When designing new cards for The Long Cold, finding new and interesting combos was central, and Trusted Companion is a perfect example of this.
With Trusted Companion by your side, you can have a Car ready to go while using the Horse to handle daily stuff. You can have permanent weapons such as Machete without removing the option of Pistol, Flamethrower and the like if your arm gets wounded. Plus, you actually get and extra space for a wound, making your weapon management all that safer. The other way to get an extra wound space requires exercise, but can definitely be worth it too. Going into close combat with zombies is dangerous though, so be sure to bring a Knife and some Bandage.
But do you know what the best thing with an extra wound space is? You can eat some Canned Food. Or a Cow.
So who’s the hero? You? The Trusted Companion? Or the Cow? The answer is in the title/headline.
Jacob has written a few articles about the development of After the Virus: The Long Cold which we will share over the coming weeks. Enjoy!
Designer Diary: After the Virus – The Long Cold
Part #2: Delving into delaying
So what else can animals be good for? Well, for one thing, they are excellent at warning against danger.
Delayed? Yeah, we have new effects on the zombies too. A delayed zombie card doesn’t attack this turn. Delayed zombies don’t stop you from using healing effects such as Medkit, and they don’t stop you from ending the turn. And you can attack them all you want. Next turn, the effect is removed and they attack normally again.
How then do you delay zombies? You just goat to have the right animal or do some fencing. Or see the zombies well in advance.
Hey, why are there six zombies on that 4-zombie card? Hmm, must be one of those new zombie cards that you add with each mission. They often have different number of enemies on them from their level number to compensate for an ability. In this case, having them starting delayed is an excellent excuse for adding a couple more zombies to the card!
Want to see another of the new zombie cards? Here you go:
Cute, aren’t they? You actually never have to deal with them. But if you don’t, you’ll reach the level 2 zombie cards sooner. And being 2 zombies on a level 1 card, it takes a bit of work to get rid of them. Fortunately, you can have a buddy on guard duty, picking them off one by one.
Jacob has written a few articles about the development of After the Virus: The Long Cold which we will share over the coming weeks. Enjoy!
Designer Diary: After the Virus – The Long Cold
Part #1: Fleshing it out
When designing the original After the Virus, we had limited space in the deck, and needed a good mix of cards and card types. There were so many things that naturally belonged in the game, like facilities, weapons, vehicles, equipment etc, but we could only add a few of each and though we are very proud of the result, there is so much more that belongs in the theme, and so many more combos to explore! Enter The Long Cold…
Yes, this is our chance to do what we always wanted: go wild and add all the things that couldn’t fit before! Zombie movies often have iconic weapons and equipment, such as the beloved Chainsaw from the base game. Other things we want in the game include a crossbow, a horse, spear, fences and other things that takes us back to a movie scene. Or just triggers our imagination.
With that in mind, we also wanted to round out the gameplay themes in the game. You have probably noted that there is an animal in the base game (the Dog), but no other animals, and nothing that combos with them. Time to fix that. Similar situation with armor, but there are also quite a few areas where we had a few cards but no real combo, like throwing weapons, facilities, events etc. Time to fix that too. You could say that we have explored the design space.
So how does this work with the fixed starting deck of After the Virus? We decided that the best way was to gradually introduce new cards during a campaign, so that players both get to focus on and enjoy a few new cards at a time, and build up their character deck over time! Yep, ladies and gentlemen, a real campaign where your decisions carry over to future missions. So you’ll be familiar with the base game deck, but gradually tweak it, introducing new cards and combos.
By having a separate area deck with new cards, players are allowed to get cards from there, as long as they exchange them for their own scouted cards. This way, players have to pay a little extra for a new card (the scout cost for the card they take out), and they have to scout cards they are willing to let go from their deck. The longer into the campaign they get, the harder it will be to find ‘dead weight’ to sacrifice for new cool stuff. New stuff that go directly into play when you get them, and lurks in your area deck in future missions.
Yeah, so we have a whole new campaign too, with the special twist that most missions have carry over rules (called aftermath) that allow you to thematically keep a few cards in play between missions.
Now, back to the Horse. Do you know what else horses can do? CHAAAAARGE!!!
