Last Night On Earth

This past week in class, we have been discussing the zombie figure in media we don’t normally talk about. Basically any zombie that isn’t a book or a movie. Recently I discovered a role playing board game called Last Night On Earth. It’s a board game all about a small town being taken over by zombies. You can play with 2-6 people, and you can either take the role of survivors, the heroes trying to make it through the night, or you can assume the role of the zombies, with basically only one goal in mind: destroying the survivors. I tried the game out and it was a lot of fun. From my point of view it was simultaneously recreating a zombie movie while making fun of it. It obviously puts a lot of effort into making sure it’s like a movie. The characters, for example, are all recreations of the cliché characters that appear in not just zombie movies but all horror films. There’s the high school jock, the drifter who’s always in the wrong place at the wrong time, a sheriff who is haunted by his past, and many others. It even comes with a soundtrack to put on while you play the game, which sounded kind of ridiculous to me, so I didn't bother putting it on. I enjoyed the aspect of the game embracing the campy B movie feel a lot, but what I really enjoyed was actually playing the game. You can choose between several different scenarios that give the heroes different objectives for winning the game. For instance, one scenario makes you kill 20 zombies before the game ends. Another makes you get keys and gas to a truck so you can leave town. On a little side note, all games are over after "the sun rises" or in other words after a certain amount of turns pass. I also did a little research online and found people that made their own scenarios and characters, which makes the possibilities for this game nearly limitless. When you are the heroes, there is a great deal of tension being built as you try to gather resources (such as a crowbar or a chainsaw) for your goal while the zombie army slowly builds and creeps up on you. This one of the reasons this game works so well. Another one that goes along with that is that both sides are fun to play. While you are a human, you can live out your fantasy of trying to survive the zombie apocalypse, which means (at least for me) getting to take out as many zombies as you want. Zombies are just as fun if not more because you get to control a small army that slowly kills the enemy. There are even special circumstances for killing a hero and turning them into part of your zombie army. I also liked the aspect of not having an objective besides screwing the other player up. Strategy fans should also enjoy this game because all of your moves are based on what the other player will do, especially if you are the zombie player. There are also a good variety of different weapons, items, and events that make the combat fun and interesting on the second, third, or even tenth run through. If a role playing board sounds like a good time, then I would definitely recommend picking this one up.