Last One Alive

I was staring at Liam without blinking, we’ve been friends since before either of us could remember, and now here we were trapped in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. All that stood between us and them was a hastily erected barricade, we both knew there was only one plan to escape past them and he’d just spoken it out loud, tears at the edge of his eyes. “The only way we’re getting out is with a distraction to draw them off, only one of us can make it. I know what needs to be done.”

Liam gathered up the fireworks and flares and started climbing up the barricade before I knew what was happening. At the last moment he turned and said goodbye, then he was gone, vanished over the top. A moment of silence, while I thought about how I’d never see him again, then I heard the bang of the fireworks going off. Something unexpected, the barricade collapsed, my face turned to a look of horror as the zombies came through, driven towards me away from the light and fire on the other side.

Liam ran into the night without looking back.

I had been the distraction.

Ground Zero

Last One Alive comes in a nice book sized box, big enough to hold everything needed and easy to store on the shelf, give it a shake and you can hear all the chunky items in there. There’s a nice bag inside holding plenty of dice, a punch sheet of tokens and a few cards to represent the players and rules references. The actual rules come in a pamphlet almost, so its easy enough to get through them all, and the reminder cards cover almost everything you need to know, only one or two specific things not on there and they’re not hard to forget. Setting everything up only takes a few minutes and then you’re ready to roll. The cards are functional enough with a bit of art for your character and a zombie look on the reverse when you’re eliminated.

Apocalypse Time

Game play in Last One Alive is fairly simple and quick to grab, choose a few dice to roll and add in some for the zombies, roll them all and resolve, hopefully killing or driving away enough that you manage to avoid being bitten, then watch your friends do the same. Last One Alive has push your luck elements, the selection of dice have a variety of different options, some are useful for killing attacking zombies, others may help you gather defensive equipment but this comes with a risk of finding more zombies, or you can just drive more zombies towards your friends, but what if they send them back to you? The items you get have a variety of effects, you can use them before you roll for powerful version, or after your roll but then their effect is less potent, and always a chance you’ll make the zombie infestation worse as you empty the limited item pool that won’t be replenished.

Escape

There is a lot of luck in the game down to the roll of the dice, but some planning in which dice you choose and whether you look to get powerful items to help or build up barricades to protect yourself or just go gun crazy on the hoards. Killing enough zombies can give you a hero bonus token which can be saved for a re-roll in times of need, a nice bit of mitigation for when you need it. As more dice get involved the zombies keep mounting up and eventually players will get overrun and eliminated, leaving one player standing as the Last One Alive. The game does come with a few variants, players can have multiple wounds before they lose, allowing the game to go on longer and help against one unlucky roll, you can run a day and night mode which ups the danger during night time, and also eliminated players can roll some dice which adds a bit of elimination inclusion but not so much.

Survival

Games of Last One Alive run quick and take around 15 to 30 minutes, allowing multiple games in a row if time allows and eliminated players shouldn’t have too long to wait before jumping into the next game. The game of dice rolling and passing them around the table while trying to eliminate everyone else feels similar to Bang The Dice Game, so if you’ve played that before it shares some similarities so you know what to expect, but if not, or if you prefer zombies to the Wild West, then this is a fun little filler game you can pick up for sure.