide whether or not to risk all of his characters to try and save him. He chose the alternative option - and poor old Rod collapsed and died only moment after finding safety in the colony!
Later, we had the option to play a friendly gambling game, with various supply cards as the winnings. It was supposed to be a simple case of - everyone rolls a die and the highest score wins the pot. On the first throw, three out of four of us rolled a six. On the second roll, two of us rolled a five. On the third roll, the two of us rolled a six again! And I won on the fourth roll!
Then, right at the end, one of Dave's characters was attacked by feral (not zombie) children at the school and chose to fire his shotgun into the pack, rather than be eaten alive. He staggered back to the colony and got bitten by a zombie on the way, infecting and killing one of my characters (who had spent the entire game safe at the colony, making sure everyone had enough food)...
We had completed the main objective by then, so my last turn saw my only remaining character desperately searching lots of locations to try and get the supplies I needed to fulfil my secret objective. He found them all, only to die from multiple wounds (which he received because he made too much noise searching) - the lesson, of course, being that your life is more important than having stuff!
In the end, all of us completed our secret objective - except Dave... Poetic justice for killing small children? Perhaps...
A lot of the game was pretty dark - but in an entertaining way...?
It was certainly epic in terms of the ups and downs experiencing along the way and I'd be very keen to play it again.
I wasn't initially enthused, because there was the possibility of a hidden betrayer and I'm not a massive horror fan - but wow, did we go on a journey with this game!
There's quite a lot to it - a crisis that needs to be averted each round, an overall game objective, secret objectives for each player, and story cards that may or may not get triggered on every player's turn.
Aside from that, the mechanics are quite simple - you roll action dice and can then use them to send your characters out into the dangerous world of the game to kill zombies, search for supplies or add to the colony's defences.
It was the random aspects that really brought our game to life, though...
We were supposed to be killing zombies and collecting samples to research a cure, but a lot of the time, the dice were against us and we kept failing. Sparky, the stunt dog, came to the rescue, though, and managed to collect about 75% of the required samples - largely using his sniper rifle...
The story cards often related to specific characters that may or may not be in play at the time. As the last action of my turn, I found and recruited the truck driver, Rod, and brough him back to the colony. I was then in charge of implementing (if relevant) the story card for the next player, so the very next thing that happened (because the story card was specific to Rod) was that Rod had a heart attack and the next player had to decide whether or not to risk all of his characters to try and save him. He chose the alternative option - and poor old Rod collapsed and died only moment after finding safety in the colony!
Later, we had the option to play a friendly gambling game, with various supply cards as the winnings. It was supposed to be a simple case of - everyone rolls a die and the highest score wins the pot. On the first throw, three out of four of us rolled a six. On the second roll, two of us rolled a five. On the third roll, the two of us rolled a six again! And I won on the fourth roll!
Then, right at the end, one of Dave's characters was attacked by feral (not zombie) children at the school and chose to fire his shotgun into the pack, rather than be eaten alive. He staggered back to the colony and got bitten by a zombie on the way, infecting and killing one of my characters (who had spent the entire game safe at the colony, making sure everyone had enough food)...
We had completed the main objective by then, so my last turn saw my only remaining character desperately searching lots of locations to try and get the supplies I needed to fulfil my secret objective. He found them all, only to die from multiple wounds (which he received because he made too much noise searching) - the lesson, of course, being that your life is more important than having stuff!
In the end, all of us completed our secret objective - except Dave... Poetic justice for killing small children? Perhaps...
A lot of the game was pretty dark - but in an entertaining way...?
It was certainly epic in terms of the ups and downs experiencing along the way and I'd be very keen to play it again.
