captain_slinky | 153 - That's My Girl

Molly and I are making a board game today, "Escape from Romero Elementary".

I'm letting her be lead on this, I'm the dev team and production.

Elevator pitch: "THE TEACHERS HAVE BEEN INFECTED! Can you rescue all your best friends and get them out of the school before the Zombie Teachers get them?"

The board is a Clue-esque map of the school, featuring rooms for Math, Reading, Writing, Music/Art, Science, Technology and History. There is also a Gym which is connected to the Lunchroom, which is the way out of the school. There are 8 decks of "Question" cards, one for each classroom including the gym, which are set up along the side of the board.

The game starts by having each player choose a color token to represent themself, and enough smaller tokens of the same color to give one to each of the other players - these smaller tokens represent your Best Friends, the people you're trying to save. Each player then takes turns placing each of the "Best Friend" tokens into a different room of the school. Only rules here are that they can't be in the lunchroom, and there can't be more than one of any one color in a room (you could have a Yellow and a Blue in the same room, but not two Blues). Each player than places their own token on any square in the Lunch Room.

Determine who goes first.

ON YOUR TURN
1) Roll two dice. If either one of the dice is a 4, 5 or 6, set it aside and immediately move the zombies (see "Move The Zombies" below). Move the amount shown on the remaining dice, so you COULD move up to 9 spaces in one turn. YOU MUST MOVE YOUR EXACT NUMBER OF SPACES, even if it means just running around in circles at whatever your destination was.

2) If you have ended your turn inside a classroom, you may attempt to rescue any Best Friend (not just your own) in the room by answering a question from the corresponding question deck. If you get it right, roll one dice and move you AND the Best Friend token that many spaces. If you do not make it out of the room in one move, you'll have to answer another question next turn to get out. If you get the question WRONG, place a Zombie token just outside the classroom blocking one of the doors. If there are no unblocked doors, place a zombie as close to one of the doors as possible.

END OF TURN.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

MOVE ZOMBIES - When you roll the dice for movement and roll either a 4, 5 or 6, you must move all the Zombies on the board ONE SPACE EACH before moving your own character. Have the other players help you keep track of which Zombies have already moved, as this can get pretty tricky near the end of the game! Zombies will never go into the gym or the lunch room, those locations are heavily fortified. If a zombie moves on to the same space as you, that's a ZOMBIE ATTACK! (See "ZOMBIE ATTACK" below).

EQUIPMENT - Each question that you answer in the Gym will give you equipment that can help you in getting your Best Friends safely to the Lunch Room, but there is also a small chance that you could draw a card which will make one of your already saved friends wander off and need to be saved again! Cards that you get from the gym, Equipment or otherwise, are discarded after they are used and once they're all gone, they're GONE... so use them wisely!

MOVEMENT - You may not move on to the same space as a Zombie unless you have an Equipment Card that says otherwise. If you move on to a spot that is next to a zombie you must roll a 1, 2 or 3 in order to keep moving or get stuck there (you must roll for each space you are trying to get through, and if you fail the roll at any time then your turn is over).

ZOMBIE ATTACK! - If a Zombie moves on to the same square as you, that's a ZOMBIE ATTACK! For every turn you are still on the same square as the Zombie, you lose something; first, it's a piece of equipment. If no equipment is left, you lose a Best Friend (if you have a Best Friend with you). If no equipment AND no Best Friends, you then you remove your token from the board and you yourself become a ZOMBIE MASTER (see "Zombie Master" Below.

ZOMBIE MASTER - Congratulations, you're a Zombie! Although the Zombies ate you up, you now have a mental connection to ALL THE ZOMBIES ON THE BOARD. Starting with your next turn, you no longer roll for movement; you just move all the Zombies on the board one space each, INCLUDING MOVEMENT IN TO THE GYM AND THE LUNCHROOM! Will you use your powers to try and help the rest of the survivors, or will the hunger and the rage inspire your ultimate revenge in making sure that NO ONE SURVIVES? Once you are a Zombie Master, you can still win the game by either making sure that there are NO SURVIVORS, or by making sure that the only survivors are players who have one of your surviving Best Friends with them. The choice is yours!

WINNING THE GAME: Survivors can win the game by simply getting all their Best Friends to the lunch room. If even one of your Best Friends got eaten by a Zombie, you can still win by making sure that all the remaining survivors (including all the remaining Best Friends) make it to the lunch room and escape to safety (shared win).

Zombie Masters can win the game by making sure no one survives, or by making sure that only players who have one of your Best Friends with them survive (Shared Win).

THERE! All written out! We have the board made, Molly has been drawing concept art, now all I need is a ton of School Kid Trivia Questions and a bunch of Meeples!