City of Horror

About this board game

City of Horror is a survival-horror board game for 3–6 players, with a playing time of around 90 minutes. A shambling zombie horde is invading the city, and every player must try to keep their characters alive through a series of critical decisions.

Each player controls several characters, each with different abilities. Characters can move between locations with limited capacity, search for items and weapons, and barricade themselves against the undead. When zombies break in or a character is about to be eaten, the situation is resolved through a vote.

Those votes are at the heart of the game’s backstabbing survival-horror experience. Staying alive may mean sacrificing one of your fellow players’ characters to the zombie horde, making cooperation uncertain and every crisis politically charged.

• A city map that changes from one game to the next
• Twenty characters with different abilities
• Limited-capacity locations that can be barricaded and scavenged
• Antidotes that characters can use—or death when they cannot
• Action cards that become scarce as the game progresses

City of Horror also gives survival more than one dimension. Players can gain points with things other than surviving characters, while action cards grow harder to come by as the game continues. Antidotes offer another possible lifeline, but they do not remove the danger of the advancing horde.

Building on the basic mechanisms of Mall of Horror, City of Horror combines movement, scavenging, barricades, scarce resources, and player voting in a tense struggle for survival. The changing city, varied characters, and ruthless choices make each assault a contest of endurance, negotiation, and betrayal.