Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Zombie World is a card-based tabletop roleplaying game of survivors fighting against the living and the dead for their own place in the world. The game is designed for easy, quick, and intense play.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Campaign Card Play
Play cards to command conflicts and carry consequences through a campaign.
Paper-and-Pencil
Record choices and results directly on a personal sheet.
Storytelling
Create or extend a narrative in response to prompts or game events.
Read the full game description
Zombie World is a card-based tabletop roleplaying game of survivors fighting against the living and the dead for their own place in the world. The game is designed for easy, quick, and intense play. In Zombie World, you take on the roles of ordinary people caught up in a zombie apocalypse, struggling to survive day after day, month after month, year after year, in a world destroyed by the restless dead. Maybe you’re just an accountant who took up a machete to keep her friends and family safe. Maybe you’re an escaped inmate trying to keep your criminal past a secret from your fellow survivors. Maybe you’re a soldier trying to lead and protect your whole enclave in this ruined world. Zombie World has its roots in the Powered by the Apocalypse system used by tabletop RPGs like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, and Masks: A New Generation, but it takes that system in new directions, using special cards to generate characters, create situations, and resolve conflicts. Making a new character takes minutes: you draw a few cards, and you’re ready to go. Every time you take an interesting action in the game, you draw a few cards that will tell you what happens to your survivor. In Zombie World, your story is about the larger group of characters more than it is about any single one of them, as you struggle, sacrifice, and strive to create a place where you and your allies might not just survive...but where you might live. Zombie World comes with all the cards, the playmats, the rules, and even a dry erase marker—everything you need in a small box you can easily fit into your bag and play on the fly. If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, or World War Z, then Zombie World is the perfect game to satisfy your hunger! —description from the publisher