Review of Tiny Epic Zombies

 Tiny Epic Zombies has as many as 5 game modes: Co-op, Competitive, 1 Player Zombie vs Human Co-op, 1 Player Zombie vs Human Competitive, and Solo.

 In co-op and solo modes, people simply try to complete 3 tasks before time runs out or zombies eat too many characters.

 In competitive modes, people are busy with the same thing, but each player tries to complete 3 tasks before the others.

 In modes with a player as a zombie, their king gets some control over the zombies and access to unique zombie abilities.

 The character's moves in all modes are practically the same: he can move three times through the shopping center, killing zombies along the way, completing tasks and interacting with the premises in which he is, after which the zombie's turn begins.

 Each character has a special ability, a wound counter, and an ammo counter. People die when their wound and ammo counters meet on the same distribution or bypass each other. If a character dies, their items stay in the room, their card flips over to the zombie side (which gives zombies new abilities), and you take a new one. You also remove one survivor token. If there are no such tokens left in the supply, people lose.

 Humans kill zombies mostly with melee or ranged attacks. Melee attacks can be carried out on zombies in the same room as you, and long-range attacks on zombies in neighboring rooms. Melee attacks are guaranteed to kill zombies, but you have to leave a die and possibly get extra ones. effects such as a wound or free movement. Ranged attacks do not have this side effect, but they do consume ammunition.

 At the end of the turn, you search the room you are in and place the card of the item you found in it. The find card also indicates where the next group of zombies will appear; you pass a "noise check" by placing zombies in rooms with the corresponding symbol on the card. And if this symbol corresponds to the room in which you are, then even more zombies will come out.

 The main difference between AI zombie modes and zombie player modes is how zombies appear on the field. The zombie player can choose which find card the human players get, so he has some control over the zombies' movements. Additionally, on each noise check, he can apply a special ability from one of his zombie cards.

 When the find deck runs out, all human players can go down again. If they manage to complete 3 tasks, they immediately win. Zombies win if people fail to complete the task in time or if too many people die.

PROS

 - Tiny Epic Zombies has some truly epic moments. The most memorable situations were when the character managed to kill 4+ zombies in one turn due to the drop of the overkill symbol on the melee die.

 - Meeples can be armed with plastic weapons; it's easy to do and looks cool. Adds a lot of atmosphere. Also, the abilities of some items make you very powerful - a nice touch as well.

 - All game modes are fully playable, which is an impressive achievement. True, the differences in mechanics are small, but it is nice that there are modes for every taste.

 - The tasks are well thought out. Personally, I like the task where you need to bring 4 tanks to the middle of the shopping center, preventing zombies from being in the same room with them on the way.

 - The parties, regardless of the number of participants, are fast, but at the same time do not leave the feeling that you played in an inferior crowd.

 - Redrawability is high. The layout of the shopping center is random, you have different tasks and different combinations of characters every time, plus many game modes to choose from.

CONS

 — Some people like playing zombies, but I found it boring. Although your task is to make life difficult for the human players, you will hardly have to make interesting decisions.

 — I would like the location and character cards to be a little thicker. They can easily shift and move important items/characters with them.

 — The font on the location cards is very small. After a few games you get used to it, but in the first few games someone will have to look at them almost with a magnifying glass and read them so that everyone knows which rooms have some features.

 - I don't know if this is a general problem or if I'm just unlucky, but my zombie meeples have paint coming off and splattering everywhere.

CONCLUSIONS

 Although there are no zombie fans in our group, everyone enjoyed playing Tiny Epic Zombies, so maybe the game will appeal to those who are indifferent to zombie settings.

 I've tried all modes except solo and zombie vs human competitive. They were all fans. Although I don't really enjoy playing as a zombie, this game was the most intense.

 If you like a zombie setting or like the idea of a compact board with a bunch of different modes, I recommend giving Tiny Epic Zombies a try.