No time to clown around
CARNIVAL ZOMBIE
Designer: Matteo Santus | Publisher: Able Pavo
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗ 6
Character miniatures
◗10 Boss miniatures
◗ 6 Character sheets
◗ 6 Player aids
◗ 5 Scenario sheets
◗
5 Finale sheets
◗ Reference sheet
◗ Cloth bag
◗ 60 Item cards
◗ 18 Nightmare cards
◗ 10 Boss Tarot cards
◗ Carnifex Tarot card
◗ 6 Character standees
◗ 10 Boss standees
◗ 6 Stress markers
◗ Calendar marker
◗ Holy bomb marker
◗ Path marker
◗ Obstacle tiles
◗ Fortification tiles
◗ Pile of corpses / boat tile
◗ Bridge / cemetery tile
◗ 6 Foundering tokens
◗ 6 Scenario tokens
◗ 7 Blessing tokens
◗ 4 Boat tokens
◗ 3 Order tokens
◗ 200 Wooden cubes
The name Carnival Zombie perfectly encapsulates the essence of this board game.
You, the players, are in the middle of a Venetian carnival in full costume and painted masks, when zombies attack. Escaping Venice seems like the only sensible thing to do, but first you will need to fight through the zombie horde district by district, until you manage to find one of the ways to leave the city. Luckily, there is a group of six of you with complimentary skills and abilities. One of you is even a plague doctor, convenient, eh?
At its heart, Carnival Zombie is a tower-defence game with an assortment of mini games. The main action of the game happens on a segmented board representing a district of Venice, where the heroes, positioned right at its centre, fight off the zombies that threaten to surround them. In the day phase, the characters shore up their defences, attempt to find useful equipment, heal and de-stress (as much as one can during zombie apocalypse). During the night phase, the zombies spawn in the outer circles of the board, move towards the centre and try to attack the heroes. Each player character comes with their own speciality, a set of day and night abilities and a unique equipment deck. As every character is so different, their skills become indispensable during play, meaning that no matter the player count all six characters are always used. This works best in two to three-player games, where each player has at two to three figurines to control as it gives everyone enough things to do during the round without much downtime. In larger, games, however, the wait for your turn is more pronounced.
Finding the synergy between the characters, while being constantly under pressure from mounting zombie cubes, is not the only challenge in Carnival Zombie. Players will need to decide on their method of escape – through the freedom bridge, the airship, the boat or using the holy bomb – and plan their journey accordingly. Travelling further takes more hours in the day phase, leaving less time to prepare for the night phase. However, simply reaching the escape rendezvous point is not the end. When players arrive at their destination a separate ending scenario is set up, based on routes they picked. Players find a whole new set of challenges to navigate.
However, by far the most ingenious mechanic in Carnival Zombie is a dexterity mini game aptly named ‘A Pile of Corpses’. Each time players kill a zombie, it doesn’t simply leave the board, cast into the sweet nothingness of the empty box. Instead, players drop the zombie cubes onto a separate tile. If any cubes roll off the tile, they return to the board to fight another night. At first, this task feels easy: the board size is generous and you can drop cubes from any distance. However, corpses pile on quickly and soon the cubes stack on top of each other in uneven towers, threatening to topple over from a whisper. The excitement of killing a zombie is thus immediately followed by the dread of having to drop onto the pile without spilling over, bringing delicious tension to the gameplay.
Despite the large assortments of elements and mini games that make up Carnival Zombie, they all work together well. The downside is that there are a lot of rules to get through and a hefty amount of set up. However, the upside is that the game is very atmospheric and, despite the weird specificity of its premise, incredibly thematic.
ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Taking on a zombie apocalypse in style, Carnival Zombie brings flavour in its every element: from the initial thematic premise, the artwork and, finally, the gameplay, composed of the central tower-defence mechanic and supported by a series of mini-games.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED LAST BASTION...
Fans of tower defence board games, like Last Bastion, will find Carnival Zombie equally tough but also filled with style and flavour.