Thoughts on Zombie Tower 3D
Zombie Tower 3D was kindly sent to us by Cosaic LLC. It has been available in Japan since 2015, and an English edition is coming to Kickstarter February 10th!
This review is based on the Japanese production copy (which fortunately features English rules and card text!) so might not be completely representative of the final English edition.
Dawn breaks over the ruined city. The stench of death and decay is all pervading. It’s time to get out, but escape will be futile without a vaccine for the infection. Fortunately we have a plan: there’s a tower block down town that’s reputed to have a stockpile and, if we can find a working radio, there’s a chopper due to come in to rescue us and any survivors we might find. Thing is it’s not looking all that stable…
There’s nothing that get’s board gamers gathering around a table faster than a cool component, be that awesome miniatures or beautiful artwork… or a foot high cardboard tower! Seriously, look at this thing!
There are very few games, especially when you restrict yourself to non-dexterity games, that really explore the physical space above the tabletop. Zombie Tower 3D’s tower might not be the prettiest thing (it is a tower block after all…) but it’s not just a gimmick either. Once assembled, which for ease requires one more hand than I have available on my person, the walls divide the play area into 4 (or 3 for 3 players) separate areas. Each player get’s one of these areas to call their own and, this is the key bit here, they aren’t allowed to look into the other players’ areas, ever!
This feels kind of weird at first. Everyone is kind of playing their own separate game, trying to find items and survivors while avoiding the zombie hordes in their quarter/third of the tower. It means you can’t check on new players to make sure they are applying the rules right, but fortunately those rules are sufficiently simple that you shouldn’t really have any problems. A lot of euro games are criticised for having their players all focus on their own separate player board and Zombie Tower 3D would appear to be taking this up to the max: you can’t even see what your friends are doing! Yet there are a few things that make this work.
This is a cooperative game (for the most part); everyone needs to achieve the game’s end goals (I’ll get on to those in a minute). Having everyone in their own separate play area makes firstly for an elaborate solution to the “I’m going to tell everyone what to do because I want to win” player. But so much more importantly, it results in you having to describe your situation and what you’re doing, and everyone else will actually be listening. Communication becomes the centre of the game and creates a lovely and unique feel as you play.
Winning requires significant collaboration between the players. Firstly, everyone needs to end a turn in the same numbered room, either on the top floor to signal the rescue chopper, or the ground floor to make a run for it on foot. You’ll need to be working to manipulate the zombie hordes to give you all access to those rooms at the same time. Which brings us to one of the most hilarious mechanisms of the game: survivors.
Each turn a survivor will randomly appear in your section and if you can reach them, they’ll be added to your character sheet as they follow you around. Unfortunately these survivors aren’t very good at surviving as they will always attract the zombies on their floor, even in preference to your own presence. Clearly you know how to move quietly. But in a stroke of malign genius you are allowed to drop off survivors as you move around, leaving them to be eaten, but at the same time moving the zombies out of your way! Even better, if you are unfortunate enough to be caught by the zombies, you can sacrifice your survivor tokens instead of taking wounds. Maybe I’m a little twisted, but the idea of pushing your rag-tag group of survivors into the waiting arms of the zombies while you run away is hilarious!
The other thing you need to do to is to ensure every player has a vaccine, which can only be found through searching the decks of item cards, split into separate decks according to which floor you are on. These decks of item cards really make the most of the game’s unique physical structure. While you can’t directly affect the other play areas, there are slits in the walls through which you can pass each other items, like this
Not only is this just really neat, getting everyone a vaccine will often require players to organise passing cards between each other. Many of the games items and weapons also require you to get two cards together to work: shotguns and handguns need ammo, dynamite needs a detonator, and the radio, needed to signal the helicopter if you want to end the game on the top floor, requires a battery. In addition to these, maybe one player is drawing all the first aid kits, or one player desperately needs a simple weapon like a fire extinguisher or a shovel. Whatever happens, these slots for passing items will be a key part of the gameplay.
Another nice element to these item card decks are the “danger” cards. These might be an extra zombie in your room, a cave in, or a fiery explosion that will consume the room and kill anything left in it at the end of the turn. These may sound bad but the back of the cards are clearly marked, so you all know they are coming and making sure everyone takes their fair share of these dangers is an important part of the cooperative game. There is not a lot of space on each floor, and once you’ve got one hazard out your movement will be even more restricted. Yet they aren’t all bad news, and used cleverly they can be a very effective way of controlling the hordes. Zombies will move into fires and be consumed (particularly if you leave them a little snack there as bait…), the cave ins prevent them reaching you but they’ll bunch up on the other side leaving them ripe for a good dynamiting (as it’s known). And if worst comes to worst and they are blocking the rooms you need to get to, fires can be extinguished and cave ins can be dug out with the right tools.
Now, throughout this review I’ve been referring to Zombie Tower 3D as a cooperative game, but if you read the box you’ll discover it is intended as a semi-cooperative game. At the end, if you all ‘won’, then you’ll gain victory points for each survivor you managed to rescue and for completing a secret objective that is dealt out at the start of the game so that there is an over all winner. You can see how not looking into each other’s sections allows players to lie about their situation and manipulation of the item exchanges could be key to gaining some kind of advantage but, really, I’ve never felt like this works. In this game, I’m not particularly bothered about someone else winning, I’m perfectly happy to achieve a cooperative victory rather than throw the game because someone has more survivors than me. And I think there are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, survivors, like zombies, appear randomly so quite often it is down to luck as to whether you can collect them. Likewise, certain items will get you bonuses, and completing your secret objectives is almost entirely down to luck. The only consistent way of gaining survivors is as the Doctor who can turn zombies into survivors, in exchange for taking a wound, but that still depends on a favourable distribution of zombie appearances
Secondly, the only way to stop someone else winning is to throw the game, either by dragging it out so that you all run out of time or by feeding your character to the zombies. Maybe I’m too soft, but I don’t want to suicide my nicely illustrated character for the sake of a few victory points. And thirdly, there is nothing anyone else can do to stop you tanking the game if you chose to. Which makes it feel a bit childish to ruin everyone else’s fun because you’re not going to ‘win’. You might as well be flipping the table.
Zombie Tower 3D naturally encourages you to communicate and discuss your situation, which ultimately leads to you cooperating whether you fully win or just sort of win. That, at least, has been my experience of the game after multiple plays and with different groups of people. The final reveal of points is a fun twist, but I wouldn’t recommend picking up this game if you are looking for a game of deep cunning and manipulation.
There are a few other things that need mentioning. Firstly, this is not Zombicide. You will not be slaughtering zombies left, right and centre. The difficulty of getting hold of both a gun and its ammo means you can quite possibly play an entire game without anyone firing a shot. It is primarily a puzzle, finding your way around the tower without getting trapped by the zombies, of manipulating their movements and occasionally smacking a lone zombie with a shovel. Personally, I found this to be a refreshing change but it might not be what you’re looking for.
Secondly, all the different characters have a unique ability, but quite frankly some of them suck. This tends to be balanced by those characters having more wounds that they can take, but I’d rather everyone had more powerful abilities. Lastly, I’ve not lost this game. That’s not to say it doesn’t feel tight, and a couple of those wins have been by the skin of our teeth, but the fact still stands. This is weirdly counter to other reviewers’ comments and may be because we never embraced the semi-cooperative side of the game. I guess I’m just too nice? Pushes survivor into burning room.
Here we have a game that does exactly what it says on the box. A game that is exactly as towering and 3 dimensional as its name implies. Not since Tzolkin’s gears has a component been such a fundamental part of a game, both for its appeal as well as for its gameplay. Yet Zombie Tower 3D really is more than just its tower. The tower allows the game to do things that it couldn’t otherwise have done. I wish the game didn’t have to be about zombies but, despite this ubiquitous theme, the game feels unique. It’s enjoyable, it’s funny and it never outstays it’s welcome. If you are looking for a light cooperative romp, this is a good choice!
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