I love the game Zambicide, and I've written in the past that every wargamer should own a copy. The more I play it, the more I realise that actually every boardgamer ought to have it. Aside from my friends who just don't feel comfortable with horror, everyone I've introduced to Zombicide has an amazing time playing. Having spent a lot of time with Zombicide, it occurs to me that there are some lessons to be learned from the way the game was designed. Like any game, there are some things I'd love to see game designers copy from Zombicide, but there are also some missteps I hope we can all avoid.
I only own the first and Green Horde editions, so some of my observations may well have been changed in later or alternate versions of the game. That doesn't change my observations and, for myself at least, the actual design lessons are valid whether they're correct or universal or just purely subjective. These are just ideas and thoughts, some in agreement and some in conflict, with what is essentially a tabletop masterpiece.
I start with the bad, and end with just a few of the good (there's a lot of good, so this is an incomplete list).
Bad: Wound threshold not explicit on character cards
The character cards are mostly good. I love the equipment slots that help you manage your gear, and I love that wounds replace gear.
The problem is, there's no indication on the character card of how many wounds it takes to kill a character. For a lot longer than I actually want to admit, every time I would play Zombicide I'd tell my fellow players that once all equipment slots have been occupied by wound cards, the character is dead. That seems plausible. There are 5 equipment slots, and wound cards replace equipment slots, so it feels right. With no equipment, you can't defend yourself, after all.
But no, it's not 5 wounds. It's 2 wounds. There's no indication of that on the charcter card, you just have to remember that once both your hands are wounded (those are the top 2 equipment slots), you're dead.
This could have been easily solved with text like "Health: 2" pretty much anywhere on the character card, or by printing "Hand or Wound 1" and "Hand or Wound 2" on the top 2 slots. Any reminder of the rule would help.
Bad: Keywords are not clearly explained
One thing that Magic: The Gathering learned over its long life was that keywords require frequent reminders. To the game designer, keywords are like functions in code. A keyword contains a whole local set of rules, and it's a great shortcut for designers to use and an important way to make game rules modular.
However, to players who sit down at a game only once a month, keywords can be pretty cryptic. On the Zombicide character cards, there are keywords to indicate special abilities. Josh, for example, is Slippery. What does Slippery mean? I honestly forget how I found out, because I can't find it in the rulebook now. Maybe I'm overlooking it. Maybe not. Either way, some italicized text on the character card would solve that problem instantly.
Bad: Leveling is not suitable for colour blind players
I'm not colour blind, but the leveling-up system of Zombicide is not usable without a specific perception of colour. You level up on the character card according to the number of zombies your character destroys, but your level corresponds to a colour referenced on the spawn cards. The spawn cards only reference colour and not a number range, so if you've killed 10 zombies and you've achieved {colour} level, then you must reference that same {colour} on the spawn card. If you're unable to define what {colour} is, then you're out of luck.
Bad: Objectives are meaningless
About 10 missions are provided in the Zombicide rulebook. They're basically all capture-the-flag scenarios. You navigate the streets of the city, you grab objective tokens, and then you get to the exit token.
The very first mission after the tutorial requires you to collect rice, water, and canned food, and also you must grab all the objectives. What are the objectives, aside from red X tokens on the board? You're given no in-world explanation.
It's not hard to come up with a reason that the objectives are important. Maybe they're the diary entries of scientists studying the outbreak. Maybe they're components of an antidote.
Or they could be optional once you've found the required items. Maybe they're medical kits, and capturing them allows you to discard a wound card. They could be energy drinks, and capturing one could grant you an immediate free Move action, or the Slippery keyword.
There are so many ways to transform objective tokens into something supported by the fiction of the game, which would compel the players to actually feel a need to obtain them. It adds nothing, and in fact quickly becomes an annoyance, to just make them requirements for winning the mission.
Good: Double-sided tiles
Zombicide uses tiles to create a game board specific to different missions. Some tiles have big buildings, some small ones, some have lots of open access to the sewers and others don't. There are about 9 tiles included in the box, and each is double-sided. That means you actually get 18 tiles in the box, which provides you a lot of possible combinations. Because buildings and sewer openings provide more spawn opportunities for zombies, that's significant for actual mechanics in the game. But it's also nice for thematic variety.
Contrast this to the first edition of Doom or the D&D board games Wrath of Ashardalon and Castle Ravenloft, which has fantastic imagery on one side of the tiles and meaningless patterns on the back. The backs of the tiles were obviously printed. Failing to print a variant board on the back is wasted potential.
Good: Board spaces are intuitive and in-world
In standard Zambicide, a "space" for movement is the zone between in-world crosswalks. You almost see it without even being told. It's so clear, it's almost intuitive. Certainly an advanced gamer would probably correctly guess how to move each miniature, were they told that a character can move 1 space.
Even if you didn't guess, you see it once it's pointed out to you. It just makes sense, and it's entirely built into the gameboard environment.
Compare that to Mansions of Madness, which just cuts its tiles in half with white lines. There's no denying that the white lines are clear, but I often wish that they could have just written into the rules that a change in floor pattern meant that it was a new space.
Good: Tile numbers presented in-world
The tile numbers you need to reference while building your board also appear as part of the environment of the game. All tile numbers in standard Zombicide are numbers painted onto the in-world streets. Most streets in the real world don't have indicators like 1B and 2C painted on the street like crosswalks and arrows, but we're all used to seeing data painted on streets.
So this city does have numbers and letters painted on the streets, maybe it's an indicator of the electrical grid, or the names of intersections, or maybe it was an early system meant to help first responders find instances of the zombie outbreak. There are lots of reasons the numbers could be there, and all of them hint at worldbuilding rather than metadata.
Compare that to Mansions of Madness tiles, with little labels in the corner of each tile. It's not so egregious that it takes me out of the game. but I do often wish that some other system could have been devised. Couldn't the indicator have been an in-world sign? Or an occult-ish symbol drawn on a wall? Or an in-world item unique to each tile?
Good: Blank character sheet
Like its double-sided tile, Zombicide for no reason except the kindness of the designer's hearts, prints an empty character card on the back of each character card. It's got slots for equipment, the level-up scale, space for new skills with each level, and even space for a character portrait.
Whether you photocopy it or write directly onto the actual card, this is such an empowering prompt for players. Do you have miniatures you want to use in your Zombicide games? Spec out your character, put it on the board, and go.
Zombicide and lessons
Zombicide is a great game. I think it was innovative in many ways, and of course it provides lots of great lessons for any game designer. If you don't own it, you should get it. It will not disappoint, and you may also learn a few things about tabletop gaming.