Cardboard Corner: Review of Zombie Kidz: Evolution

A legacy board game for kids? How does that work? Stickers. Ahh, I see…

But I simplify too much. Zombie Kidz: Evolution is more than just stickers. It’s Bicycle Boy and Lightsaber Girl and their friends protecting their school from their zombified teachers. Now that sounds like kids fun.

Zombie Kidz is a 2-4 cooperative game in which players attempt to lock the four gates before all the zombies infiltrate the school. On their turn, players roll a special zombie dice to see where the first zombie in the queue will spawn. After, they are able to move one space with their character and kill one zombie. If two players find themselves at one of the four gates, they high-five, put a lock on it, and go back to killing zombies. If all four gates have been locked, the players win. If a player needs to put a zombie on the board but there are none left in the queue, the players lose. That simple—at least at first.

The goal for every game of Zombie Kidz is the same: lock the gates or be overrun. But the options for achieving that goal become more and more varied. On the back cover of the rule book, players track the number of times they played, and when certain milestones are achieved (for example after three games), players are instructed to open a numbered envelope. Inside are the legacy surprises. Of course I will not spoil them here, accept to say new rules are added to the game. These rules affect the characters, changing their abilities, as well as the zombies, changing how they behave. And, to my children’s delight, usually mean adding stickers somewhere. These new rules added slowly but surely, gameplay in the first game is very different compared to the 10th or 20th or 30th.

In parallel to all of this, there are goals players can work to achieve. For example, win three games in a row, or kill two zombies at one time, etc., etc. These goals also tracked with stickers, my children loved not only opening the envelopes, but also tracking their progress and achievements with stickers. Stickers, stickers, stickers!

I have not commented on gameplay, and I should. Zombie Kidz is a very logic-oriented, calculated risk type of game. Players know what their characters are capable of, they know what they dice are capable of, and they must choose the option which best suits game state best. Act too riskily, and the zombies will quickly overrun the school. Act wisely, even though locking that gate is oh so close, and chances are you’ll live to see the school locked down. That logic not always apparent for children (and some adults!!), there is a nice learning curve that is balanced by winning and failing as a team.

Components in Zombie Kidz are spot on. There are no plastic minis. Everything is cardboard, but it works just fine. Where designers clearly put their effort—and were successful doing so, is ensuring the evolution of rules is organic and natural. Dumping a child into the final state might be a lot, depending on the child, but allow them to play and evolve with the rules and everything clicks on through the final games. The other area where effort was invested is box design. Small and easy to move, everything fits perfectly inside. I wish more boxes were so well designed.

I suppose the final word on Zombie Kidz is, despite that we have opened all the envelopes and achieved most of the goals, my kids still want to play just for fun. Unlike Pandemic Legacy, which sits on my shelf collecting dust, Bicycle Boy, Lightsaber Girl, and the others still semi-regularly come out to fight the undead.