Pizza Games & Zombies Podcast

PGZ Designer Interview #2: Zombie House Blitz

We had the chance to pull Jeremiah Lee away from the Zombie House Blitz Kickstarter Campaign to talk about game design.

Tell us a little about Zombie House Blitz. 

 Zombie House Blitz is a casual speed card game for 2 to 4 players, it’s on Kickstarter right now at KCK.ST/ZHBKS. There are no turns, players are racing to get all of the people out of the house before anybody else does, they get points for people that escape, and they lose points for people that are eaten by zombies, or for any grandmas they decide to leave behind. You know, grandmas can be slow. We don’t support grandma killing, but sometimes you have to make hard choices.

I usually start with an idea about the theme of the game. I start to build the game around the theme and make design decisions from there. I tend to write down three or four words that pin down what I’m trying to do in each design. Things like “speed, family, card-based” were my thoughts for Zombie House Blitz. 

Early in Zombie House Blitz’s development there were a lot more cards, many more than the 36 in each deck now.  Players were getting stuck with too many cards in their ‘house’, and it was slowing the game down. When the game was cut down, things moved much faster, there was less confusion, and it made the game cheaper to produce, which is always good.

It’s better to remove something than to add something. Elegance leads to better designs more often than stuffing-everything-in.

I’ve discovered that if I don’t design games, I never get any games done. It’s really important to just keep working on games.

I’ve just alpha tested a game called Kitty Corral, which is a kid’s game that I’m hoping to sell to a publisher in the very near future. I played it for the first time a couple days ago, and the playtest couldn’t have gone better. It’s a simple game, so while I’m going to be doing more playtesting, it won’t have to go through as much to make sure it’s sound.

It’s game night. Where does Zombie House Blitz fit? What goes best with it?

The game is a great fit for starting game night, or ending as well. The game plays in about 20 minutes, and it’s fine for people to play one round and then either switch out with someone else, or just play another game. It would certainly work well to get people excited after a long and intense euro game, as well.

Zombicide, Coup, and I’ve had the chance to play Tales of Arabian Nights twice this month!

Diplomacy, because it’s a 4-12 hour game, and The Resistance. I’m not playing The Resistance much right now because I’m playing Zombie House Blitz in the times that I would have played Resistance. Once I’m not promoting ZHB all the time, I’ll get back to The Resistance.

Diplomacy, Dune, The Resistance, Catacombs, Ambush