The moment has arrived! The sequel to the amazing legacy game for kids is here! Zombie Teenz Evolution follows on the heels of the smash hit Zombie Kidz Evolution — our kids’ favorite game of 2019. To say our family was eagerly anticipating the arrival of this sequel would be an understatement, and we are so excited to share our review with you on how this second installment stacked up next to the massive success that was the original.

What’s a Legacy Game?

Before we begin, let’s go over a brief description of a legacy game. A legacy game (sometimes referred to as a campaign game) is a game that begins with basic rules that, over the course of multiple plays, changes as players unlock new rules, components, challenges, earn achievements, and in some cases permanently change the game itself. Often the game cannot be reset or replayed from the beginning because players have written on, added stickers to, or in other ways altered the game.

If you have never played Zombie Kidz Evolution and are curious to learn more about this first game in the series, find our full review here! Spoiler, we loved it! Our kids kept asking to play it and we loved the cooperative puzzle and challenge it provided them. The original game took our family 23 plays to open and unlock everything the game had – taking just under 6 months to complete. 

(In that same review we also discuss our thoughts on the theme from a family perspective as zombies are not a personal favorite of ours and are, in general, avoided. Those feelings still stand and we are overall pleased with how the theme is used once again in an friendly way in ZTE)

On Hype and Spoilers

The whole family was eagerly anticipating Zombie Teenz Evolution. Now, the fear of any sequel is that the love for the original plus the next installment’s hype/anticipation will lead to disappointment. Fortunately, we were not disappointed, and instead we were blown away! In every way, Zombie Teenz surpasses Zombie Kidz. We’ve even got the data to prove it! We played this game 25 times in less than two weeks – completing the campaign in absolute record time because the kids couldn’t stop playing!

Let get this out of the way up front. This is a legacy game, meaning a huge part of the fun is discovering what’s hidden in the envelopes you’ll unlock over multiple games. This review is spoiler-free because the last thing we want is to take the fun away from YOU as a parent if you plan on playing this with your kid (and you totally should!) So feel confident reading the rest of the review, knowing you won’t get spoiled. 

From a parent perspective, I do want to let you know, that we did not find anything that was not family friendly hidden in the game. Zombie Teenz is filled with fun surprises that the whole family can enjoy and, despite the theme, we never worried about our children stumbling onto something that ever strayed out of the realm of lighthearted fun.

Additionally, Zombie Teenz is a standalone game. You are not missing out on anything if you have never played Zombie Kidz Evolution and want to start with Zombie Teenz first.

Brief Overview of Play

In Zombie Teenz Evolution (ZTE) you will control your character to gather the critical ingredient crates from four buildings across town in the corners and bring them back to the school in the center. You will need to work with your teammates to move to the buildings, fight off the zombie horde, and transfer all the ingredient crates to their destination. If you get all four-ingredient crates back to the school, you win! However, while moving your crates, four different zombies will be advancing in the city, trying to overrun the buildings. Once a building is overrun, it makes it easier for the Zombies to invade the next building. If Zombies overrun all four buildings, the heroes lose the game.

The gameplay is simple for young players since they only need to take two actions on their turn: move, fight a zombie, or pass a crate. Between the players’ turns, you will roll a die to determine the zombies’ actions. Four sides of the die show one color for each zombie, and the two remaining sides show a question mark. If the die shows a colored zombie, add that zombie to the city or advance it one space towards a building. If the player rolls a question mark, the player will flip over an Event card. Event cards cause special things to happen with both positive and negative results for the players.

Our Thoughts

True Teamwork

The best thing about the gameplay is it helps ensure players work together because you have to pass the crates to another player in an adjacent spot. This stops a player from going off to their own to be a hero without working with anyone else.  Players must make hard choices between slowing down the zombies or making progress on moving the crates. Don’t deal with the zombies and they may overrun the city, but if you never move the crates, you’ll never win the game. Kids will have to learn how to balance these risks.

As parents we really appreciate this because it helps keep fighting between the players to a minimum. They actively work together to determine which moves they want to make and think through their decisions. Watching them do this is such a fun part of the game and a wonderful skill for kids to learn as well. 

Progress Stickers and Envelopes

Each game, win or lose, you will add a brain sticker to your progress tracker on the back of the rule book. If you complete a mission, you will get a trophy sticker. Once you get four stickers, you unlock an envelope. There are 14 different envelopes to open in total, ten standard progress envelopes and four accomplishment envelopes. 

I would love to tell you more about what you will discover in each envelope, but that spoils the surprise. I can share that each new envelope will add new rules that change to the game to keep raising the difficulty while keeping the gameplay fresh. You will also find a comic stripe in each envelope that advances the game’s overall story arc. There was no overall story in Zombie Kidz, and this addition was a significant improvement. Without spoiling anything, I can tell you that the comics engaged our kids in such a way that, upon completing an element of the game and progressing the story, they unlocked an envelope that changed the story and completely devastated them – leaving one in tears because of what happened! 

Seeing them that invested, following the story that closely, and then so eager to continue on to see what happened…can a game get any better???

Does Playing a Game this Many Times Take Forever?

Playing a game so many times can seem daunting but ZTE keeps it fun so you may find that you want to play through it really quickly. You certainly don’t have to play the game as quickly as we did. You can go at your own pace for whatever works for your crew. Overall, the games are quick, taking about 15 minutes to play. ZTE also eases you in so we won most of our early games, while later missions required a decent amount of strategic thinking for a kids game if you want to unlock all the trophies. The reward of opening an envelope keeps the kids asking to play just one more game after the other.

Can Kids Play On Their Own?

Our children who play ZTE are ages 8, 6, and 4. The most important factor in being able to play the game on their own will be the need to have at least one proficient reader. This person will need to be able to understand the original rules and be able to read, comprehend, and explain the new rules, additions, and changes that players unlock from the envelopes. As far as mechanics, our pre-readinig 6 and 4 year old boys were able to play completely on their own and follow all new rules once explained.

If you have a proficient reader, I highly recommend letting them do this rather than defaulting to the parent. This is a fantastic skill for them to learn and gain confidence from. Our daughter (8) was the leader of ZTE and often we would come downstairs early in the morning to find her leading her two brothers in the next game because they were too eager to wait for us! As a parent, I was thrilled to see my kids playing together; as their gaming partner, I was like, “Wait for me! I want to unlock things too!”

One Last Point of Praise

Another reason ZTE tops ZKE as far best legacy game for kids is the unlike in ZKE, the unlockable content is not character-specific. If you like to play with a particular character, you are not locked into playing the same way each game as you unlock more content. This was a big improvement for our kids and made the game even better. 

Summery

Tabletop Family would like to declare Zombie Teenz Evolution the best legacy game for kids. After 25 plays in two weeks, we still want to play more! Yes, we completed the story and unlocked all the content, but the game continued to provide surprises all the way to the end, and just when you think you are out, it pulls you back in. 

Scorpion Masque announced two new downloadable challenges available in early 2021 that will allow you to mix characters from Zombie Kidz and Zombie Teenz so you know we’ll be ready for those the moment they drop and we’ll be sure to put a link to them here for you on this post when they’re out!

If you are looking for a unique gaming experience for your kids or as a gift for a family, we cannot recommend this highly enough. 

We look forward to any future installments in this series and are also hopeful for Scorpion Masque to come out with a new legacy universe and theme for kids to explore going forward. 

Zombie Teenz Evolution was featured on our 2020 Board Game Gift Guide as a top selection for kids.
To pick up a copy of Zombie Teenz for your family click here.
Find all our favorite board game picks for kids and adults alike on our Amazon Storefront.

A special thank you to our friends at Scorpion Masque for sending us a copy of Zombie Teenz Evolution for review. As always, our thoughts and opinions are our own.

Game Info:
Title: Zombie Teenz Evolution
Designer: Annick Lobet
Artists: Nikao, Remy Tornior
Publisher: Le Scorpion Masque

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