Game Like a Mother

Quick Take: We love this game so much. It's a lot like Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters but with quicker games and more engaging play. It's a cooperative game that starts out with pretty simple rules: team up to fight the cute cartoonish zombies that have taken over your school. But it's a legacy game, which means it grows with you and changes as you play. There are secret envelopes you get to open that add elements to the game, and I have to say, the level of excitement at this house over opening up new envelopes ... the 5 year old couldn't stop jumping up and down with joy each time. My kids didn't fight while playing, they could manage it independently, and it appealed to kids that had very different interests when it came to gaming. My older son always wants to play new games but my daughter was begging to play and my younger son ditched fishing at the lake for this. We played it at least 15 times in the first weekend we got it. It can be challenging to win certain scenarios but you're rewarded with a progress brain sticker even if you lose a round so it rewards effort, not just wins. This is absolutely one of my new go-to games. 

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How to Play: Your goal is to lock the four entrances to the school before you run out of zombies in your reserve. You start out with a zombie in each of the outer passageways of the school, you and your fellow heroes start out in the center classroom. On each turn you roll the die and place a zombie in the room correlated to the color you rolled. If you roll a blank side of the die, no zombie is added! After this you can move to an adjacent room and take out up to two zombies that are in the room. They are placed back in the reserve with the other zombies. If there are three zombies in a room you cannot enter it, that's too many zombies! It takes two heroes to be in a passageway together to lock a gate. Move around the board, take out zombies before they take over rooms or you run out in the reserve, and lock the four gates. Once you accomplish this, you win! It is important to log your progress on the chart on the back of the rule book, you get a brain for completing a game, win or lose. You can get a trophy in addition to the brain if you complete a specific mission that you can find within the rulebook. It's good to progress more quickly by winning trophies because this means you can open secret envelopes more quickly! Secret envelopes give your heroes additional powers, may give the zombies mutations, and are really fun ways to enhance game play and make it more interesting and fun. You don't have to use the elements they add to the game but you'll probably want to. 

Variations: The best thing about this game is that it provides endless variations of its own, slowly​ through the secret envelopes. Never before have I had a child snatch out of my hand what were basically new game rules. So much excitement over these envelopes. The basic game play remains simple and easy and the new rules don't bog down the game at all, which is quite impressive. 

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Similar Games To Check Out: Magic Maze, 5-Minute Dungeon, Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters, Zombie Teenz Evolution

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