I purchased this product thinkingit was a story. I was incorrect. It is more than that. It is a whole system for running a zombie campaign. I recommend it for any one looking fora fun one shot or quick start game. The rules aresimple but well thought out. Great work here.

Excellent game. Very, very simple to play. I absolutely loved the Zombie Clock. This will definitely be a regular at my table for a while. The only downside was the lack of art. That's something I can live without though.

This game lets you easily create characters that really fit into the zombie movie genre and forces you to act in just the way you would expect them to on screen. The concept is simple - you only get to roll dice when you do something that your "type" of survivor would do (a fast survivor rolls dice when he runs away, a clever survivor only rolls dice when trying to fix stuff). If you don't roll dice the GM gets to describe what happens, which could be bad for you! This makes it really fun when you have several characters all wanting to do the thing that improves their chance of survival. To top things off, there is a neat mechanic to encourage characters to stick together, forcing hard choices to be made (Does my fast survivor stick around and hope the strong survivor can hold the door closed?). It took me a couple of games to work out "bonus dice" cannot be rewarded unless the character is actually acting to type - it seems logical now, but is not explicitly stated in the rules. One little tip - you need to get players to consider more than just their survivor type when creating characters. This isn't discussed in the rules, but each character needs a motivation to help everyone drive the action. For example, your fast survivor might be a business man trying to get back to his wife and kids, and your sneaky survivor might be a drug addict looking for their next fix. A character sheet would have been nice. The zombie clock is a great way to add pressure, but a GM needs to be aware of their own pacing and narrative. You need to be aiming for short, sharp scenes that encapsulate a single encounter every ten minutes - kind of like snap shots or time-lapse photography. Have a "focus scene" for each character to show what is important to them in the zombie apocalypse, and have it resolve every time the clock ticks forward. Like a lot of John Wick's "mini" games Shotgun Diaries is cool, but not for the inexperienced. There is not a lot of detail about running games and many of the rules work on assumptions that you know RPG or genre conventions. Like the "bonus dice" I mentioned above, some of the rules need further explanation or explicit examples. But, when the infected zombie blood really hits the fan, this is an 18 page game for $5, written by one of the industries great game designers - it makes for a fun romp that does capture and replicate the tropes of the modern zombie flick. I say, give it a try.

This exceptional game is very simple, very fast-paced, and brings something new to the zombie RPG genre.

It's 18 pages long, and the layout is simple - a handwriting font fills the page and grimy headings are bold.

Character creation is as simple as picking an archetype of a zombie apocalypse survivor (Sneaky, Fast, Strong, etc.)

The system is simple. You roll 6-sided dice in situations where there are zombies around in order to take risks and do something. One major omission in the game is that although the survivor archetypes say when they roll at least four dice for particular areas (guns, sneaking around, etc.), it doesn't say how much they roll normally, outside those areas. If you roll a 6, you get to say what happens. If you don't, the narrator does.

An innovative Fear mechanic replaces the dice you roll with "Fear Dice" - and if one of those is the 6 that you use for success, then you must run and hide, or otherwise save yourself, often at the expense of your friends.

There are mechanics to encourage sticking together and working together, as well as gathering and protecting supplies against the zombies. However, the most innovative mechanic of the game is the Zombie Clock. Every ten minutes of real time that goes by, the survivors' supply rating goes down by one, the zombie clock goes up by one and approximately a day passes in the game. The higher the number on the Zombie Clock, the more zombies the narrator can unleash on the characters. Zombie Clock points can also be used to introduce complications (the RV battlewagon is out of gas, the water in the faucets dries up, etc.) into the narrative.

This mechanic, the core of the game, provides a solid and visceral way for the players to realize just how bad things are getting, and how bad things are likely to get when the zombies finally do attack.

This is not a game for beginners. There is no guidance at all as to how to set scenes or who says what when. However, if you know what an RPG is, and you like the tension and suspense of zombie movies, you really owe it to yourself to read this excellent game.

A nice, simple system for role playing in a zombie world...mechanics are easy and uses only D6's...different character types get a bonus for doing things specific to their role, for example, the "dangerous survivor" gets to roll more dice when using weapons, "sneaky survivor" rolls more dice when sneaking, etc...I really like the Zombie Clock concept in which you keep track of the zombies acummulating around the characters, the more that accumulate, the more things the GM can do to the players (the plastic zombies from Twilight Creations Zombies!!! games would work well as counters for this)...I was skeptical at first...$5.00 for a 16 page game...I gave it a shot and am glad I did! Well worth it if you're a zombie genre fan!!!