The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary co-op minis board game

Hey guys,

Not sure if anyone on here saw, but Adam and I just launched our latest game with Cryptozoic on Kickstarter. it's a pretty gnarly and tense co-op survival game (this ain't your daddy's zombie kill-count game, no sir).

Check it out! Nick from Board Game Brawl did a great preview of the game in the video toward the bottom:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/cze/the-wal...anctuary/description

Hi Brady, would the retail version have minis?

I can't completely confirm this, since it's entirely Cryptozoic's call, but I believe the $40 level with standees would be a mass market version of the game, with the miniatures available separately. But again, I can't be sure of this. It's just an educated guess.

Looks like a knife fight in a phone booth type setup. More tactical than strategic. Love the models. I'm thinking of getting just the models and making custom cards for other games!

SuperflyTNT wrote: Looks like a knife fight in a phone booth type setup. More tactical than strategic. Love the models. I'm thinking of getting just the models and making custom cards for other games!

While it's definitely tactical, I'd say it's much more strategic. The leader mechanic adds a ton of depth and decision-making, the scenario design really encourages strategic planning, positioning, and timing.

By all means, just grab the models they're gonna be killer.

But as a zombie freak myself that's been disappointed with most other zombie games put out, this is my take on making THE zombie survival game. So I honestly believe it's going to really stand out in the slew of zombie games out there.

This. Looks. AWESOME.

Really appreciate the box art style that does a damn fine job of marrying the TV faces we know with the look (B&W with one color) of the hardback comics.

How have I not heard about this before?!

Ska_baron wrote: This. Looks. AWESOME.

Really appreciate the box art style that does a damn fine job of marrying the TV faces we know with the look (B&W with one color) of the hardback comics.

How have I not heard about this before?!

It was a completely guerilla launch with no preceding marketing campaign. Give the size of the IP, there were a lot of hurdles that led to the decision. We are doing fairly well so far, regardless

No kidding - congrats (almost, but it's just a matter of time)!

Really hope you're going to do some kind of backstory on how you guys ended up making the game and getting the IP.

Ska_baron wrote: No kidding - congrats (almost, but it's just a matter of time)!

Really hope you're going to do some kind of backstory on how you guys ended up making the game and getting the IP.

It's actually a pretty short story, haha. The VP of the design department at Cryptozoic sent Adam and I a LinkedIn message asking if we'd like to work on one of their many IPs. When they sent the list, at the very top was Walking Dead. We didn't have to read much further, haha. We signed up immediately.

Aren't you worried that the game will mostly about the leader/follower interaction? Granted it's what the show's about... I see very little about the tactical stuff, and it's still mostly about bad things keep happening (the discard thingy from each event cards and the stress stuff).

I'm still hoping for that one zombie game when you have to choose between your humanity or survival, and *then* suffer the consequences.

PS. It's interesting to recognize bits from *all* of your previous games.

Sevej wrote: Aren't you worried that the game will mostly about the leader/follower interaction? Granted it's what the show's about... I see very little about the tactical stuff, and it's still mostly about bad things keep happening (the discard thingy from each event cards and the stress stuff).

I'm still hoping for that one zombie game when you have to choose between your humanity or survival, and *then* suffer the consequences.

PS. It's interesting to recognize bits from *all* of your previous games.

It's definitely not all about the leader mechanic, it's just a very unique aspect to the game. The game is essentially about individual choice vs. what's best for the group. Sometimes your most powerful ability defies the leader's plans for the turn, but you feel it will help the group in the long run. It's about cooperation both in the metagame and in the card choices. As a die-hard co-op gamer, it's something I'm very proud of, and really haven't seen done yet.

The tactical elements comes through the combat. All the actions are "boosted" through dice rolls, but stress makes you roll bad dice with your action dice. So it's a balance between how hard you want to push your dude.

This is a video we recorded last night, and I feel like it covers a lot of the key aspects.

Brady - Would love to hear your thoughts (as a "die-hard co-op gamer") as a designer then on how to integrate mechanics into a social/meta game like this.

For example, while not having a mechanically defined "traitor," it seems like players can take actions to effectively be that (or be seen as that) as they pursue their own individual goals within the framework of needing to achieve a group goal.

Sevej - as a dabbler in game design (and specifically zombies), I feel like the great thing is everyone has their take on things. And this one is obviously going to flow with the IP, a constraint which the majority of other zombie games lack. So I feel like this take on leadership and the stress / group dynamics / personal vs. group goals fits perfectly with what I as a gamer would expect from a TWD game. Zooming it out to make it just about raiding for supplies as your travel an overland map from Atlanta to Alexandria could certainly be technically set in TWD, it likely would be harder to capture the personalities that are at the heart of the show's appeal.

Ska_baron wrote: Brady - Would love to hear your thoughts (as a "die-hard co-op gamer") as a designer then on how to integrate mechanics into a social/meta game like this.

For example, while not having a mechanically defined "traitor," it seems like players can take actions to effectively be that (or be seen as that) as they pursue their own individual goals within the framework of needing to achieve a group goal.

The thing that's most unique about No Sanctuary, that was completely deliberate, was it does not rely on social/metal stuff, like most traitor games...but it still has a slight vibe of that.

In No Sanctuary, you have no personal goals other than your own choice. Everyone's "goal" is just the main objective. However, each turn you HAVE to play one of your cards (each one is 1 of 3 types: normal, reckless, and cautious). You may not have the same type the leader played in hand, and you can't tell them, because there's no open communication while the leader chooses the group's approach. But even if you DO have a card in hand that matches, you might have an even more powerful card that goes against the group's approach, and you personally believe that defying the leader will pay off in the end.

This game is ALL about individual choice. So it takes that entire forced social/meta aspect out, which I was never a huge fan of. It's fun to bicker about who the traitor is sometimes, but it kind of feels arbitrary a lot of the time.

I'm super proud of this feature of the game, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it goes over with players

It looks really cool!

Something you said caught my attention: "But as a zombie freak myself that's been disappointed with most other zombie games put out, this is my take on making THE zombie survival game."

How do you define this? Is it just basically "don't die" or is there a camp-building component? Management of limited resources? The reason I ask is because I, too, have been mostly unsatisfied with the way games handle "apocalypse de Zombie" scenarios. The only ones that really pique my interest from a "State of Decay" standpoint are Zombie Survival (focuses on building a safe house) and Zpocalypse (focuses on survival and resource management). How does yours differ?

SuperflyTNT wrote: It looks really cool!

Something you said caught my attention: "But as a zombie freak myself that's been disappointed with most other zombie games put out, this is my take on making THE zombie survival game."

How do you define this? Is it just basically "don't die" or is there a camp-building component? Management of limited resources? The reason I ask is because I, too, have been mostly unsatisfied with the way games handle "apocalypse de Zombie" scenarios. The only ones that really pique my interest from a "State of Decay" standpoint are Zombie Survival (focuses on building a safe house) and Zpocalypse (focuses on survival and resource management). How does yours differ?

This game system is built on single encounters, but I made sure to make resources matter, and the objectives/scenarios are very thematic. When I designed this game, it was actually based on an early concept of a campaign-driven survival game, where your encounters were based on securing necessary resources or battling back opposing groups, and it all carried over to your settlement sheet.

I'll just say that, while this game is limited to the scenarios without the campaign, its foundation was built in a way that would fully support my original plan