Carnival Zombie: 2nd Edition Review - with Joey Evans

Joey Evans takes a look at Carnival Zombie 2nd Edition, a game where you help each other escape the sinking city and the dead through multiple scenarios!
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[@Snowraven67]

Played the game a bunch and they really hit it on the head with this review. Great job guys!

[@Bodyknock]

Love this game, it's my favorite zombie or tower defense style game at this point. 🙂 And I think the review is pretty spot on. - Rulebook is something of a mess, it took a bit to read through it and make sure I was playing everything right. That player aid is very helpful fortunately, but I do agree that the keywords for caves and pits and quadrants, etc, are confusing and they should have simply stuck with a single obvious phrase for each thing. - On the flip side, though, knowing how to play the game I've found it's actually not that hard to teach it to new players. Basically as long as the person running the game knows how to manage the details everything just kind of flows along pretty smoothly and the individual players can just focus on enjoying killing stuff and finding neat equipment, etc. - Game length is good, it can run maybe just slightly long depending on how the battles and escape attempts go but it's definitely fun the whole way through. - The standard game is always 6 characters and so far I've played solo and with 3 players controlling them. I can definitely see where at 6 players with one character each it would have a bit too much downtime per player though. - Not mentioned in the video is that the game also has a variant (Path of Saints) in the box which allows you to play with fewer characters. I played it once or twice and it seems fun but I think the standard game might be slightly better balanced? 🤷‍♂ Either way though it's definitely a good alternative to try if you want to play with, say, 1-3 players but only want to actually control one character each. - The pile of corpses definitely works well even though it sounds goofy. It's easy to drop the corpses on it at first when they're just one-ply high, but it's small enough and there are enough zombies you have to kill that by the middle and end of a night you're at two- and three-levels deeps of cubes and it becomes increasingly precarious dropping cubes on top of this misshapen pyramid of stuff. Not to mention that if you use an attack that kills multiple zombies simultaneously you need to pick up ALL the zombies you killed in that attack and drop them all in one group at once with one hand on the pile which really makes those big explosions tense if the pile is already stacked! 😲 - Probably the best thing about the game overall is simply that so many zombies come out being led by these bosses that all have really nasty abilities every night, and you look at the board and say "this is crazy, we'll never get through it", but the characters you play are all individually such pure bad-asses that they manage to plow through the whole thing by a hair every night. I really do love just how tense that makes every single fight and how satisfying it is to be able to just cast aside these waves of monsters over and over. And even as the zombies get tougher as the game progresses your characters are getting crazy equipment to match, it's a ton of fun! - There are a bunch of additional scenarios and such in the box but honestly there's so much replay value in the standard game alone I've been perfectly happy just playing that. I ended up giving the game a 9 out of 10, I found it a lot of fun both solo and multiplayer and aside from the rulebook being a bit fiddly it's pretty great. 🙂

[@joey_evans]

Completely agree! I think I would be closer to the 9 if the rulebook and a few other things were a bit better. That pile of corpses though. That's a tension I didn't expect! It works so well!

[@massive323]

The rulebook is a mess, they had an absolute age to get it bang on, initially took suggestions and help from the crowdfunders but then never published the final version before going to print. They also should have ironed out some of the rough edges from the game - the fact that you can be stuck with no time left after choosing a 'cardinal direction' only for a card flip to water-log your intended destination without being able to progress and instantly lose - nuts that's still in there - also the fact that only the first player can search for the boat thing? again, poor..

[@kyleweeks2941]

The rulebook issues really upset me. They had tons of people begging and hoping to show proofs so we could make corrections. Fell on deaf ears.

[@patricksteele]

Good review and a game for me to check out, thanks!

[@patriziopastore9895]

amazing game... also the quality is really good for my point of view. thanks for the review

[@Slyfox1775]

Was hoping Tom would have reviewed this one .did you guys play any of the included scenarios? like they have for robison Crusoe ect

[@joey_evans]

I think Tom still might. We are going to dive into the scenarios soon. There is so much content in this box!

[@rizzaflox1930]

Is it possible to move- characters action, and move again. Example: moving to location to call pilot and moving again.

[@leshrac369]

Joey has those magician hand gestures? Is this a Roy recruit, or has he been teaching the cast magic?

[@ramonosuke]

I know it has a bit of jank, and a few clumsy moments along with a hard to decipher rulebook, but I still really want to play this. Great review

[@arthurdent9281]

BGG has a good FAQ to help with the rules. Makes it easier to deal with the sketchy rulebook.

[@rizzaflox1930]

Anyone knows how many items characters can use during an hour at night?

[@Finalop]

The best review ever.

[@victorgonzalez2927]

It really is a solo to 3 player game. Agreed, the rulebook is a mess

[@foyoGames]

Nice

[@Alithia451]

I think it arrived after 4 years :)

[@BoiledEgg74]

"yeah, yeah, yeah..." The talking over the other review.

[@johchadow]

I like how they work together.

[@EricLemay]

@@johchadow yeah, but I dont like how they talk over each other.

[@joey_evans]

Thanks for the input, guys. We will definitely try to limit that crosstalk in the future. I know how distracting that can be!

[@DeltaDemon1]

The pile of corpses is a neat idea but, unless they changed the rules, was not really much of an issue. It was not a challenge at all to pile on the corpses without any of them falling off the tile. In the half dozen games I played, I only had a cube fall off thrice and two of those times was on purpose.

[@Vsankari]

You dont pile them, you have to drop them.. it really fast becomes an issue. and the 2nd edition also added different sized platforms with holes in them leaving the cubes in an awkward angle etc.

[@joey_evans]

@@Vsankari Yeah, the first time we played we did incorrectly too. It wasn't that we piled them, it was that we were dropping them one at a time. That made it a lot easier than having to drop them all at once. All at once really made it challenging.

[@victorgonzalez2927]

The different tombstones changes the difficulty

[@victorgonzalez2927]

@@pietrosemifero2992 apparently the game isn’t for you

[@rizzaflox1930]

The story so far seems cool at 1st but to dumb. Why risk so much stress for a barricade and an item and then recovering during the 1st day, where Its much eassier to gain barricades and items for less stress.

[@NoNameNoWhere]

Although it's not quite that bad, I do ultimately agree. Let's assume two scenarios. Draw a green cube, press your luck, draw a green cube, press your luck, then take 2 more stress for an item. Then spend two turns healing. Net: 2 hours spent, 0 stress, 2 barricades, 1 item If you play it cautiously: Draw a green cube and stop. Spend 1 hour building barricaded and 1 hour searching for an item. Net: 2 hours spent, 1-2 stress, 3 barricades, 1 item (or survivor in the bag). You can potentially end up ahead if you press your luck and spend the day healing. But, what I proposed is a fairly lucky scenario. It's easy to end up with more stress and fewer barricades. You can end up ahead by pressing your luck, but not by much. The risk outweighs the reward.

[@DeltaDemon1]

I find that this game overstays it welcome. It all flows very well and very long and then the finale is one step too much.

[@w92viking64]

Man I could t get through the explanation snoozed off