Play Test: Weapons of Zombie Destruction

Last friday I play tested the print and play game "Weapons of Zombie Destruction" by creator Stone Librande with some friends from class. I'll call it WZD for short. Over all WZD is a really cool game.  You play as a programmer who's job is to program a robot to destroy zombies. You don't need a cooler premise that that to get me playing. The basic layout of the board is a 9x9 grid very much like a checker board. each player is represented as a robot and starts in the center of the grid. Each starting point is depicted with a circle at the center. You have four blocks (walls) that are randomly placed on the map and these can impede the movement of zombies.

Now when we played the game we weren't sure if we understood all the rules. The site we got the game from didn't seem to have all the rules spelled out for us. So we had to try and figure out how most of the game played on our own.

Heres a link to the site we got the game from:  http://www.stonetronix.com/games/wzd/

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Rules strait from the site:

1. Programming phase

All players do these 3 steps in order simultaneously:
Discard any number of cards from their hands.
Draw back up to their hand size. (Usually 3 cards, but it can be increased.)
Place one card face down into any 1 of the 6 slots in front of them.
2. Execution phase

Staring with the main player, each player executes all of his or her robot's commands in order. Start from slot 1 and continue to slot 6.
3. Zombie phase

The main player rolls a die to determine which direction the zombies move.
1-4: All zombies move 1 square unless they are blocked by walls, robots or other zombies.
5-6: Mutation. Place a new zombie adjacent to every other zombie already in play.
Zombies spawn into empty corner squares.
Zombies attack all robots that are adjacent.
4. End of turn.

The player to the left of the current main player become the main player for the next turn.

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So as far as we could tell the basic mechanic of the game comes in the form of cards. Each card you draw has an ability or a power on it. You use these to program a sequence of events for robot will perform each turn just like actual programing code. You have six slots for cards to program your robot with and each turn you execute these sequences in order. So if I put a movement card before an attack card I'd have to move first then attack.

It's a very unique mechanic. I can't think of an example of any other game where I predetermine my turn before I make it. If anyone knows of another one feel free to leave me a comment below.

Update: An upperclassmen who knew the creator of WZD sent him an email for a more detailed version of the rules. Looks like we were not to far off when we played in class. We'll have to play again with the updated rule set. Here's that updated copy.

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Set Up:
Place one cube in the middle of the board. Roll x,y dice to determine where the other four cubes will go. (Notice the small dice icons on the board. Those mark the coordinates.) These are walls that cannot be moved or destroyed.

Placing Cards:
- You can put a card in any slot, even one that already has a card (or cards). However, if the color doesn't match then all other cards are immediately discarded. If the color matches then all the previous cards lose their main attribute and become power for the top most card.
- The generic "Power" card always gets placed on the bottom of the stack and its color is considered to match the topmost card.
- More cards equals more power. Refer to each card to see how it benefits from the additional power.

Specials:
- At the start of the game every player draws two random specials (from the set of 10) and places the cards face up in front in front of them.
-These cards are not considered part of your hand, but can be placed during the "Placement" phase instead of your normal placement.
- A special covers two adjacent slots. It will only work if it has both types of power listed. The order of the icons doesn't matter.
- There are a lot of special "Special Power" rules, so if you have a specific question let me know.

Fire cards:
- Many fire cards have the ability to gain power by sacrificing a fire card. The sacrificed card must already be in the slot. For instance, say I have a Fuel Tank covered up by a Flamethrower. (The Fuel Tank is no longer considered a Fuel Tank; it is just a generic Fire power.) When the Flamethrower fires you may choose to discard the Fuel Tank to have the flames spread, as shown by the icon in the lower right of the card.

Movement:
- Robots cannot move on top of the walls or other robots. Ignore any move card that would cause that to happen.
- Robots CAN step on zombies. The zombie instantly dies and is added to that player's score.

Robot Attack:
- Robots cannot attack or damage other robots in any way.
- Any attack that would cause a robot to get hurt is ignored, even if that attack would have also killed some zombies.

Zombie Attack:
- Every zombie adjacent to a robot makes one attack. The main player decides the order of attacks. (Normally it doesn't matter, but a Fuel Tank needs to know which zombie to explode.)
- An attacking zombie rolls one die. Any cards in the slot that matches the die roll are immediately placed in the discard pile.
- Specials aren't discarded. They just go back in front of you.

First and Last Blood:
- Get two markers and place them on the center cube. The first robot to kill a zombie takes one as the "First Blood" award.
- Whoever kills the last zombie gets the "Last Blood" award.
- At the end of the game each token is worth +1 point. If you have both then you get +3 instead of +2.
- Many games have been won because of these counters, so don't overlook them.