Physically, the game comes as a 5.5" x 8.5" staple-bound booklet with a black cardstock cover. Aside from the counters, the only artwork is a brain with a large bite out of it that forms both the center of the front cover, and in different colors acts as the occasional art piece in the book.
Inside, it's almost all straight text. It looks and feels like it was created on a color laser printer or copier, on fairly heavy paper stock. The brain graphic turns up every so often, overlaid with "BRAIN FACTS!", factoids about the human brain.
The counters and such in the center are printed on the same paper stock. They're not meant to be removed for use, though. They're printed on both sides, with different artwork or other items on each side: player characters, zombies, building segments, etc. To use these, you'll need to make copies on cardstock, then cut them out.
As for the game itself, the description in the opening paragraph sums it up quite nicely:
29 Days Later is a miniature game where you play a character trying to escape a city full of zombies. As you progress through each hour of your escape, your character will gain weapons, experience and come across allies to help you escape. If you fall to the zombies, the game doesn't end – instead, you get to join the hungry undead as they seek out brains of other escapees to eat.
Game play starts with setting up the board, which should be a minimum of 2 feet by 4 feet. A typical dining room table is recommended. Buildings go up, and then crates are placed randomly around the board.
Editing errors come up here first. First, the crates are referred to as barrels exactly once, in the first mention of them. Also, 20 crate markers are part of the counters, as are 20 markers for crate contents. But the crates are numbered 1-20, and the contents 1-21. Content marker 16 is missing.
Neither of these affects game play in any meaningful way, of course. But they do jump out at you as soon as you see them. In fairness, the editing credit for the book simply reads, "Um......."
Players and initial zombies go on the board last. There may not be zombies at the outset. It depends on the scenario. And at the start, there's only one zombie player.
Once the board is set up, play begins. The player who looks most like a zombie goes first (group vote). The players take turns moving, shooting, and attacking in hand-to-hand.
Coming into base contact with another token, including crates but not buildings, ends your move. If you touch a crate, you can take its contents marker. These can be used a couple of ways to save your life during a scenario, or turned in for credits at the end if you survive. Credits buy goodies for the next scenario. But if you die, your unused contents markers go back to their respective crates.
Attacks are simple to adjudicate. Check range for shooting. Roll a d6 for each attack you can make. For each hit, roll for damage. The target gets an armor save against each successful hit. Each failed save scores a wound. Zombies have only one wound, so take one off the board for each hit.
The zombie player has a bit more to do. At the beginning of the zombie turn, he rolls a d6 against a target number determined by the number of living players still on the board. On a 6 or higher, a new group of zombies enters the board from a random side or crate. (The rules say on a 6, but that has to be wrong. Otherwise, there aren't enough zombies to be a threat.) On a natural 6, a zombie space marine enters the board.
Zombie space marines have more wound points than regular zombies. They also have weapons and armor. They are very scary. Living players should run.
The zombie player then must say "Braaaiinnnss" before moving the groups of zombies already on the board. (You'll probably ditch that rule fairly quickly.) Zombies move a random distance, but they don't automatically head for the closest living target. The zombie player is allowed some strategy.
After the zombies move, they attack. Normal zombies must be in base contact with a living player token to attack it. Zombie space marines can shoot instead.
Death is the zombie meat of the game, the factor that distinguishes 29 Days Later from other miniatures games. Players whose characters die are not out of the game. Instead, they become zombies who move during the player turn, not the zombie turn. They keep their weapons and armor. If they kill another living character in hand-to-hand, they can use that character's special abilities. But they forget how to use weapons and special abilities after using them once. After all, they're lacking the brains to remember.
That's it for the game play rules, a mere five pages. Character creation takes up two pages. Everyone starts with the same basic stats and a set number of character points for weapons, race, armor and special abilities. Each costs one or two points … I think.
There's a problem here. The rules say, "you can use each character point" to choose something from one of the four charts. But the charts have cost columns, with costs ranging from 1 to 4. Even the race chart, and there's absolutely no logical way to buy a different race between scenarios.
The cost column clearly applies when buying equipment with credits. Should the rules read "you can use character points," or do they mean everything costs one point at creation? That latter option is highly unbalancing, so the cost table must apply to character points. The wording needs to be clarified.
There are several weapons available, most of them ranged. They aren't well-balanced, but they aren't completely unbalanced either. Every selection involves a tradeoff of some sort.
The same is true on every other chart. For race, you can be a human, ogre or dwarf. Humans have cost, but no special rules. Ogres are stronger, but stupid. Dwarves are better shooters, but slower.
There are only three types of armor, including rags. Rags don't add to defense, but they do make it easier to hide. Actual armor is divided into regular and riot, which have their own disadvantages.
Finally, there are the freaky and special abilities. These are character oddities like the ability to move faster or to hide well.
Another rules question crops up here. You can't shoot if you're in base contact with a player or zombie token. But the special rules for the sword say you can't use it if you used a ranged weapon in the shooting phase. Unless you have the Gunslinger special ability, which allows you to use two pistols, or a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.
But you have to be in base contact to make a hand-to-hand attack. So you won't be shooting anyway. As written, the special rules for sword and Gunslinger make no sense. Unless the Gunslinger has the unwritten ability to use a pistol while in base contact. In that case, only the sword special rules make no sense.
The last rules in the book are for campaigns. A campaign is a set number of scenarios, each representing an hour of survival time. The number of character points you start with are determined by the length of the campaign. The rules for spending credits also come here, as they only matter when you're playing more than one scenario.
Four scenarios take up two pages. Together they form a "run for the starport" campaign. I used these for playtesting.
The first and third start with no non-player zombies on the board. That changes fairly quickly, and nothing says "Oh, no" like seeing a new group pop up as you're getting close to the goal.
Unless you have a very large game going, the players are outnumbered as soon as the first group of zombies hits the board. Random chance and distance are the players' friends, more so than weapons and armor.
Game play becomes fairly complex surprisingly quickly, depending on the goals of a given scenario. And except for the first, all require that the players kill a certain number of zombies. (There are story reasons for this, but they're superfluous.) This means sticking around instead of running straight for the exit.
They're actually very good scenarios, mostly survivable with intelligent play. The exception is the last scenario, "The Starport." It starts with the living players grossly outnumbered, including the only starting space marines, and the zombie player gets +1 to all die rolls. They players have to kill an unholy number of zombies before entering the spaceport. Frankly, I don't see how it can be won without extreme luck.
The last page of the book makes suggestions on miniatures to use. (As it happens, I already had a Bag o' Zombies despite not having the actual game. It was a birthday present from my son. Don't you wish your kids were this cool? ;) And there are suggested movies and music as well.
This is a very fun game. It's very easy to get into. Most people know something about zombie movies, so the background takes minimal explanation. The system is straightforward, with the few exceptions noted above. A large handful of coins will server for zombies, and almost everyone has d6es around from boardgames and the like, so the cost of entry is very low.
If you like minis games or zombies, buy 29 Days Later. This will presumably be possible at some point from the Bad Yorkie Press website. Meanwhile, ask your FLGS.
