Ian Noble
United States
El Dorado Hills
California
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Prologue
My first experience with Flying Frog games came after picking up A Touch of Evil (AToE) over a year ago. I was looking for something in the horror realm, but simple enough to be able able to play with my, then, girlfriend. Unfortunately after a few solo plays and a couple plays with my other gaming partner, I realized that it just wasn't the experience I was looking for.
At this point you might be asking yourself "Then why did you pick up Last Night on Earth?" OK, maybe you're not asking yourself that, but it would be a valid question if you were! During one of our game nights, the subject of Last Night on Earth (LNoE) type games came up and I mentioned that I really didn't enjoy AToE, although maybe I was just missing something or needed to play more of the advanced scenarios. To my surprise I was told that they are two very different games and I should get LNoE a try.
Conclusion spoiler (For those who like to get right to the point)
As long as you're able to concede that the dice always have the upper hand, the game is very fun. Love the detail on the minis, but wish they were labeled (or numbered). Heroes seem to have more decisions to make in the easier scenarios. Might benefit from the Growing Hunger scenario.
Brief rundown of the rules (Skip if you know how to play)
This rundown will only cover a basic game, with 2 players, using the Die, Zombies, Die! scenario.
Setup
First, place the middle square on the board and select 4 of the 6 "L" shaped pieces to be positioned around the center.
The hero player selects 4 hero characters, places each on their starting location and supplies them with any starting objects specified on their character sheet. He’ll shuffle the Hero cards and put the scenario sheet next to the characters, to keep track of how many zombies were killed during the game.
The zombie player takes all 14 zombie models and places them near the board. They’ll roll 2D6 to determine how many zombies can be placed on the board to start the game. Take that number of zombies and distribute them evenly over the available spawn points.
Zombie turn
1. Move the sun tracker down.
2. Draw up to up to 4 zombie cards, play any that say “Play Immediately”.
3. Roll 2D6, if greater than the number of zombies on the board, more zombies will spawn at the end of the turn.
4. Move zombies: 1 space, any direction. Zombie cannot move if starting in a space with a hero. If moved 1 space adjacent to a hero, automatically move into the hero’s space.
5. Fight! Zombie rolls 1 die, hero rolls 2. If the zombie die is higher than the highest hero die, the hero takes 1 wound. If hero rolls doubles and the highest die value is higher than the zombie’s highest, zombie dies. If the highest hero die is larger than the highest zombie die, nothing happens. Zombies win on ties.
6. Roll 1D6 for the amount of zombies to spawn.
Hero turn (complete full turn for each hero)
1. Either roll to move or stay and search (draw a card from the hero deck).
2. Trade/swap objects with other heroes in the same space.
3. Fire any ranged weapons.
4. Fight with zombies in same space. Fighting is the same as when the zombie fights: Zombie rolls 1 die, hero rolls 2.
At face value the rules are very simple and can be taught in a manner of minutes. Once you start playing, however, you’ll definitely see where there are a few holes in the system. The first few games we had to refer back to the rulebook quite a few times, but most of the questions came from unclear wording on the cards. All in all it wasn't that big a deal, though.
Impressions after first few plays
Going into our first LNoE game, I tried to keep my expectations pretty low considering the uninspiring experience I had with Flying Frog’s other game. Let’s just roll some dice, kill some zombies and have a good time. Granted, we have noticed that the zombie player does not have as many interesting decisions as the heroes, but we didn’t see that as that big of an issue, since there are many more zombies on the board to control. During our first couple of games the hero player underestimated the danger in fighting zombies hand to hand. Unfortunately this meant that 2 heroes were killed by the 5th turn, thus completing the scenario requirements for the zombie player and ending the game. As initially discouraging as this was, we found, with a little research online, that we basically violated the “spirit” of the game. Humans would never run up to 1 or 2 zombies and try to attack them with bare fists. The next play through was, I’m sure, closer to what the designers intended. Hero players running around the town, searching for weapons whenever possible, firing long range weapons with the hope of taking out multiple zombies in one shot, etc. The game really opened up at that point. Even though the heroes still came up short, they were much more in the game and appeared to have a much better chance to rid the town of the zombie plague!
Yes, this game is filled with luck, but that just means that it is a great challenge to minimize the luck with acquiring as many weapons and special events as possible and then knowing when to best use them. So that means we think we might actually break through and win with the heroes one day. After that we’ll look forward to moving onto the more advanced rules and scenarios very soon along with exploring the Growing Hunger expansion.
I can recommend Last Night on Earth to couples or gaming groups that are able to focus on the lighter side of boardgaming and won’t let a few bad rolls get in the way of having a good time. This is definitely the next progression for people who want to move up from the traditional party style games and start adding more strategy to their game nights.
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Bryce K. Nielsen
United States
Elk Ridge
Utah
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Also, it's one of the best Zombie games on the market!
-shnar
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Spence
United States
Greensboro
North Carolina
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Glad you enjoyed it. I felt the same about LNoE initially, it seemed kind of shallow. But the more you play, the more it opens up into what is a pretty tense and tactical game at times.
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Ted Swalwell
United Kingdom
Enfield
Greater London
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Nice review - glad you enjoy this game which is one of my favourites for managing to be hugely thematic every time we play.
I too started with AToE, and found it underwhelming (and actually held off purchasing LNoE for a good while despite reccomendations and my own interest). Since the fun I've had with LNoE, I've gone back to AToE and found that after a few more plays, it actually gets really fun. I would say that the competetive game is its forte though - the co-op is rather lacklustre.
Obviously your milage may vary, but I'd perhaps give it another go...
Edited for clarity.
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My first game I EVER played was zombies!!! And I thought it was kinda an endless routine. Hoping that expansions would somehow reveal a more climatic and exciting game, I bought at least four expansions to only achieve almost the same results w a few more options. My friends played twice and it is still sitting in the dust.
That's when I discovered board game geek and LNOE. With two expansions, survival of the fittest and growing hunger, you have every scenario u can think of and almost every time we play, we get a real thematic experience and only once had we experienced an unclimatic experience(heroes found all items on the 3rd turn and I couldn't roll anything to spawn anything!)
What really makes it a level above any other zombie game is the point system in the growing hunger expansion. It helps u balance the game when u try to add more options especially when u customize your own scenarios!
I love this game and am glad so many others do. If you haven' got the other two expansions, get them. It will add so much variation and make a good game great.
Happy gaming!
Sam
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