Designers: Jonathan Gilmour, Isaac Vega

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games, Arclight, Cube Factory of Ideas, Edge Entertainment, Filosofia Editions, Game Harbor, Gemenot, Heidelberger Spieleverlag, Raven Distribution 

Genre: Bluffing, Horror, Zombies

Number of Players: 2-5 players (Best with 4)

Release Date: 2014

Difficulty: Medium-Hard

SCORE: 9.0 / 10

How are you at rationing during the Dead of Winter? That is exactly what we are going to find out in this compelling co-op strategy game of epic zombie proportions. Each player is tasked with keeping everyone alive and safe inside this new colony, a safe haven from the bone-chilling winds outside. How do you do that exactly? You have to desperately search for supplies in the surrounding area. Whether finding weapons at the school or food in the hospital, you have to at least find something. If not, your morale will slowly slip away until there is nothing left.

Wow, what a way to start. Face it though, when the apocalypse does finally come, you are going to need help. This is why you are tasked with controlling a small band of your own survivors to use at your whim. Each of the survivors come with a variety of stats and a special skill pertaining to each individual character that can easily be found on their character cards. The stats (from top to bottom) include:

• Leadership: The higher the amount the lower the chance they have of becoming infected due to the spread of a bite.
• Attack: The number indicates the amount needed on a die roll to attack a zombie.
• Search: The number indicates the amount needed on a die roll to search a location.
• Skill: This is the action that is unique to each character. For example, Sophie can peek at the top card of any location deck once per round.

Be sure to keep these survivors alive, as they are necessary to your survival. Also…you don’t want to lose all of your morale that easily.

The newest/oldest sitcom…Two women and a dog.

In Dead of Winter, the overall goal is rather simple…survive the zombie apocalypse. Okay, so it isn’t THAT simple. The goal is to survive each round of play all while completing  two minor objectives and a much larger group objective. The minor objectives are split up, as each round the group has a task to complete, while each player is given a personal goal to complete throughout the game’s entirety. This personal goal can be as simple as hoarding gas, or you can be tasked as the traitor and have to sabotage the group’s chances of winning. Regardless, the larger group objective is the most important goal of all, as it needs to be completed for the majority of the personal goals completion. Many elements will cause the player to veer off track, so make sure you stay focused on all your goals at once.

By far the most innovative feature in Dead of Winter are the ridiculous Crossroad cards. At the beginning of every player’s turn, the player to their right draws a Crossroad card from its specific deck. The whole idea behind these Crossroads are to further the actually events beyond the main objective, which can be helpful…but most likely will completely ruin your turn. Typically the card is split into four sections:

• “Conditions” – Written in italics right before the story, these are the conditions that must be satisfied before the story unfolds. Example: The current player is in control of survivor Bev.
• “Story”- The events that unfold as a result of the card, forcing the current player to make a choice. Some cards do included all players in a thumbs up and thumbs down vote mechanic. Example: Survivor Bev finds her feral mutated son, as well as other children, barely surviving in the school. 
• “Option 1” – The first option that is given to the current player. It is often the more moral side of the story. Example: Bev is removed from the game and decides to protect the children, inflicting a wound to any other survivor who moves to the school.
• “Option 2” – The second option that is given to the current player. It is often the darker side of the story. Example: Bev leaves the school, leaving all children to burn inside. This results in the loss of zombies (+) but all items (-) as well.

As you can tell, most of the time the Crossroads will royally screw you. While it is a rather interesting game mechanic, there are many moments where you know you are doing well but things come back to bite you. In my last play through of Dead of Winter, we were on a roll with morale at an all time high. Unfortunately I was in control of the teacher survivor, who found starving children hiding in the school. Option 1: Give the children three food tokens…sorry we had none to give. I was forced to take Option 2: Open the pantry and give the children all of the food at the school, removing 17 necessary food tokens. While we succeeded in winning the game overall, we were forced to starve until our morale dropped severely.

Campaign, Crossroads, Personal Goal

Lucky for us, Dead of Winter is pretty straight-forward on how difficult the game can be. On each of the main campaign cards there is a length of play listed. There are three separate lengths: short, medium, and long. While I have found that 90% of the time shorts are easy, mediums are medium, and longs are hard, there is that 10% of the time that serves as an exception to the rule. For example, one of the short campaigns is a combination of gaining a food surplus and clearing all zombies from the board in a mere four rounds. Since most of the food is eaten by the helpless survivors and the zombies respawn each turn, let’s just chalk this one up to the hard difficulty. This will give you a pretty clear idea of how difficult the campaign will be, except you definitely won’t know what you are in for, regardless of how many times you struggle to complete the campaign.

Due to the massive selection of different campaigns, survivors, and the even larger selection of “Crossroads” cards, Dead of Winter has massive replay-ability. I have dove into the world of Dead of Winter over ten separate times now, and I still haven’t played the same game twice. While there are many common themes among the various campaigns, the story you experience is different in still indulging each play through.

Dead of Winter is a definite must for any tabletop fan who wants to go further into tabletop gaming beyond just the basics. You can invest as much time as you want into one round of play, thanks to Dead of Winter‘s adjustable play length.  Dead of Winter brings interesting story elements to the table, making each round a completely separate all new game. By far one of the most fun yet completely stressful tabletop games I have ever played, I highly recommend Dead of Winter to anyone who wants to completely turn on their friends on their next board game night. Believe me…it’s fun!

They just keep coming!

Interested in more tabletop games like Dead of Winter? Be sure to watch out for the next issue and follow my Bacon Bits for a sneak peak at what the next issue might hold. Be sure to also check out everything else Nerd Bacon has to offer over in Beyond Bacon.