Haywire Group‘s Zombie Run! card game is a fun game of strategy and luck for two or more players ages 7 and up. The goal of the game is to end up being chased by the fewest zombies—something players must accomplish by using their memory, logic, and a little luck. Each player has four cards face down in front of them, but can only look at two. Each card has a number of zombies on it, from an empty street (0) to a hoard (15). On their turn, players must draw a card from either the Draw pile or the Discard pile, and then must decide whether or not to replace one of their own cards with the drawn card. This is more challenging than it seems, because I found it easy to forget which card is which when they’re all face-down—even which cards I had at all! I was also amused at my own reaction to drawing a card with a hoard of 15 zombies. It was like having them pop out at me unexpectedly, causing an immediate recoil reaction and sending it straight to the discard pile.
Players can decide how many rounds to play in a game, and a round ends when one player thinks he or she has the lowest number of zombies chasing them. When that player shouts “I have braaaaaains!” at the start of their turn, all players flip their cards over and count their zombies. If the shouter was wrong, their number of zombies doubles. The player with the fewest persuing zombies after five (or the agreed upon number) rounds is the winner.
