Players start with 1 colored lead survivor as well as 4 grey survivors and place the bidding marker of their color on the auction board. They also get 4 of each resource token: ammo, gas, and adrenaline. Bulls-eye with lightning: 1 zombie is killed and the player may spend 1 adrenaline token to kill another zombie.

While some of the games on this list include player-controlled zombies, all of them include survivors battling against the zombie threat. But what if we just wanted to be a bunch of zom-bros having a night out on the town? The winner is the player that made it to Los Angeles with the most points. If nobody made it to Los Angeles, there is no winner. Hit Z Road skilfully mixes elements of both the Euro and Ameritrash genres, with the more Euro elements (the auctions and resource management) working well alongside the Ameritrash dice rolling and player elimination. Last Night on Earth Self-aware tactical zombie romp with a B-movie theme Last Night on Earth is as cheesy and goofy as B-movie zombie movies - and it's all the better for it.

The game is played over eight rounds. To win, you need to have at least one survivor make it all the way to the West Coast by lasting all eight rounds; among those players that do, the player with the most points wins. The game gets progressively more challenging each round: the first two rounds are with the relatively easy Level I card, then there are three rounds with the moderately-challenging Level II cards, and the final three rounds are with the difficult Level III cards. City of Horror is a survival game where players desperately negotiate to save their survivors and gather the precious vaccines scattered around the map. Each player is dealt several survivors and, unlike the typical zombie-killing heroes of other zombie games, these are just everyday people. And they'll get eaten. A lot. City of Horror knows it's not enough just to survive during the zombie apocalypse - we also need to establish a society. We won't be passing civic policies or nominating representatives, however; we'll be voting on who gets fed to the zeds.

At first blush, this isn’t a game I’d expect myself to like. I disdain the use of the zombie theme in games — candidly, I don’t get the entire zombie craze — but it works well in this case, and this feels like a Zombie-themed road trip. Making the game from repurposed household objects and components from other games was brilliant, and everybody I show the box to exclaims how cool of an idea that was. I’m also not normally a fan of dice rolling, but it also works nicely in Hit Z Road.

CONCLUSION

The auction is critical: with four players, there are four available paths. Each path has a varying number of resources that a player receives, a number of zombies to defeat, and/or a number of victory points to gain. The first player naturally gets top choice, which usually gives them an easier path (or, at a minimum, a path with more victory points or resources). The last player will get whatever is leftover (i.e. the hardest path or path with the fewest rewards). Each player starts the game with five survivors and four of each of the three resources – gas, ammo and adrenaline. The game is made up of up to eight of rounds.

I liked Hit Z Road. I was originally concerned about the theme; however, this game, while dripping with theme in terms of the components, it is really an auction game with dice rolling used to resolve encounters. People also complain that there can be a runaway leader problem of the person with the most resources being able to consistently win the auction and face the easier cards, but I have never found this to be a problem in any of the games I have played. Zombie Art If you think taking a road trip during the zombie apocalypse, then Hit Z Road might be just the game for you. Watch out for zombies!

Best zombie board games

While I’ve had fun playing Hit Z Road with different groups, there a still couple elements of Hit Z Road I don’t like. Without the game insert, there is tons of dead space in the box. The components don’t take up much room at all. So getting them organized with the insert is very helpful. A lot of dead space in the Hit Z Road without a game insert. Once players have seen the 4 different paths to choose from during this leg of the trip they’re ready for the auction.