Tuesday, October 9, 2012


A KICKSTARTER PROJECT: Quarantine Z: A Zombie Survival Card Game




The Town is under Quarantine. Zombies are everywhere. Supplies are scarce. Can you survive?
 
  • Launched: Sep 5, 2012
  • Funding ends: Oct 12, 2012
...and it’s up to you and your compatriots to survive. If you work together, you might just make it — as long as you don’t kill each other first. But let’s face it: dying isn’t the worst thing in the world. Not anymore, at least.
For 3-5 players, Quarantine Z pits 2-4 Survivors against a single Zombie player, controlling the undead horde. Trapped under quarantine, players must contend not only with the threat of the living dead, but dwindling resources, scarce weapons, and worst of all, each other.
It's a fun game. A really fun game. Don't believe us? Go ahead and check out the full rules here and print yourself a copy of the game, right now, entirely for free. We’re confident that you’ll enjoy it enough to want a nicer version. Additionally, we've put together a quick gameplay video for you to check out to see how the game is setup and how it unfolds. 
Quarantine Z has over 150 cards, including:
At the Zombie level we're giving in thanks for your extra support a set of custom Survivor dice. These babies have the Quarantine Z logo emblazoned on the"6" side, so you'll always feel good seeing it (unless you're the loathsome undead.) Each set will feature a die of each color, so the Survivors can easily tell their dice apart, and everyone can snag their favorite color. Because of the process, no two dice will be exactly the same, and we will never produce a set like this ever again. 
For the playmat at the Survivor level, we're getting the playmat manufactured locally with the fine folks at www.inkedplaymats.com . Thomas, (or T.C.) is really helping us out by giving us a special rate on these custom playmats. Custom playmats normally cost just over $25, and we're getting them for roughly half that. 
Artwise, we'd like to introduce you to the lovely and talented Amber Whitney. She's a freelance artist who we were put in contact through a friend, and then through another friend. She threw together a rough pencil sketch-up of ideas for the mat, and a bit of what it'd look like all gussied up. 
You can view more of her work at her website, where you can also purchase prints of some of her previous works. 
At the moment, we're a two man team: Charles Maxwell (yes, that is my first name) and Wyatt. CM is a Game Designer who comes from a background in Mathematics, Logistics, and Martial Arts. Wyatt is our visual designer, with a background in the Web, Print, and 18th Century British Literature.
But that's not who we are. At our core, we're idealists, and the most important thing for you to know about us is this: we dream big. We want to change how games are made, how games are consumed, and how games are perceived. We think games make the world a better place, we think games make us better human beings, and we think we can help. To that end, we’re going to be stupidly honest, we’re going to give back to the community, and we’re going to put our players — not our profits — first. What does that mean? It means we’re going to do things like:
  • Provide free versions of everything we make. We will never ask you to pay for something you haven't been able to play first. If we do, feel free to punch us in the neck — we probably deserve it. 
  • Tell you where your money is going. For every game we make, you'll get to know — in stupid detail, if you'd like — what our production expenses, profit margins, and corporate-sponsored-trips-to-7-11 look like.
  • Manufacture QZ (and everything else we make) in the USA. We've got nothing against China, they do some pretty cool things (Beijing Olympics? Eh? Eh?), but we believe firmly in keeping things as local as possible.
  • Be honest about our dealings. When we cut a marketing deal, or when we have other relationships with a product that we're recommending, we'll let you know about it upfront.
We think this game is good, and we want to be able to sell it at an unreasonably low price so that anyone and everyone can play. In order to do that, we need to fund an initial production run of 1,000 copies of the game. We don’t have that kind of money (Thanks, College!), so we need your help. To make this happen, we need at least $15,000. Any money you can send our way would be appreciated. Any friends, relatives, or strangers off the street would be appreciated even more (their money, actually... we can barely feed ourselves, much less a bunch of strangers). We want as many people as possible to experience our game, and the more money you give us, the easier that becomes.
Once we’re funded, we’ll be sending our order to our manufacturer in Battle Creek, MI. From there, it should take 6-8 weeks to produce, at which point we’ll be able to ship it out to you. Any extra decks that we are able to make will be up for sale via Amazon. If that goes well, we can start to make more and better things. We’re hoping that this is just the beginning, with your help we can grow this into something much bigger — kind of like when Charmander becomes Charmeleon.
If we can get to $17,000, we can afford to add a Booster Pack to the game. This 9-card mini-expansion will let us include some extra fun weapons, supplies and buildings that we held off on due to budget constraints. Cards include: 
  • The Katana - Like a baseball bat, but deadlier!
  • Zombie Spray - Bug spray for Zombies!
  • Hippy Co-op - Grow your own supplies! (Replenishes every time you come back, cannot be Barricaded)
At $20,000 we'll be able to do the same for the Zombies, adding another 9-card mini-expansion to help you strike terror into the hearts of Survivors everywhere.  Many of these will be referencing some of the other great zombie-inspired works that have come our way.
  • Thrilled - "Cause this is thriller! Thriller night"
  • Shuffling -  "everyday I'm Shufflin' "
  • Surprise Party! - Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
If we get to $23,000, then we can make more decks. This’ll reduce the marginal cost of each deck, which will allow us to make them out of nicer, heavier cardstock. Nicer cards means that everyone’s experience will be better. 
NEW GOAL! If we get to $26,000  we'll be able to afford Amber's art services to do a kick-ass job on the card art. It's not that her work is superior to Wyatt's, it's just that Wyatt's work is vastly inferior to hers. (No offense Wyatt) (None taken... jerk)
Once we start hitting stretch goals, we'll put up some more. We've got some cool ideas, and we really hope we get to share them with you.



For more info or to make a pledge, go here!

No comments:

Post a Comment