Zombies at your Heels

 

Campaign Complete!

The Zombies at your Heels campaign has now finished, but there are limited quantities of copies available for purchase if you missed out:

www.zombiesatyourheels.com

 

Project overview

Zombies at your Heels is a fun, light-hearted card game for 2 to 4 players. You'll take command of a small group of uninfected humans, fleeing for their lives ahead of an unstoppable wave of the undead. Your success depends on their survival, and their survival will mean working together as a team. Knocking over your opponents' survivors so that the zombies eat them instead will also help.

Update: I sent review copies out to several board game reviewers, and the reviews are beginning to come back - I'll post more here as they appear...

Dice Tower Preview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IetubgeV5k

http://www.nerdbloggers.com/nerdbloggers/2012/6/29/zombies-at-your-heels-review.html

http://littlemetaldog.com/2012/06/06/keep-on-running-zombies-at-your-heels-preview/

http://meeplesnextdoor.com/2012/06/02/zombies-at-your-heels-a-meeples-next-door-review/

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/810718/a-he-says-she-says-review-zombies-at-your-heels-

 

Current Stretch Target

 

Stretch Targets already unlocked

 

All profits go to charity!

100% of the profits from Zombies at your Heels will be given to Special Effect, a charity that develops technology and initiatives that help injured and disabled young people to enjoy video games they would not otherwise be able to.

http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/

Update: Thanks to some incorrect tax advice, the margins for Special Effect are a little tighter than planned. If you can spare an extra dollar or two, it would be much appreciated! If not, your contribution will still help to make a difference, so please don't feel pressured.

 

About me

My name is Andrew Rowse, the designer of Zombies at your Heels. I've worked as a gameplay programmer in the videogame industry since 2004, and I've been designing card games as an exercise in streamlining and compressing rules systems (not to mention having fun!) for more than a decade.

In July, I'm going to run the Great British 10k with a group of my colleagues, and we'll be running on behalf of Special Effect. I'm not good at asking people for donations, so I designed Zombies at your Heels as a way to raise money instead. The work Special Effect does to help disabled children and injured soldiers enjoy the things I love is deeply humbling, so I've worked hard to make sure that Zombies at your Heels is a worthwhile and fun product.

If you're not interested in Zombies at your Heels (what!?) but would still like to support a fantastic charity, you can donate via the website below:

http://www.justgiving.com/RocksteadyStudios

 

 

More about the game!

A copy of Zombies at your Heels includes the following components:

• 1 Zombie Horde card
• 1 Bunker card
• 4 sets of 13 Survivor cards
• 1 Rulebook

Each survivor card has a speed value, a points value, and a special ability. At the start of the game, a few random survivors from each player are arranged by order of their speed values, stretching in a line from the Zombie Horde to the Bunker.

Each turn, you'll play one new survivor from a hand of three, then you may choose to use that survivor's special ability and/or the special ability of one of the other survivors you already have in play.

If you can get one of your survivors to first place by the end of your turn, they escape to the Bunker. If not, whichever survivor is in last place is eaten by the Zombie Horde.

A game of Zombies at your Heels takes about 15 minutes to play, and is suitable for ages 10 and up.

There's a link to the rulebook a little further down the page.

 

 

I want you - in the game!

Here's the Zombie Horde card as things currently stand. It's barely adequate, with far too few zombies - all of which are me. I'd like to invite all backers to submit a photo of themselves in their best zombie pose. I'll convert the images to silhouettes, and together we'll assemble a horde really worth fleeing!

 

 

To contribute your zombie likeness, click this link:

http://www.zombiesatyourheels.com/html/the_horde.html

 

Read the rules, try out the game

If you'd like to try out Zombies at your Heels, you can download, print and cut out this three-page document:

http://www.zombiesatyourheels.com/data/zombies_at_your_heels_cards_2pmono.pdf

It has two sets of twelve survivor cards, enough for two players to play a slightly shorter version of the game (ordinarily players have thirteen survivors each). The cards have been recoloured to make them high contrast when printed in black-and-white, and compressed to keep the download size down. The cards you're (hopefully) buying are much nicer!

You'll also want the rulebook - here is a near-final version. It's still missing some images and acknowledgements:

http://www.zombiesatyourheels.com/data/zombies_at_your_heels_rules_beta.pdf

 

How many copies of the game will there be?

I'm planning to print just enough copies for the people who back this campaign, plus order a very limited number of extra copies out of my own pocket. I'll sell the extras privately once the campaign has finished (for at least $15 each), but other than that, there will be no distribution of the game other than the campaign. If you're a distributor or large store and you want to make a bulk order as part of the campaign, please contact me and we'll work something out!

If there is demand in the future, Zombies at your Heels may be reissued, but I pledge that it will never again contain the same selection of survivors featured in this first limited edition (i.e. one or more survivors will be unique to this edition.)

 

Stretch Targets and Rewards

Now that Zombies at your Heels has reached its goal, we can push for 'stretch targets'. As the number of backers increases, the cost per unit drops, allowing additional survivors to be added to the game. But most of the stretch rewards survivors will be different to the ones you've seen already. These will be 'neutral' survivors. They can be activated by any player, and will escape during any player's escape phase. In some cases, that's a good thing, and the escaped survivor will be placed in your bonus pile and be worth points. In other cases (specifically the infected survivors), their escape is a bad thing.

 

 

Can we go even higher? I hope so! If we do, I'll add an extra non-neutral survivor to each player's deck. Somebody armed, and heroicly sacrificing...