Quickplay Rulebook

Slightly different rules for a quicker game, compiled by Rich Stokes
Changed rules (and interpretations of rules left vague in the original document) are in dodgy brown.
Abbreviated rules originally prepared by Moonsylver, and hacked to death by Rich

OBJECT OF THE GAME

Be the first player to reach the center square of the heliport or to kill a number of zombies depending on the number of players.⁽¹⁾

Number of players		Zombie kills needed to win
2		25
3		22
4		20
5		17
6		15

GAME SETUP

Before you start, remove the number in brackets of the following cards from the Action Card deck (put them back in the box as they will not be used):⁽²⁾

(1) Where Did Everybody Go
(1) Bad Sense of Direction
(1) Hysterical Paralysis
(1) The Keys are Still In It
(1) We're Screwed
(1) Fear
(1) Brain Cramp
(2) All The Marbles

Randomly choose a player to be the dealer. Remove the "Town Square" and place it in the center of the Table with a Shotgun Guy for each player in the center square.

Then remove the following map tiles:⁽³⁾

(1) Helipad
(1) Toy Store
(2) Right angle bend (has "The Warehouse" on)
(2) Straight through street (has "Theater 6" on)
(2) T-junction (has "Media Buy" on)
(2) Crossroads

Shuffle the rest of the map tiles, then shuffle the ones you removed seperately and place them at the bottom of the stack, so that they are the last 10 tiles which will be drawn.

Shuffle the Event deck & deal 3 cards to each player (face down).

Each player also receives 3 ammo & 3 life tokens at the start. No player may ever have more than 5 life tokens any given time during the course of the game, but may have as many ammo tokens as they can collect

TURN SEQUENCE

During a turn each player must do the following, in order:

Draw a map tile & place it.
Combat a zombie on your current space if there is one there.
Draw back up to 3 event cards if you have less than 3.
Roll a die for movement.
Move. A player has a movement allowonce of up to the number shown on the die, however he can always move as many spaces as he has life tokens. For example, if a player has 4 life counters and rolls a 2, they may still move up to 4 spaces. If they were to roll a 6, they could move up to 6 spaces. A player never has to use all his moves if he doesn't want to.⁽⁴⁾ Every time a player moves onto a space occupied by a zombie they must fight and defeat that zombie before they can continue to move. They may continue after defeating a zombie up to their total movement allowonce. If at any point a player is alone in a space with a life or bullet token (ie no zombie is in that space), they may claim it, including right at the end of this phase. If a player ends their turn on the centre space of the town square, they may replenish their lives and bullets to 3 each.⁽⁵⁾
After moving, roll one die. The player has that many zombie moves to distribute between any zombies on the board. However, they cannot use more than half (round down) these moves on any one zombie, and no zombie which moves may end up in the same space it started or move over the same space twice in any one turn (ie, no doubling back). For example, if a player rolls a 5, they could move 5 zombies one space each, 3 zombies 1 space each and one zombie 2 spaces or 2 zombies 2 spaces each and one zombie 1 space. Zombies may move through spaces occupied by other zombies, but may not end their movement in a space with another zombie.⁽⁶⁾
At the end of turn you may discard 1 event card from your hand & then play procedes clockwise.

PLACING MAP TILES

Tiles may be rotated any direction, but must be place so that all roads are connected. They may not block any road w/ the side of a building
When playing "Named" (ie a tile with a name written in white in the corner) buildings get the number of Zombies, Bullet, & Life tokens indicated by the "Z-" "L-" and "B-" under their names. All tokens & zombies must be placed inside the building, not on the street spaces. A zombie may exist in a space with a life token or a bullet token, but no space may contain more than one zombie or more than one token. This means that a bullet token and a life token can never be placed in the same space, nor can 2 or more bullets or lives.
It is possible to place map tiles in such a way that no further tiles can be placed (very rare though) If this occurs the player who played the last tile loses their turn & play continues until a player collects enough zombies to satisfy the victory condition depending on the number of players.
When a map tile with an "unnamed" building is played, it comes into play with a number of zombies on it equal to the number of road access points it has. They may be placed on any legal road space on that tile.
When the Heliport card is turned up, the players (starting with the player with the most kills) bid a number of kills to see who places it on the table. Each player in turn following the normal turn order after the first must bid at least one more kill than the last player or pass. Once a player has passed, he may not bid again. Bidding continues until the last person passes, at which point the highest bidder places the heliport in any legal position and discards however many kills they bid.⁽⁷⁾

COMBAT RULES

Any time a player begins their turn in the same space as a zombie, or they land on a space occupied by a zombie during movement, combat ensues.
Combat is resolved by rolling a die. On a roll of 4, 5 or 6 you win the combat and add the zombie to your kill-pile. A roll of 1, 2 or 3 means that the player must either forfeit a life token or spend enough bullet tokens to raise your roll to a 4. If a player would normally lose a life token (because they lost a combat and didn't have enough bullets to raise their score to 4) but has none, they must lose one zombie from their kill-pile and they cannot move any more this turn, regardless of their movement allowance. They still roll for zombie movement and may discard an event card. Their best bet is to head back to the Town Square and replenish their lives and bullets.⁽⁸⁾

Die Roll		Result
1		Lose 1 life or 3 bullets
2		Lose 1 life or 2 bullets
3		Lose 1 life or 1 bullets
4		Kill Zombie (add to kill-pile)
5		Kill Zombie (add to kill-pile)
6		Kill Zombie (add to kill-pile)

Once the zombie is dead, you may collect any life or bullet token in that space, since the space is now free of zombies.
Combat continues until the player wins or runs out of life tokens. A player can never voluntarily leave combat.

EVENT CARDS

Events may be played at any time.
Players may only play one event card per round (from the beginning of their turn to the beginning of their next turn).
Players may never have more than 3 event cards in their hand at once, but may have any number in play face up in front of them.

Players may discard 1 card at the end of their turn. This is the last thing a player does in their turn and signifies the end of their turn.

PLAYER MOVEMENT RULES

Player movement is determined by rolling one die. If the result is less than their remaining lives at the start of their turn, they may move up to that number of spaces, otherwise they may move up to the number shown on the dice. Note that a player's move alowance will not go down as a result of losing combat during their turn.
A player doesn't have to move the full amount and may stop at any time.
Any zombies encountered must be fought (Unless the event card "Alternate Food Source" is in play, in which case players way move through zombie occupied spaces as if the zombies were not there).
If a player moves on a space containing a life or bullet and no zombie is present you may claim the token .
Zombies & players may only move in or out of "named" buildings, & only by using the door spaces. No other buildings may be entered.
All spaces in "named" buildings are used as indicated by the lines in the buildings ( for example, the Sporting Goods Store has 7 interior spaces and 1 Road space
Players or Zombies either on may not make diagonal moves.

Twisted Logic (or: Notes on this variant):

OK, it's not like Zombies!!! was ever a bad game to start with, just that a lot of people, myself included felt that it took a little too long to play and often had long periods where nothing much happened except a few dice rolls. The subject of the game and the "Whoa dude, like, 100 plastic zombies!" factor makes this a game worth persisting with, so my group and I came up with this set of rules which we like better than the original set. Below are some notes on why specific changes were made, and what effect they have on the game. It's worth noting that at least half the tweaks have been well established on the Zombies!!! mailing list for quite a while, and are not my work.

Number of kills needed to win wasn't dependent on the number of players, meaning that players in 6 player games had very little chance to accumulate kills before the helipad came out into play compared to a 2 player game. This meant that in a 5 or 6 player game, victory almost always came from reaching the helipad. This change seems to give playes in any size games the option of actually deciding which way to win.
These cards are removed for a number of reasons. Apparently (accarding to one of the game's designers) there were only ever meant to be one each of a bunch of these cards but the game went to press by being made as 1 deck of cards doubled to reduce production costs. This meant that these very powerful and disruptive cards came up twice as often as they were intended to. Removing the extras reduces the problem. "All the Marbles" was removed because it was crap and nobody ever used it. They just discarded it as soon as they could, which slowed things down.
The map tiles were re-distributed oddly for 2 reasons:

Firstly, it pushes all the "Named" buildings nearer the top of the deck and means that they're more likely to come out in the early part of the game. This means less sitting about with event cards which are too good to discard, but cannot be used because the location they require hasn't been played yet.
Secondly, it means that the helipad is SOMEWHERE in the bottom third of the deck. It might be any one of the last 10 cards and that keeps players on their toes as to who has the most kills whan the helipad comes out. They cannot afford to be complacent and need to rack up the kills fast to stay in the running.

Movement was changed because it was very frustrating and tedious when the game grinds to a halt almost because everybody keeps rolling 1s for movement. This obviously reduces the chances of that kind of thing happening.
The centre of the Town Square represents the middle of the gameboard and therefore seems like a good place to put a recharge. Due to other changes, in this version of the game the players never die, they're assumed to be too injured to actually make any progress through the zombie hoards. In the default rules, if you die, you start again in the middle of the board with 3 bullets and 3 lives, which frankly didn't really seem like much of a disadvantage. It was often advantagous to die and "respawn" because it would likely put you nearer the helipad than you had been, and better equiped. That really didn't seem right, because in zombie movies, the whole point of the film is that the characters are trying NOT to die. They avoid it like, well, like it'll kill them. Having the players in Zombies!!! embrace death as a way of getting nearer winning the game seemed stupid.
Moving the zombies more means fewer times when the players basically sit there after they've finished moving their shotgun guy moving 4 zombies vaguely about because they can't actually get any zombies anywhere near anyone, or even into people's paths. Not a major change, but one we found made things more fun.
I can't remember who first suggested bidding kills for the placement of the helipad, but I though it was a great idea. The default rules actually reward players who don't attack any zombies or who play badly and die often before the heliport comes up by letting the person with the least number of kills place the heliport. That seemed crazy to me, since it's never the useless coward who gets away in horror movies. That'd be like Burke being the only survivor at the end of Aliens. This way gives players no option but to get out there and kick some zombie butt in the early game to gain the kills and hopefully gather the resources to place the helipad and survive the dash for the chopper. There's also the decision that a player who's only 3 kills from winning might want to just keep their kills and not risk the dash for the exit.
Carrying on from number 5, we liked the idea of a player getting just too tired to fight properly and having to limp about slowly and try to find somewhere to apply first aid rather than dying and going back to the start. It seemed more in keeping with movies like "evil dead" where Ash often struggles when he's been whacked a few times, but doesn't die. This way, a player who runs out of lives is in trouble and better do something about it fast, but they are in no way out of the game. They move on average slower than a healthy player, and if they lose a fight they are further punished by loseing a kill and ending their move. On the other hand, they could still use a card like "well deserved rest" or "first aid kit" and they can still fight their way into a building to gain extra lives if they want and they're feeling brave, but more often than not the best bet is to head back to the centre for a re-equip.

That's about it really. Not major changes but they seem to produce a consistently shorter and more fun game with my group so I thought I'd share them with the community at large. Major respect to all the people on the ZombiesBG mailing list for their ideas, to the players in my group for actually liking the game enough to want to tweak it, and of course Todd and Kerry Breitenstein for creating a damn fine game in the first place.

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