Gaming Without Electronics

Gaming comes in two forms nowadays, electronic and traditional board. Today, I will be taking about three board games that the Call Yourself A Nerd staff plays on a semi-regular basis when we get together. These board games are not what would be considered traditional board games, basically not your mother’s Monopoly.

Zombies!!
Zombies!! is a game where you create the map as you go along, while killing/escaping from zombies. You are a survivor that must either kill twenty-five zombies or escape to the center of a helipad while clearing it for a rescue.

The great thing about this game is the board pieces and the cards. Cards can be drawn to either help or hinder players, such as placing zombies in certain areas. Then there is the board pieces that help create the city that you are trapped in. The board pieces are drawn randomly, but you can definitely use it to maneuver players into dead-ends.

Zombies!! is a fun and easy game to pick up. No knowledge of other games required, just your wits.

Risk Legacy
If we are to talk about non-traditional board games, then we should talk about a non-traditional Risk game. Risk Legacy is a very different form of the Riskgames rules. First off, during play of the game the board may change forever; which will affect future games. That aspect is what makes this game a must for anyone with a gaming group.

Legacy follows most of the current rules for the updated rulebook. You can either win by completely annihilating all other players or you can win by collecting four red stars which can be obtained in different goals, the easiest would be conquering another player’s HQ. There are five factions to play, each with their bonuses and weaknesses (all of which are chosen by the group before the first game begins). From there that is where it becomes interesting as you can create and destroy landmarks, and each time you do so it affects future games so it may just end up biting you in your own ass.

I would recommend anyone wanting to play should have a basic knowledge of Risk, but that should be easy enough. Also I would recommend that you have something more friendly to do afterwards for the truces you may have broken.

Pandemic
When I was talking about doing something a little more friendly after a game of Risk Legacy, I meant a completely cooperative game like Pandemic. The goal of Pandemic is to work together to cure four different viruses. You work on a world map, much like Risk, collecting cards that are different colors. When you have a five of the same color you can cure the virus. Sounds simple enough.

Where the challenge lies is at the end of each turn you have to infect cities around the world. Infect a city enough times and that city in turn infects surrounding cities. Players have to travel to cities and cure the viruses one infection at a time until a cure is found.

Pandemic is a simple and easy game to learn. The hard part is to keep track of your players and the viruses as they spread. Currently, our group is sitting on about a thirty percent survival rate for the game. It is a game that we have a hard time winning, but at least we are losing together.

Those are three games that the CYaN staff plays together. We have a few more that we trot out every so often, but I will leave that for another post. I enjoy these non-traditional board games and will always keep a look out for more.