Zombielife Insurance: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Push Your Luck, Stock Manipulation, Economic
Player Age: 8+ Player Count: 2 - 5 PlayersTime to Play: 30 - 60 Minutes
Game Designer: Xeo Lye
Player Age: 8+
Game Designer: Xeo Lye
Objective:
Zombies have now become a common occurrence with the outbreak of the new zombie virus. Don't worry though, insurance companies are making sure they aren't exploited by creating several new insurances based on the different stages of zombification. In this stock manipulation game where the player is the stock, can you effectively work the system and get a big payout from becoming a zombie or will you stay in the system and make the most wonga?
Game Anatomy:
Wonga:
Wonga will be used throughout the game to play and buy cards. The player with the most wonga at the end of the game has effectively outmaneuvered the insurance policies and won the game.
Action Cards:
Each action card has a cost in the top left corner and a special effect below. Each card will also have a number in the bottom left that will denote the number of players needed to include the card.
Infection and PPE:
Infection is how you will lose health during the game. For every health you maintain at the end of the game you will gain 5 wonga but losing a health during the game will increase the cost of gaining insurance cards by one more wonga for the remainder of the game.
All of this can be avoided by using the PPE card to either add the infection card back into the deck to ignore it or to prevent a zombie player from taking an action.
Investment:
Investment has a one-time fee and will payout nearly every round. At the end of every round an action card is revealed to denote the round number. The bottom value on the card is also how much each investment will payout. If an infection is revealed there will be no income for investment this round.
Insurance:
There are three insurances; medical, critical illness and life. Each Insurance has an initial cost on the top left, an upkeep cost that has to be paid every round, and a payout that will pay whenever you lose health. Respectively, they have different ways they pay out. Medical will pay a smaller amount but will pay at the loss on any health, critical illness and life insurance will only pay out once at the loss of 2 and 3 health, respectively.
The payout gets smaller the more it is bought as players can have multiple of each one of these. Medical insurance always remains a constant 5 payout.
Endowment insurance is different from the rest and will pay 2 wonga at the loss of all three health, or it can pay big if you survive. Each time you pay the upkeep cost it instead goes on this card. At the end of the game if you survive you gain 2 wonga and the amount of wonga on the card multiplied by 2.
Player Guide and Round Marker:
The round marker denotes the first player, which will move to the left player after every round.
The player guide is double sided one side denotes which two options the human player can do each turn (actions or more wonga) and the other side is the zombie. Once a player is a zombie their actions change to be one of the three on the card. They will bite, scare and vandalise their way into zombifying their opponents. This is done by manipulating the action card deck and the action cards in the players hand.
Setup:
- Place all insurance and investment cards in separate piles, ordering critical and life insurance from the smallest payout at the bottom to the highest payout at the top.
- Include all unmarked cards into the action deck and include cards marked with 3 and 4 if this game consists of 3 or 4 players. All cards are used for a player game.
- Keep the PPE separate from the main deck, give each player a PPE and 3 cards from the main deck to create their hand.
- Shuffle the PPE into the main deck.
- Give each player three health tokens and three wonga.
- The oldest player gets the first player marker.
How to Play:
The game plays over 6 rounds. A round concludes after each player has had a turn.
While the player is human on their turn they will choose to do the top half of the guide or the bottom half. The top half gives them two wonga and allows two actions whereas the bottom half gives the player three wonga but does not allow any actions. No matter what the player chooses they still have to draw a card at the end of their turn, as well as pay the upkeep for all the insurance as well.
The actions include playing a card in their hand after paying the cost, buying an investment or buying insurance. At the end of the turn, players have to draw a card from the deck, this is where the risk of zombification comes in. If a player draws an infection and doesn't have PPE, they must lose one health, make a claim on any insurance to gain the payout, as well as discarding that card from the game, and then place the infection back into any spot of the deck without letting the other players know. If this is your last health you must discard all your investment, insurance and action cards and flip your guide card to the zombie side. You are now fully infected.
Once all players have had a turn the round will end and the top card will be revealed in the round track. Any player with investment(s) will receive the wonga at the bottom of the card for every investment they have. After the sixth round, every endowment insurance and health token will be added to each player's wonga. Whoever has the most wonga has won and best optimised the insurance company's new regulations.
Final Thoughts:
- Interesting theme and mechanism where you are treating yourself as a stock, either trying to get zombified or stay alive.
- Easy rules.
- Wish there were more action options on your turn.
Zombielife Insurance is a push your luck, stock manipulation game where you have to manipulate your character as the stock. You will choose early on if you are aiming for zombification and gaining all the wonga you can while turning, or if you believe the best chance you have is staying alive while gaining money wonga from investments and endowment insurance. This game shines more when you are actively trying to manipulate the opponent’s stock as well by placing the infection in the deck specifically to target them or by targeting the insurance they will go for. Zombie Life Insurance has created a fun satire within the world of insurance. This is a game that will easily go over well with families and players that enjoy direct stock confrontation. Therefore, it is the best of both worlds if you chose to go for the human payouts or aim for the more adventurous path of full zombification, The choice is yours.
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