Dead of Winter

Just opened the game and found out that some cards are missingn

GAMEPLAY This game involves you controlling a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland in the harshest of winters, hunting for supplies and killing the undead (and sometimes each other) in a fight to survive. You are housed in a makeshift colony and spend each turn either going to one of six locations (Garage, Police Station, Hospital, School, Grocery Store, Library) to look for items, or staying put, fighting the endless hordes of zombies that come your way wanting to ruin your home. Doing this is often a fine balance; players have to send the survivors they control out to look for enough supplies to meet the food requirements of the colony but can't do this too often as they also have to make sure they kill enough zombies every turn; if a location receives more zombies than there are places for it becomes "overrun", meaning it can no longer be accessed and anyone there at the time instantly dies. And if this wasn't hard enough, players also have to deal with "crises", which are certain themed events which require players to stockpile a stated number of a certain resource (tools, medicine or possibly additional food) in that round or otherwise face a cruel punishment which can be as severe as two survivors dying! Whilst doing this, players have to work together to complete a common goal (such as "collect 20 zombie samples" or "survive 10 rounds") as well as their own secret objective (such as "all your survivors must have one item equipped"). However this is not as straight forward as you may first think, as there is a small chance there is a traitor in your midst, which has a secret objective that the common goal must fail... They must go about this subtly though as to avoid getting "evicted" from the colony, forcing their survivors to be confined to the six other locations and fend for themselves... REVIEW I only played this game a couple of times before I wanted to buy it for myself: It's so much fun due to its in-depth gameplay mechanics: As there are so many decisions you have to make every turn, often quite difficult ones, it makes it quite challenging and fun, unlike some board games which follow a very linear decision process every time. This tied in with it's immersive design, with all the items following the zombie/post apocalyptic theme along with loads of narrative listed on the cards (a prime example being the crossroad cards, which are cards read out to each player before their turn, which poses you with a difficult decision with unknown consequences based on a short zombie/apostolic setting/scenario), gives the game a lot of character and your decisions more meaning. The game is also very well balanced; there are dozens of items and characters and combinations of the two to play with, and yet none seems ridiculously overpowered. Furthermore, players which may appear to be losing and have a lot of bad luck go their way can actually still do really well: Just the other day I had someone who was down to their last survivor and last bit of health, only to reveal that they had completed their secret objective regardless, whereas the rest of us with three survivors each and much better items had not! This makes such a refreshing change as some other complex games I've played, where if you don't get off to a good start it's very hard to get going, making it feel like you've lost the game before it's even begun. Due to the fact that you can have a different objectives, both common and secret every game you play (with the objectives being quite varied in nature, from killing certain amounts of zombies, to collecting items of a certain type and so on) the game has a lot of re-playability: I've played several games now and each has been rather different! Admittedly the game is more expensive than most, but it is well worth it. Not only are you getting an awful awful lot of cards, tokens and items for the price (see photos attached) but the game in general is of very high quality. None of the pieces feel flimsy or like they're going to break, with all the cards and tokens being made out of thick durable card: You even get given several plastic resealable bags to sort everything into! My only downside to this game is it can be quite confusing at first, especially to newcomers who haven't played this sort of game before. Having said this however, there is a very informative (albeit long) rule book, and even a video tutorial on the makers website for you to look at if you get stuck along the way. And believe me, taking the time to learn this game is most definitely worth it: Would highly recommend! Pros: # High amounts of re-playability. # Well polished, balanced and thought out gameplay mechanics. # No items or characters are ridiculously overpowered. # High quality board, characters and cards. Cons: # Quite complex for beginners # Can be slightly on the long side, especially if you have several players playing.

I wish there were more stars I could add for this game. It took me forever to learn the rules but it was totally worth it. The creators should be affiliated for the tense and involving gameplay and truly simulates what might actually happen during a zombie apocalypse. You need concentrated time and focus to play this, and you'll feel like you've been put through the ringer at the end of it, but it in the best way possible. The pieces are well made and yes, there are quite a few things to keep in mind while playing, but they all add so much value to the gameplay and are really quite intuitive. Are you searching for something at the library? Well, you're bound to attract attention. Highly recommend it for more seasoned board gamers.

Great game with a lot a re-playability due to the large amount of possible combinations of objectives, personal goals and character choices. There's a lot of strategy involved and you'll often find yourself brainstorming a lot with your friends which adds to the experience. Add to that a potential for PvP with the possibility of having an unknown traitor and you end up with a game with strategy, guessing/fooling and a big variety of things to do. -- Super jeu avec un gros potentiel pour refaire des parties dû à la combinaison des divers objectifs, buts personnels et choix des personnages. Le jeu implique pas mal de stratégie et vous vous retrouverez souvent à réfléchir en groupe avec vos amis, ce qui ajoute à l'expérience du jeu. Ajoutez à ça un potentiel de joueur contre joueur avec la possibilité d'avoir un traitre caché dans la partie et vous avez un jeu avec de la stratégie, de la déduction/tromperie et un paquet de choses à faire.

Jogo top, toda a questão da cooperação e competição entre os jogadores. Fantástico

Peel away the thematic elements and the excellent storytelling and what you're left with is, simply put, a semi-cooperative worker placement game. If you've been burned on other worker placements, though (I'm looking at you, Agricola!) don't hit the back button just yet! Dead of Winter somehow manages to take two things that I'm sick to death of--worker placement and zombies--and combine them into a game that is one of the top ten in my board game circulation. Here's why the game works so well: 1) It's semi-cooperative--emphasis on "semi." One problem with fully cooperative games like Pandemic is that it's really easy to have one player quarterback the entire game while the rest of the table sits back and waits for the (usually unelected) team captain to tell them what to do. It takes a lot of the fun out of it if, when it finally gets to your turn, you go to perform a certain action only to be told, "NO! That's wrong. Don't do that." In Dead of Winter, everyone *might* be on the same team, but there's the possibility of a traitor. So people will often bite their tongues and watch what their alleged allies do so they can identify the traitor. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! In addition to having one possible traitor, everyone in the group also has a secret objective. That's critical. If you've played other hidden-traitor games, you know that it's often easy to sleuth out the traitor. Just watch for the person who is making questionable choices. But if your table has to get four fuel resource cards or else face dire consequences, and one of you also has a hidden objective to end the game with three fuel cards in-hand, you might make suspicious decisions even though you're ultimately still on the good-guy team. It's unreal how well this mechanic helps mask the actual traitor! 2) Exile is not game over. Speaking of traitors, it's really nice that, in this game, you can still play if you're found out. In fact, you'll trade in your initial secret objective for a new one, so your enemy players can't try to play keepaway using what they already know about you! The gameplay shifts when the traitor is exiled, and it's really fun. 3) Crossroads cards are so fun! It took some getting used to, but these things do SUCH a great job of creating an immersive gaming experience. In addition, there are about a gazillion of them, and a lot of the time you won't end up activating the ones that you encounter during your playthrough, so we're still experiencing new crossroads after literally months of play 4) The worker placement mechanic is actually enjoyable. Maybe it's the excitement of the RNG. Maybe it's the individual character abilities. Maybe it's just the cooperative element--for whatever reason, I love the gameplay of this game, where I've hated it in other games. All of those combine into a magical bundle of replayability and family fun. This game is an absolute blast to play and no two ever seem to shake out the exact same. I won't quite call it a universal must-have, because there are some downsides, but it definitely earns its place on our shelves. Downsides: 1) Open the box for the first time and your eyeballs will be assaulted with over a dozen teensy ziplocs, which bodes ill. Setup can easily take 25 minutes your first few times, and then you're still left to rummage through baggies every turn for the various pieces that you didn't take out. This is a game that benefits enormously from an insert. Amazon sells one by Broken Token. Broken Token Box Organizer for Dead of Winter . I am cheap, so I looked up the Order of Gamers insert plans on Google and made one out of foam core. Took about 1.5 hours. Worth every second/penny. 2) It's intimidating for newbie gamers. This isn't the game to play with your mom who "sort of enjoyed Settlers of Catan that one time." This is the game for you and your core game group. The insert helps lower the sheer terror factor when we bust this out for first-timers, but there's no way around it: there are a ton of rules and components, and it's going to take a while to get the hang of it. I don't think it's a particularly difficult game to grasp, but it's a mental psych-out factor that's hard to overcome. Don't buy this as a gift to get your loved one hooked on board games. That's about as exhaustive as I can give you while leaving everything unspoiled for your gaming pleasure. Please leave a comment if you have questions!