Mall of Horror

Two reasons I love this game:

1) Theme integration -- I think voting for which of your friends will be eaten by the zombie horde is a brilliant representation of the social disintegration typical in zombie movies.

2) Top-notch production -- the bloody, dirty details of the cards and board are engaging, memorable, and unique. I just love the look of it.

A righteous hoot. Essentially a version of "lifeboat" with added bells and whistles, it feels precisely like a B zombie movie, complete with all the requisite screaming, idiocy, gun-waving, and unfortunate uncoiling of mortal coils.

If you've got 5 or 6 talkative players and an hour to spare, Mall of Horror is a great game to play. The deceptively simple gameplay gradually reveals a moderately deep game of survival tactics and negotiation. There is less emphasis on killing zombies than most games with a zombie theme. Mall of Horror takes a cue from the Romero movies and identifies humans as potentially the greatest threat to other humans. Sure, the zombies are doing most of the killing, but the humans are voting on who dies. The excellent components are stored a nicely customized storage tray. Download several copies of the rules cheatsheet from BGG and then even your newest players can pose a threat.

This is a great zombie-themed game where survivors in a mall try to outlast the zombie threat until help arrives.

Of course, the zombies grow in number and soon the humans turn to backstabbing each other, playing tricks on each other and essentially feeding one another to the zombies.

Of all the zombie games, despite the system's abstraction I think it captures a lot of the message of Romero's zombie movies nicely. When you're kicking a little girl out to be feasted on by zombies--because she's worth less--what does that say about you? Who is the monster? *grin*

Lots of running around and trying to stay alive. Just a good time.


Despite its somewhat grim theme, this has been a hit with every group we've introduced it to. It isn't perfect, and the rulebook in particular is so bad you'll likely miss several rules for your first few games, but this is a great game and worth picking up.

This game has become a chore to play. While it evokes some of the themes of the Zombie genre, it falls short with its faceless characters, identical teams and repetitive game play.

I really wanted to like it, but couldn't even come close.

Too dependent on the group you play with for it to be any lasting fun. At that point, why not just play werewolf?