Zombie Kidz Evolution is a legacy style game for kids!

What is a legacy style game, you ask? 

A legacy game is a game that evolves as you play it. This means that the game starts with basic rules, but changes with each play as you unlock new rules, new challenges, and earn special achievements.

This is the first legacy game made for kids!

Here, players take on the roles of kids who are at school when zombies start attacking! Together everyone must work to secure the school and lock down the entryways before the zombies overrun the place and the players lose!

In Zombie Kidz Evolution (ZKE) kids will be able to open envelopes at certain parts of their journey that earn them new things in the game. For this review, I will be talking about just a couple of the things that you as parents can expect your kids to discover as they progress in the game. 

As such, there will be very mild spoilers ahead when I give you my thoughts. 

How do you play?

The best part of this game is just how easy it is to teach and get going.

Inside the box you’ll have a double sided board. One side for 2 players, one side for 3-4. There will also be 13 sealed envelopes. Don’t open those! You’ve got to earn it!

To play, players place their characters in the center of the school. Set one zombie on each entry point on the outer edge of the school and the remaining four zombies off to the side of the board in the reserve. 

On your turn, you’ll roll the die. The color rolled indicates where you’ll place a zombie from the reserve into the corresponding schoolroom color. Then move your character to a different room, or stay put. After choosing to move or stay, you may then eliminate one or two zombies from your room. Put these zombies back in the reserve. Play then passes to the next player. 

If a room ever has more than 2 zombies in it, you cannot go into that room. 

If you and another player are each present together at an entryway, then give each other a high five! You can place a lock in that entryway! Lock all four of the entryways to win the game before there are no zombies left in the reserve. 

That’s it! It’s that simple…at first!

After each play you’ll use one of the brain stickers provided to mark your progress on the back of the rulebook. If you’ve completed a special mission during your last play, then you get to place a trophy!

When you reach an envelope on the progress chart, grab the corresponding one and open it! 

The game has just evolved!

What do we think?

Theme:

Let me first start by saying that I was very skeptical of this game. I thought that the option of a legacy game for kids was great, but my first thought was, “Why does it have to be Zombies??”

I’m not a zombie fan. I know a lot of people are, I’m just not one of them. They’re just gross and the whole genre is violent and just kind of turns me off, plus zombies aren’t really something I’m itching to introduce to my kids. 

So with all that out there, let me say that I really enjoyed this game and appreciated the family friendly take on zombies. The art is adorable, clever, and really pops in its colorization. The characters in the game still have weapons, but they’re cute kid takes on classic zombie style weapons like a lightsaber and a super soaker. 

They do a really good job of taking the classic zombie-movie scenario where your heroes are surrounded and must work fast to secure their base, and making it into a fun theme for kids that really works in this school setting. 

If you are into the whole zombie thing, you’ll definitely get a kick out of this. If you’re more like me, you might find yourself surprised.

Legacy Gameplay:

Game wise, I really, really, really like this style for kids. It is a fantastic way to gradually increase the difficulty level a game that is literally part of the theme and not just a special rules variant. The game starts off super simple: Roll die, add zombie, move, fight zombie. Its so easy, even our three year old was able to play. Then with each envelope, little aspects of the game and rules change and it gradually gets more and more difficult. 

• Here’s your courtesy spoiler warning!

(It’s not that big of a spoiler, promise. Keep reading.)

These changes include things like player powers! Players can look forward to their heroes getting unique player powers that allow them to do special things. They’ve been fighting zombies so successfully that of course they’d get better at it! But just as they’ve been getting better at getting rid of these zombies, the zombies too have been getting stronger, so look out for Super Zombies!

Each addition increases the game’s difficulty just a bit. What it also does is keep the game exciting and interesting. Our kids wanted to just keep playing so that they could open more envelopes and get more achievements!

Speaking of achievements, the sticker element to help track your progress and signify earned achievements is a lot of fun for our kids. Seriously, what kid doesn’t love getting stickers?!

Every time you play ZKE, win or lose, you’ll get to place a brain sticker to track your progress on the chart. If you earn an achievement, you use a trophy sticker to show that you really rocked that game. Our kids love, LOVE this part of ZKE. 

Not only is seeing how close they are to unlocking another envelope a fun motivator for them, even after a loss, but the missions also offer a fun challenge for them to pursue. 

The kids are given different conditions that they have to meet during play. If they meet these, then they get to put a trophy sticker in the booklet to signify their awesomeness. 

To play ZKE all the way through to completion, opening all of the envelopes, the game will take 55 plays. That’s right, 55.

Luckily, each play goes relatively quickly, 5 to 10 minutes sometimes. When we play, we typically do about 3-5 games per play session. The best part is you aren’t hindered if you lose a game like in other legacy games. Each play progresses you closer to the end. 

Those 55 plays, combined with the extra plays you’ll most likely need to complete all of the special missions means that this game has some incredible staying power. 

We have played this game a bunch. Both with the kids and without the kids and we still have about 25% of the game left to play and a ton of goals left to meet. 

After all of those plays our kids are still itching to get it to the table. They want to unlock everything. They want to open all of the envelopes and stick all the stickers. It is such a fun experience for them. And as a parent, I love that they are excited to keep playing together and work towards all of the missions in the game. Our daughter also had a blast filling out the zombie hunter passport where you get to name your characters, zombies, and really personalize your game. (we printed a few extras because the kids couldn’t agree on names. Siblings, ya know?)

Unlike other legacy games, when you’re done with ZKE, you’ll still be able to play the game. You never damage or destroy the board or elements to the game in any way. I’m so happy about this because I promise you, if my son played a game where he got to rip up a card without getting in trouble, there would be no more intact cards in any of our games. 

Age level

As I said above, the game is incredibly easy to teach. It takes just minutes and was simple enough for our three year old to follow along and play as well. 

Once you start unlocking things and progressing in the game, the speed does pick up. Now it is better suited for our 7 year old due to difficulty level. While our 5 year old can still play, it’s a little too difficult for him sometimes, but with a some help from us, he does well. 

Our three year old is now part of team “mom and dad.” Which is just fine because this is definitely a game where you’ll want some parental or adult guidance, mainly just to make sure kids don’t get too excited and open the wrong or extra envelopes. It’s also just plain fun to play with the kids and be part of the legacy experience with them!  

Summary

Zombie Kidz Evolution is a fantastic game for kids and families to play together. Because the game starts slow and gradually increases the difficulty level as you play, kids aren’t overwhelmed with rules all at once and rather ease into them as they become more and more comfortable playing the game. 

There is a chance that if you don’t enjoy the zombie theme that this game may not work for your family, but, as a non-zombie fan myself, I find the art to be cute, non-violent, and completely family friendly. 

The legacy style offers an exciting gaming experience for kids. With envelopes to open and goals to meet, the game keeps kids (and parents!) coming back for more, eager to discover what’s next. And because nothing is ever destroyed, you can continue to play the game even after completely finishing it! 

We highly recommend Zombie Kidz Evolution

To get your own copy, click HERE!

Thank you so much to the great folks at IELLO for sending us a copy of Zombie Kidz Evolution for review.
As always our views and opinions are our own.

* This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you. To read my full disclosure policy click here.*

Game Info:
Title: Zombie Kidz Evolution
Ages: 7+
Designer: Annick Lobet
Artist: Nikao
Publisher: Le Scorpion Masque
Published: 2018

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