Modding Zombies into RISK

03-03-2015 - As an FYI, here is the most recent version of the mod rules.  If you like it, let me know at jmchattin@gmail.com (or even if you don't).

Forward:
Wow, it's been awhile!  With the excuse of moving half a continent and getting settled, my new home is Portland.  Here, I hope to make sweet games and create fine experiences for the days of tomorrow.  But first, what follows is a recap of a game tested last month.

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RISK: a game of grand strategy that has armies marching across the surface of the world. Zombies: monsters that ravage the forces of the living to add to the undead legions.  Alone, they are great; together, they are an unprecedented force: RISK Zombies (or Zombie RISK if you're so inclined).

The first draft of this mod had to detail what a Zombie does in the game, and the Zombie faction's role in the game.  Zombies were randomly spawned, appearing on any RISK territory after ever human player has had a turn.  When Zombies land, they removed a player's piece and replace it with a Zombie and combat is automatically started.

Zombie movement and combat were laid out: Zombies moved to an adjacent territory that had the most player pieces; combat is like regular RISK combat of dice rolling, but Zombies won ties and for every piece a human player loses, the fighting Zombie force gains another unit.

OK - so Zombies have an advantage, and popup anywhere.  After the first playtest, a few discoveries were made: Powerful Zombies are fun(!); Zombie hordes balloon really fast; and, Specifics on combat and movement need to be fleshed-out.  Things needed to change!

Draft number 2 defined that territories could remain empty if a Zombie horde had passed through.  The rules were sectioned-off into various points of the game mechanics pertaining to players and Zombies.  Human players were given an 'Evacuate' ability, allowing players to remove units from territories around Zombie hordes at the cost of additional moves, attacks, or fortifying.

After this second play, Zombie groups were specified as 'Hordes', multiple Hordes could attack and combine themselves, and a step-by-step for a game round was added.

  

Before another round could be played with the near-final rules, being a Conference Associate at the Game Developers Conference, finishing my final month of school, and job-searching took away most of my time.  However, some additions of note were made: 'Uber Hordes' were added, were Zombie Hordes of 20+ units would form near-unkillable units with hit-points that could be removed; How to remove Uber Horde hit-points was detailed for players; and, general grammatical changes to the notes were added.

Overall, I was disappointed I did not get to try-out the last set of rules, but I am overjoyed on how much fun the mod is for players.  It was a great time designing this mod, and I learned a lot: Using a foundation-set of rules and pieces is a great way to experiment with game design; Getting people together to try-out a multiplayer board game is also really tough at times.

It may be a long time until the next game comes around (I'm learning some tools and getting myself settled in Portland).  Let me know what you think of this work, play the game yourself, and take care!

P.S.  Special thanks to Jesse Fortune, Jesse Parkinson, Matt Isler, and Ryan Sturzenbecher for special help in testing this game!