In our continuing effort to meet the needs of more people you get a video AND a text review. They both have the same content, more or less, so pick your format!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/necrovirus/necrovirus-customizable-zombie-game-with-boardcraf
Look at this. Would you look at this? That’s a lot of plastic. 3d printed plastic. This, all of this, is NecroVirus. And there’s a 31 page pdf of rules.
Look at this!
Before I get into this I want to back up a little. We here at S&M are huge fans of Zpocalypse and Zpocalypse Zmergency. Now, on the face of it NecroVirus looks like Zpocalypse on a calorie intense diet and weight lifting program. But it’s not. It’s really not.
In NecroVirus you have different mission cards that set up specific scenarios with specific win conditions. For example you might need to fiind four survivors and get to the Cathedral within 15 turns. That’s as simple as I can put it. Create the world, complete the mission. How complicated can I make it? Well I don’t have to. Like I said there are 31 pages of rules. And it’s not that it’s impossible to figure out it’s just it feels like a larger, more insurmountable obstacle.
“Something can’t be ‘more insurmountable.’ – It’s either surmountable or it’s not.
Eric-Wonderfalls
He’s right, but the point is: obstacles.. I would really love diagrams in here that were “anatomy of a character card” or “anatomy of an event card”. Just a quick reference so I know what means what on the cards. And then also give me the additional 31 pages of rules. I feel important for me to state that following the instructions as written makes the game seem more complicated than it is. And there are small issues such as the order of actions in the rules book do not match the order of actions on the starter button.
Huh? What’s that? Yes, enough of rules. I started out by saying “look at all this stuff”. So much glorious 3D printed plastic. You get a great selection of different types of buildings in various states of disrepair. You get character pieces with their character names printed on them. There are zombies, and food tokens, and weapons and other supply tokens; little boxes in which to put the tokens for when you scrounge.
There are some issues with this setup. In the review copy we received you can see some of the issues with 3D printing. There are parts on some of the buildings that didn’t form quite right or some that have little strands of plastic that one assumes aren’t supposed to be there. Additionally, all of the zombies we received are the same color, which isn’t a problem for other games like this, but in the missions we did players control zombies to attack the player to their right. You can see how quickly and insanely confusing this can get especially once all players have placed 7 zombies on the board.
Let’s talk about the space issue too. This is not a small setup. You’re going to need a big table or a friend with a big table. And you’re going to either want to leave this setup or make sure you have enough room for storage if you have the 3D version. What? Ah, yes. You can also just do a 2D print and play version, which would reduce storage issues considerably.
But why would you want to?! Look at this! It’s an entire 3D apocalypse city with these great buildings where the little strands of plastic I complained about before actually resemble rebar or support beams in these once cared for, but now dilapidated buildings. And sure all of the zombies we received were the same color, but you can paint them to match the colors of the characters. Or, if you are 3D printing your own then print them in different colors yourself.
Look at this!
Gameplay! There are different missions with different setups, by the idea of each is basically the same. Don’t get bit, and get to the safety point before the set amount of turns while also meeting the win conditions. Survivors have four action points they can spend to move, scrounge for goods, or kill zombies. Players control zombies and attack the player to their right with those zombies. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. I almost think I would prefer some sort of AI where zombies are moved indepebdently of this player attacking that player. But it may just be that I’m not used to this, and you may really like that direct conflict. Oh, and you use d20s to help resolve conflict. Yay dice!
So, that’s NecroVirus. But the Kickstarter for this isn’t just about this game. It’s about Boardcraft. The point is to create a service and community where players can design their own characters and scenaros. You don’t have to be limited to zombies, you can create share and print fantasy related gaming pieces and characters.
I don’t have a 3D printer, though I would love one, so if you want to send me one please feel free to do so, but I love the idea of BoardCraft. They want to create a world and provide a framework and tools where gamers are using the same jumping off point and then see where it goes from there. Boardcraft envisions people creating their own rules and expanding the worlds and . most importantly sharing.
To get the game as you see it here in front of me will cost you $250 US on the kickstarter. That’s a little rich for my blood. Maybe you go for the $25 print and play. Maybe you enjoy that. Then, maybe you want to updrade to 3D. Maybe you start one building at a time. Maybe you work your way up to a full 3D version.
Is the full version 3D version of NecroVirus worth $250 to me? No. I can’t spend that much all at once on one game. Can you? Do you want to? Because if you do, what I see here, is the opportunity to allow a game to completely overtake your life. You have all of these building and roads and characters, what do you do next? Well, you probably want to paint all of it. Let’s face it, you are probably angry about all the changes to Warhammer and have thrown all of that away or handed it all to your younger sibling. You need to start again and if you spend $250 on THIS you are going to make sure it’s worth it.
Again, would I pay for all of this? No. Unless my wealthy reclusive eccentric uncle who lives in a perfect replica of NORAD in the wilds of New Hampshire dies and leaves me an inheritance.
Maurice?
Would I play this again? In a heartbeat. This is fun. After you get past the whole learning curve thing and I’d probably house rules some of it. The thing is you could completely write your own rules and just use these pieces and characters as your template.
Do I love the idea and approach of BoardCraft? Creating tools and a community for tabletop gamers? 100%.
Take a look at the link below.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/necrovirus/necrovirus-customizable-zombie-game-with-boardcraf
I didn’t even mention the tanks!
Tanks!
You’re welcome!
by 
