RPGs I want to play: Zombie Cinema

Last year I went to Gen Con and saw a lot of really great stuff... more than I could possibly afford, and certainly more than I could possibly play. I picked up a number of games, and made a note to check out a few of the things that were new on various forums. It's really easy to get caught up in the spirit of the convention and just buy everything that interests you, but I try really hard to find out lots of information before I buy games.

One of the things that caught my eye at that Gen Con was a little video box labeled "Zombie Cinema." I couldn't tell much about it except that it came with all of the pieces needed to play, including cards, dice, a board, and tokens to move around on that board. Also, it was about zombie movies.

As a side note, there are a lot of games about zombies. And most of them are completely terrible. I don't think I've played a zombie game that wasn't a boring snooze-fest with crappy mechanics that also managed to miss what makes zombie movies (like the original Night of the Living Dead) so engaging. There is a wall of our local game store that is almost entirely covered in crappy zombie games, and there are companies whose specialty is zombie games... and the only one that seems even passably playable was All Flesh Must Be Eaten (an RPG from Eden Studios), and even that was relatively standard RPG fare that would have worked with basically any system.

The point being zombie games, 9 times out of 10 will suck. So I was wary of something called Zombie Cinema, but drawn to it because of the source. It was on display in the Indie Press Revolution game booth, and written by Eero Tuovinen. I've enjoyed basically everything that I've picked up from IPR, and Eero has always struck me as a very insightful member of message boards like Story-games.com. I decided to put some research into it and see what people were saying about it.

Praise was everywhere, and it was strong praise. The game was apparently designed with Night of the Living Dead forefront in the author's mind, and when played it perfectly replicated both the gradual threat level increase from the zombies, as well as the inter-party conflict (and yes, stupidity) of the groups in the best of zombie movies. I took a while in deciding for sure, but when Gen Con rolled around this year, I decided to pick it up.

The game impressed me. The pieces it comes with are sturdy and the board is well made for an indie product. The cards and rules are on sturdy stock, and overall it's got a great presentation. But that's not the best part. The best part is the rules, the way the game runs.

Now, obviously, I haven't had a chance to run or play Zombie Cinema, but it's got me hooked in. Making characters consists only of putting together some flavorful cards (some personality, some occupations, some secrets or goals). Play is about getting in conflicts with the other characters and hoping you can get ahead of them on the track... or sacrificing your own safety to help others get ahead, because there is a zombie creeping up that track at all times. And it wants to eat you.

The board/track is one of the coolest things in the game, what really enforces zombie movie flavor, because it breaks up the progression of a zombie outbreak through "The zombies are just seen in news reports" to "Everyone is going to die" to keep everyone's minds on just what the zombies are capable of.

Really, what draws me to this game are the things that drew me to another few games this year (namely Misery Bubblegum and Serial Homicide Unit): simple character creation, simple and fast play, and simple but flavorful enforcement of the genre. Also, cute packaging. I'm interested in playing Zombie Cinema because I think it could really break the "zombie games are crap" streak that I've hit upon, and it's a nice light set of rules that ought to help create some real drama in a fairly short amount of time.