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It has been several weeks since Eric and I have had a chance to engage in a serious bout of gaming, so this afternoon we went to a game store in Downingtown called "Fat Cat", because they advertise that they have an area where patrons may engage in "open gaming."

Unfortunately, none of the patrons who were actually present were interested in playing any games we wanted to play. However, Fat Cat was selling a number of games we'd been thinking of acquiring, including SPANC, which was designed by fadethecat. Naturally, we had to buy that one.

Then Eric spotted a game he first played at Penguicon, Zombies!. The object of this game, which is meant to simulate all the cheesy thrills of B and C grade movies (and their spoofs such as Sean of the Dead) is to be the first either to fight your way out of a zombie-ridden town or to kill 25 of the zombies. Killing zombies is done by rolling dice--a roll of 4 or better on a d6 is needed to take out an average zombie. The replay value is enhanced by the fact that the town is simulated by a grid of tiles, which are laid down by the players, turn by turn. Each tile is divided into 9 squares, and each square may contain a maximum of one zombie and either a bullet (which you can discard to add +1 to your die roll) or a life (which you discard each time you lose a die roll). Interestingly, being killed does not end the game for a player. Instead, you go back to the Town Square, where everybody starts, and you get three lives and three bullets to start over (presumably as a zombie yourself). There is also a deck of event cards, some of which enhance die rolls, provide movement bonuses, let you hinder your opponents in various ways, etc.

Naturally, we had to buy a copy of that game too, and we went into the back room to play it. I quickly ended up on the losing end, and Eric suggested that I do my best to draw as many event cards as possible, since one of the event cards is "Dynamite," a weapon which lets you take out all zombies in adjacent squares, or something like that.

I never saw the Dynamite card, but I managed to slow him down enough that I was only a few turns from the Helipad and freedom when he won.

After he won, he said, "I just realized; the Dynamite card isn't in the basic set. It must be in one of the expansions." Yes, Zombies! has expansions, which add extra map tiles, extra event cards, and so on. The expansion with the "Dynamite" turns out to be Zombies 2!--Zombie Corps(e). ZC includes, in addition to Dynamite, additional tiles that let you add a military base (yes, a military base) and government-enhanced (yes, government-enhanced) zombies to the game.

The upshot is that I spent $26 and Eric spent close to $50 before we got out of the shop.

Anyway, I have to go now. Eric is making zombie-like noises and trying to drag me to the dining-room table for another game. :-)