Zombies. Post apocalyptic conditions. Arctic cold. A group of survivors that have broken into sub groups following their own leaders with varied goals. These are all elements of a fantastic horror movies and shows; they are also all elements of this weeks installment of Favorite Fridays; Dead of Winter.

The vitals
Released 2014
Designer: Jonathan Gilmour & Isaac Vega
Plays: 2-5
EPT: 100 minutes

Dead of Winter is one of the few games I learned about well before its release; arguably since early on in its design thanks to the awesomeness that is The Plaid Hat Podcast (which I would highly recommend). I recall many days listening to the guys discuss the next game in the Vegian cannon; not City of Remnants 2 or an expansion, not another video game adaption like BioShock Infinite, but a new IP using a new mechanic. As more was revealed and I learned it was a survival, apocalyptic, zombie game I became worried, zombies are done often; but they are rarely done well.

As more and more information was released about the game my excitement and worry escalated in equal parts until at last I decided at Gencon I would bite the bullet and buy the game. Sadly I am not known for my time estimating skills or remembering where states draw the line for time zones and thus found Dead of Winter sold out upon my late arrival and, being a popular game, getting time to sit down and play was not easy, but at last I managed to join a game.. a game that I will remember fondly for all of my days, or at least all of them up until I succumb to the T-Virus and become a member of the walking dead seeking nothing but to consume… but more to that later; lets look at how the game plays.

Each player takes on a faction of survivors with one leader and a group of followers attempting to survive the horde of the undead while hoping to accomplish sub goals for yourself as well as for the colony. The game’s start and end conditions vary by way of Objective Cards. As each game begins an objective card is drawn which will state the game’s estimated duration; short, medium, or long, starting moral and round tracker locations, and starting zombie count. The different objectives each have various victory conditions ranging from surviving, to collecting zombie samples, or collecting goods. Each player is than given a secret objective card which adds to the player’s win condition. For a player to be declared a winner the group must complete the missions win condition as well as their individual win condition; there is, however, a possible betrayer. The betrayer’s mission is generally to go against the rest of the team; with their goal to loose the main quest in addition to their sub goals.

Each player is given a player mat, five starting item cards, and is then dealt four characters and elects two of them to join their team; one as the leader the other as a follower. As the game progress the number of characters in their faction will increase and decrease. Each player is then given die equal to the number of characters under their control plus one; thus starting with three dice. On a players turn they will roll all their die then set them on their player mat in the designated unspent dice pool; as player take actions that use their dice they move the allocated die to the spent dice pool. Each player has various actions they can partake in; some requiring the use of their dice and others that do not. This is a clever spin on the action point allocation mechanic as you have XY action points where X is the number of dice you control and Y is the number of non-dice actions you wish to take. As players take actions they must be careful as to what they are allowed to do; on each character’s sheet there is a number for attacking and for searching; to attack or search they must use a die with a value equal to or higher than the number shown on the card, other abilities merely require the use of any die valued 1-6.

As play progresses each round will have a new crisis drawn from the top of the crisis deck; these are mini quests that players must complete by the end of the round or face a penalty. A crisis may require players discard X fuel cards from their hand to the crisis contribution so as to run the heaters so they do not freeze on the cold nights where X is equal to the number of players. On each players turn they can then discard as many cards as they desire to the crisis face down. After the last players turn the cards discarded are shuffled then revealed; players calculate how many cards of the correct type were discarded minus the number of incorrect cards and if they reached the goal they succeeding on passing the crisis; if they fail the crisis the groups moral lowers, once hitting zero ending the game.

I will not cover the minutia of the set up and game play as there are some fantastic overviews and game plays online, but I must hit on the crossroads mechanic. This mechanic was partially the main force behind the game’s popularity before its release. When a player begins their turn the person to their right draws a crossroads card; if the active player triggers the cards IF conditions play pauses as the card is read and the THEN conditions applied. This mechanic is interesting as it adds an element of risk, randomness, and choice. A card may read, “If the active player attacks a zombie”, at which point when the active player attacks play pauses, the card then continues, “the player can make a final stand and kill all the zombies at that location dying in the process or returns to the colony fleeing from the zombies, that player and all zombies at that location are placed in the colony.” the active player now must decide between losing a character but clearing zombies or surviving at risk of the colony. The decision could be simple or extremely difficult based upon the board state at the time the card was drawn.

As the game progresses players add and remove zombies, succeed and fail crisis, and may even exile or attack fellow survivors all in the hopes of surviving the winter, the zombies, and themselves. There is plenty of meat left that I have not covered but unless I was to write a fifty page response I would have to miss some of it. So let us jump to my take on the game.

My first play at Gen Con was fantastic, I got to play as a valued member of the team and work towards collecting zombie samples for research purposes and even ended up with the stunt dog Sparky. The game ran smoothly with the aid of the Plaid Hat demo team and victory appeared before us; and as we sprinted towards completion the record sipped, sparky tripped and our hearts dipped (I’m a sucker for the occasional rhyme…). We were short on food, so we failed our crisis which required one food per player, as well as feeding our colony; our moral fell. The next turn one of our party was struck down with frostbite then on my turn sparky made his move from the gas station to the grocery store; all we need is some food. Sparky is a dog; no need to roll for exposure we can do this then “wait” declared one of my fellow gamers to my right, I triggered the crossroads card. Sparky was lost. Our moral hit zero. The game was over.

I had not been that into a game’s theme since my early plays of Arkham Horror. My heart was pounding, my pulse was racing, there was sweat on the brow that may or may not have been the result of a bad breakfast burrito…. I was in love with the game.

Returning home from Gen Con I knew I needed to get my hands on this piece of master craftsmanship, then I saw it going for over two hundred dollars on e-bay I all but gave up hope. If Dead of Winter had taught me one thing, however, it was never to give up on hope, not even when all seems lost. It was a brisk October evening when I was running errands and found myself inside of my local comic shop and found looking back at me from the shelf a copy of Dead of Winter; my heart stopped as angels sang.

The use of the crossroads mechanic is fun and clever, but the highlight of the game for me is the action point allocation via dice. I love that there is a variable in how many die you control and how useful those die may become. The theme is dripping all over in this game as well; all too often in zombie and horror games it is clear that the theme and mechanics are mere neighbors and coworkers, but in DoW the mechanics and the theme work as partners marvelously unraveling the story. As I play DoW I can imagine the fun the team had creating the back stories for the various characters; how did they all come into the community; why are we lacking in food this round and forced to hoard it. The work behind the game is fantastic and adds so much flavor to the theme!

Visuals – 2 // 2
Skill/Luck – .5 // 1
Pacing – 1.25 // 2
Theme/Immersion – 1.75 // 2
Mechanics – .75 // 1
Fun Factor 1.75 // 2
The reliance of theme, revisioning of old mechanics and forging ahead with new ones brings Dead of Winter to a solid 8 out of 10; there are minor areas of improvement such as the learning curve, but my experiences are hindered in that I have had to teach the game to groups surrounded by distractions and non-playing spectators, the pacing can also be an issue at times when one player has a group of five and another is down to only one; the player with fewer members can feel they are of a lesser value to the team but the fantastic design, visuals, and immersion easily make up for any issues in those areas.

Come back Monday when we return to the world of mechanics and finally look at Worker Placement; a mechanic we have been mentioning every Wednesday… Until then you can find us on social media!
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