Board Game Analysis: Last Night on Earth

For the second board game analysis of this course, my group chose to play Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game.

Last Night on Earth is a zombie survival game for 2 to 6 players in which both the human and zombie side are player-controlled. The human players must survive to win the game, and the zombie players must stop them at any cost.

The game is divided into a base game, with the core rules, and an advanced game with additional rules, decks and scenarios. While playing the game with my group we mainly played the basic game for simplicity, so I will not refer to any advanced game components in this analysis.

Game Summary

Before starting the game the amount of human and zombie players must be determined. If there are 2, 3 or 5 players, one player will play the zombies. If there are 4 or 6 players, two players will play the zombies.

Regardless how many players there are on the human side, there must be four humans, or heroes in play. So if there are two people playing the game, one will take the zombie side and the other will control four heroes, etc.

A guide to how many players will be on each side of the conflict depending on player count.

Setup

Last Night on Earth has a variety of different game scenarios the players can choose to play that determine the win and lose conditions of the game. For the base game, only the Die Zombies, Die! scenario is available. In this scenario, the humans must kill 15 zombies within 15 rounds to win. If two humans die, or not enough zombies have been killed within 15 rounds, the zombies win.

An example of how the game board may be set up.

The game board consists of five pieces. A center piece and four corner pieces, randomly placed out from a selection of 6 different parts. These pieces depict a small town and a variety of different buildings in it. While inside a building, players can acquire items or various event cards, and certain areas on the board may give different bonuses to players depending on hero abilities. Heroes can be moved around the board by throwing a die to determine the amount of spaces they can travel. Zombies on the board may only move one space per turn, but they can walk through walls of buildings, whereas humans must use doors.

Rounds and turns

Each round of the game consists of a zombie turn and a hero turn, the zombies always go first.

During the zombie turn, the zombie player or players first draw zombie cards. These cards can have a variety of effects such as blocking off access to a building on the game board, or granting the zombies various benefits in battle. If there is one zombie player, they may have a hand of four cards, and can draw more if they are short that number. If there are two players, they can have two cards each.

After drawing and potentially playing zombie cards, zombie players may roll dice for a chance to spawn additional zombies. There is a pool of 14 (or 7 per player) usable zombie pieces, and at the beginning of the game two D6 (or one D6 per player) are rolled to determine the starting amount of zombies. During each zombie turn, the zombie player may roll two D6, or one d6 per player. If the number(s) rolled exceeds the amount of zombies on the board, the zombie player can place more zombe is on the board until they have as many as the amount they rolled.

Finally, after drawing cards and rolling dice, the zombie players may move their zombies around the board, one square per zombie. If a zombie is in the same space as a human at the end of the turn, a fight occurs.

During the hero turn the human player or players go through the actions of the hero characters one at a time. First, a D6 is rolled to determine the amount of spaces the hero can move that turn. The hero may move to any square within range, or if a hero is in a building, they can instead draw a hero card. Hero cards can be weapons that give benefits during fights, events that affect the game both in and outside of fights, or items, such as first aid kits. A hero can’t move and draw a hero card on the same turn, they must choose one action to take.

Heroes have two optional actions after moving or drawing a card. Firstly, a hero may exchange items with another hero if they are in the same square on the board. Secondly, f the hero is in possession of a ranged weapon hero card, they may use it to attack a zombie within the range listed on the card.

At the end of a hero’s turn, they must fight any zombies occupying the same square as them. Afterwards, the other heroes get to go through their turns. When all heroes have done a turn, the round ends, and the next round begins with another zombie turn.

Fights

Fights occur at the end of every zombie turn if one or more zombie and player occupy the same space. Fights must also be played out after a hero’s turn if there is still a zombie in the same space as them after they have moved.

Fights are resolved with dice. In a basic 1v1 fight between one hero and one zombie, the hero player rolls two dice, and the zombie player rolls one. If the zombie’s die displays a number equal to or higher than the hero’s highest roll, the hero takes one damage. If any of the hero’s dice display a number higher than the zombie’s die, the hero wins and nothing happens. If the hero rolls higher than the zombie and rolls the same number on both their dice, the zombie is killed.

There can be more than one zombie or hero in a space at one time. If there are several zombies and one hero, the zombie player may add one die to their roll per extra zombie. If there are several heroes and one zombie, the hero players may decide which hero will fight the zombie. If there are several zombies and heroes, each hero must fight at least one zombie.

Heroes can find weapons when they draw hero cards that may be used in combat. These typically add a bonus in battle such as killing the zombie without having to roll two of the same number, or letting the hero roll an extra die. Some hero cards are also events that can give players positive benefits in battle such as not taking any damage if they lose, or changing the number of any die rolled by 1.

Similarly, zombies may also draw zombie cards that can give them benefits in battle. Among others, some zombie cards let the zombies roll additional dice, and some zombie cards may make an opposing hero re-roll one of their die.

Core system – Alignment

I believe the core system of this game is clearly the splitting up of the players as either hero or zombie players. This is the system that creates the central dynamic of the game, the conflict between humans and zombies. In a sense, this system sorts the players themselves into object categories.

A hero card, listing the hero’s special abilities, starting position and health.

The properties of the heroes are the cards they can use, and what’s listed on their character cards; character backstory, their starting positions, any special abilities and their health. Their behaviors are the ways in which their turns are played out, the way they move, and their actions in fights. Their relationships are, of course, their confrontations with the zombies, and the ways in which the heroes can help each other with cards and trading. The actions and health of the heroes are also tied to the victory and loss conditions of the game’s scenarios.

The zombies’ properties are their numbers, their cards, their starting positions and their limitations regarding movement. Similar to the heroes, the zombies’ behaviors are their turn actions. The zombies’ antagonistic relationship with the heroes contributes greatly to the game’s theme. Zombies always want to close in on heroes and attack them to make sure they won’t win the game, creating difficulty in the hero player’s game.

Whether you play as a hero or zombie determines which tokens you control on the board, which cards you may draw, and dictates your entire strategy when playing the game. If the zombies weren’t controlled by other players, the game’s sense of danger and urgency would be drastically altered. With players controlling zombies, they may strategize and control the zombies in much less predictable ways, and battling with dice rolls in fights creates an element of randomness.

Interesting system – Movement

It’s difficult for me to pinpoint a specific system of interest since the game is riddled with so many small mechanics. Turn taking, card playing, dice rolling, and more. While fights are a big part of the game, they rely heavily on randomness. If I had to choose one system, it’d be movement.

As said previously, heroes roll a die to determine how far they can move in a turn, while zombies can only move one square at a time. This is balanced out by the fact that zombies completely ignore building walls while heroes have to go through doors. One detail I haven’t mentioned before is that moving diagonally counts as just one move, so maneuvering and crossing over the game board is quite easy.

Movement is interesting in the way that it creates strategy for heroes. Movement is straightforward for zombies as they pretty much always want to close in on humans. For heroes, their position on the map and relative distance to zombies is a huge concern depending on the situation.

Being in the same square as a zombie will always force the player to enter a fight, so knowing that zombies can only move one space per turn lets heroes adapt their movement depending on if they want to avoid a fight or not. Heroes also have to automatically enter a fight the moment they step into the same space as a zombie, even if they wanted to move past that space that turn. They can’t continue moving after the fight and have to stop there. If a zombie is standing in the doorway of a building, a hero can’t enter or exit that location at all.

With all this going on, hero players have to constantly think of how and when they want to move depending on what they want to do in the game. If they want to reach a building on the opposite side of the map to pick up an item, they need to move with care so as to not enter unwanted encounters with zombies or get blocked off. Staying in a building for too long is never a good idea unless you actively want to fight zombies, as you can very quickly get surrounded and locked in with how zombies can move through walls.

Best side of the game

I think the best of part of the game must be its presentation. Last Night on Earth relies heavily on camp horror tropes with its design, and it does so excellently. Every hero character is a stereotype, the zombie cards are written out in groans and grunts, and hero cards are riddled with references to common horror archetypes.

The game’s visual design pulls this off excellently. The game’s cover, promotional art, the character portraits and hero cards are all heavily filtered and awkwardly shot photographs of people in cheap costumes. The camp factor is exaggerated to the extreme in all aspects of the game’s presentation, there’s even an accompanying soundtrack to the game consisting of dramatic MIDI music.

Worst side of the game

I’d have to say the worst part of the game is how hard it is for heroes to kill zombies.

To kill a zombie, a player has to roll two of the same number while also making a roll higher than the opposing zombie player. Heroes may use weapons that they pick up while drawing hero cards to make this easier, but those weapons may also break if you make a bad roll. Similarly, they may use a ranged weapon outside of battle to instantly kill a zombie, but those also break or miss on bad rolls.

This makes the heroes’ ability to kill zombies incredibly luck-based, there’s never any surefire way to make a kill. Conversely, there are many zombie cards that immediately turn the fight in the zombie’s favor. A zombie player can just throw a card telling the hero to re-roll their dice if they make a good roll.

This might be intentional on the designers’ part to make it more difficult for humans, but I think they should’ve given heroes more ways of killing zombies. When our group played the game, the zombie side won a majority of the time, and it took many games for the heroes to even get one victory. Killing zombies is too reliant on luck for a fair, balanced game.

Target group

Last Night on Earth is listed as being for people ages 12 and up on its cover, and this seems fitting to me. While the game’s presentation is bloody almost on a Halloween costume-level, it does rely heavily on referencing less child-friendly material.

The rules of the game aren’t too complicated once you get the hang of it, but there’s a lot to take in regarding turn order and actions. Coupled with the numerous different cards you have to read and understand, it might be a bit difficult for younger players.

The game’s camp horror presentation feels tailored for a teenage or older audience. The references to horror tropes and stereotypes does require at least a basic knowledge of the genre, and a willingness to indulge in camp and making fun of it shows a familiarity and understanding of the genre’s common setups and ridiculous concepts.

So with those points in mind, 12 and up feels very fitting as a target audience.

Summary

Last Night on Earth was an incredibly entertaining game with a very humorous and well-executed presentation.

Having both humans and zombies be player-controlled makes for a very competitive player dynamic and ensures no game will be the same. While we didn’t delve into it, there’s also an advanced rule set with additional cards and scenarios with different winning conditions. Coupled with the numerous expansions available, this is an incredibly versatile game you can come back to multiple times and get something new out of.

However, the game might rely a bit too much on randomness, as heroes have to rely on chance to kill zombies. The significance of this issue varies depending on the scenario you’re playing, but the game could’ve used a bit more balancing.