Zombies Nibble B.B.Q. is a turn-based collectible card video game where you have only a short amount of time to get your character safely outside his or her zombie-infected town before a bomb drops down and wipes it out. Each turn the player draws cards from a deck, which can then be used to control the hero's movements and actions.
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How To Play
Up/down – Scroll between different cards
Space – Select a card
Enter – Go to the next phase
U – Undo
M – Toggle Music
Q – Quit
Phase 1 (Selection) Cards are automatically added to the hand if needed at the beginning of each turn. You can pick from your hand the cards you want to play.
Use movement cards to move your character forward. Turn cards can be used to help get around obstacles. Note that a “Turn Right” card turns the character to his or her right, not necessarily your right. Make your way up toward the room exits at the top of the screen (you'll need to clear 3 rooms to win). Other special cards can be used to attack zombies, heal your character or perform other special moves.
Cards you select are added to your Sequence, which is played at the very end of the turn.
Phase 2 (Discard) In this phase, you have the choice to select cards to remove from your hand. If you change your mind about discarding a card before the end of the turn, just press ‘U' to undo. At the end of the turn, any cards that are discarded will lower your character's Confidence. Whenever Confidence goes down to 0%, the character will lose a turn.
Phase 3 (Zombie's Turn)
After your Sequence is played, all the green guys get to take their turn. Zombies use a deck of cards like you, although they have a smaller deck to work with, and because the thought of brains always occupies their mind, they cannot draw up as many cards as a human can. Zombies will try to make it to your character's location to attack.
HUD Health is shown in the upper left. Although many zombies go for the kill, it is possible you'll walk away with an injury that can be healed.
Confidence is shown beside it. Confidence is gained each turn but is lost when discarding from your hand. If you lose all confidence, you'll lose the next turn.
The timer is shown on the right and tells you how much time you have left on the clock until the bomb hits.
Distance to Exit – This shows how far away you are to safety. As you make your way up to the goal, the distance will decrease.
The Deck The deck contains 52 cards. When there no more cards in the draw pile, the discard pile is reshuffled automatically and play can continue.
Additional info about zombies The number of zombies when you enter a room does not increase; there is no generator or zombies coming in from the windows, so it IS possible to clear a room of its zombies (although not recommended, as there is no bonus or reward for doing this yet). Later rooms have more zombies in them than the first rooms.
Perks/Traits Perks are permanent effects or abilities that your player character has gained. For example, the preview gives you control of a chacter that always aims for the head. Perks can be carried into future games with that character.
Traits are conditions that may be temporary, like being sleepy, drunk or infected. Although many zombies will devour the hero immediately, in the preview it is possible to become infected if you escape certain situations. Zombies will probably give up the chase when they see your character's pale skin, and you still have the full "human" deck of cards to play with, but thoughts of brains will suddenly start to creep in. As of right now, there's no known cure once infected...
Other perks/traits are planned for the future.
Tips
This game can be a challenge; don't be surprised if you don't win your first game. Here are a few tips that may help.
Tip #1 - Turning left 3 times = turning right 1 time
Tip #2 - Don't discard a Turn Left and a Turn Right card at the same time... just play them. You'll end up with the same end result but with no discard penalty. Likewise, don't discard 4 turn cards of the same type, just play them instead.
Tip #3 - Don't be too afraid to discard – Discarding a card here and there won't matter since you'll gain Confidence each turn. And if you do have to discard three cards, note there's no additional penalty to discard a fourth or fifth card.
Tip #4 - Some cards are rare compared to others. Some cards like Crawl, Walk or Turn Right appear 8 times in the deck, but others like the shotgun only appear once. Many times it's best to just run around zombies then wait for a card to kill them.
Tip #5 - You can attack crates to destroy them.
About the Preview
In the preview/prototype version, the game can be played from start to finish but there are a few placeholder elements and some known bugs in need of fixing. Also, there are still additional features planned for a final release (some to be a surprise). One such feature is the ability for the character to gain perks so, for the preview, the character has been given the “Aims for the Head” perk automatically, allowing your character to take down a zombie in a single shot.
