Draft:Escape the Horde

Escape the Horde is a cooperative card game designed by Todd Stewart, and first published by Infectious Games in May 2023. The game began as a Kickstarter project seeking US$5,000 in crowdfunding, with Infectious Games exceeding its goal early in the project. Delivery to backers started in late September 2023; all backers received their copies of the game by October 2023.

Escape the Horde was officially launched into New Zealand retail stores on Halloween 2023, with many games stores running cosplay events to promote the game.



Appearing at the 2024 Armageddon expo and 2024 Cancer Society Games Fair, Escape the Horde offered experienced and new gamers the opportunity to playtest the game, raising money for the NZ Cancer Society with sales at the latter.

Gameplay

Escape the Horde is an exciting multiplayer collaborative card game of strategy, teamwork, and a little bit of luck. Game-play is surprisingly simple; everything revolves around a game of survival in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Survivors must work together to avoid becoming infected, whilst Patient Zero and their relentless horde of zombies attack them at every chance they get.

At the start of each game each player is dealt a Faction card, to determine their role. Players will either play as a Survivor, or as Patient Zero. Then, players remove the excess Faction cards (Survivors and Patient Zero), along with the Wasteland, Countdown and I'm Fine cards, as these will not be used in general play.

The deck is shuffled and each player draws 5 cards if there are 4 or less players, otherwise each player draws 3 cards. If a player draws a Zombie or Discard Weapon card, they set aside those cards and redraw until they have a full hand. The Zombie and Discard Weapon cards are then shuffled back into the deck (known as the Stack).

During each player's turn they may play as many cards from their hand as they like (Steal, Binoculars, Spill Blood, and more...), before ending their turn by drawing a card. Should a player whose Faction Card is Survivor draw a Zombie card, they are now being attacked and must either use a weapon, or another card to prevent themselves from being bitten. One bite from a Zombie and they receive an I'm Fine card; two bites and they are Turned and change factions to work with Patient Zero to turn the other remaining Survivors.

Should a player whose Faction Card is Patient Zero draw a Zombie card, they may place it in front of a Survivor where it is now attacking that player, or instead they may place the Zombie card secretly into their hand. Escape the Horde contains an element of social deduction as Patient Zero has the choice to play the Survivor text on cards so as to hide their identity until it is they chose to reveal themselves, or an action ultimately reveals who they are. The game is filled with many questions and accusations up until that point.

Survivors win when they beat the Stack of cards or outrun the Countdown clock at the end of the game; Patient Zero and Infected Survivors win when they turn all other Survivors, with the last Survivor turned being named the biggest loser.