Zpocalypse

Posted In Tabletop Games
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Zpocalypse is a cooperative play, zombie survival game in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Two to four players play a squad of survivors, whose stats you manage on a squad board.To be the best team spend one to four days in the nuclear zombified wasteland. Start in a basement/ fallout shelter which can lead out to several base locations, or even through the sewers. Scavenge for food and supplies, which expands the transformable board. Then feed your survivors and add their skills to your squad board. After that use your squad to fortify your base. An event card adds additional challenges and gives zombie movement. Combat adds the adrenaline rush of moving around the board trying to combat zombies before they consume you. Every fortification built, zombie killed, and survivor saved leads to victory points which determines the ultimate winner, and also allows you to level up in weapons ability. Try to make it day to day in a world torn apart from the walking dead.

How it Began:
Three years ago, Jeff Gracia, a lover of all things zombie related, bought a zombie board game in the hopes of adding a great game to his collection. Instead, he was disappointed and knew there had to be something better out there. There wasn’t. So propelled by his engineer brain, he set off on a mission to create the best zombie game in creation. The first leg of his journey began with internet forum discussion which led to the meeting of one Zach Parkes. Zach had designed maps for game play. Using the GURP system, they created a first version of a zombie game which resembled a light RPG. From there many revisions and play testing led to the realization that an RPG would not have all the components Jeff wanted. The idea evolved into creating a board game with RPG elements to speak to a larger fan base. Somewhere during this revision Theresa, Jeff’s wife, brought up the possibility of publishing the game. It was at that fateful moment that Zpocalypse was born.

While the game itself was in development, there was much to learn about getting a gamed completed and ready to market. Jeff turned to his friend Nick Hurston for legal advice. It was suggested that an engineer and computer programmer may have want of a creative writer. So Nick’s wife Julie (a board game and zombie lover herself) was conscripted to the team in a writing and editing capacity. While a game for personal use may get by without an overall design, a produced game would need original artwork. Jeff advertised and found Ricky Casdorph online. After seeing his singularly wonderful and disturbing creations, Jeff selected him for the job. While the team was coming together, one problem was becoming clear. Logistics left something to be desired. Ricky was doing artwork in Colorado, Zach was in New Jersey creating a computer program that would help create different components of the game. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Jeff was working on the business end of the game, Theresa was at his side offering encouragement, advice and her willingness to be transformed into zombie at convention appearances, Julie was writing and Nick was consulting when needed. In addition, all of the developers wore many hats during game creation. It seemed like if they were going to make this a business, they may want someone with business experience, so they decided to bring on board their friend David Tierient as a business consultant. Now that a full team was assembled, the last detail was the creation of a company and a designation of a name. Thus Greenbrier Games was founded. Due to the success of Kickstarter Greenbrier Games was able to create Zpocalypse as well as expansions and add-ons. Zpocalypse is just one of the many games planned to be released by Greenbrier Games.

 

Credits

  • Designer: Jeff Gracia
  • Designer: Zach Parks
  • Additional Designer: Theresa Gracia
  • Creative Writer: Julie Ahern
  • Artist: Ricky Casdorph

 

Find Out More

http://www.greenbriergames.com/main/
https://www.facebook.com/Greenbriergames
https://twitter.com/GreenBrierGames