It is the end of the world, and now the fight for survival begins. But how did it end? Nuclear war? Zombies? Aliens? How about a robot uprising? In Maximum Apocalypse, you set the stage and try to stay alive.
Maximum Apocalypse (MA) is a 1-5 player game where players pick a survivor (Fireman, Mechanic, Surgeon, etc) and put them in an end of the world scenario trying to complete a mission and survive. MA is a hybrid card, tile game, similar to the original ZOMBIES!!!. To start, select a mission to play, then select what enemies you wish to go up against, or use the suggested enemy on the scenario card. Next, each player picks a character, taking their standee, a hunger die, and the character card and the matching deck of cards. Take the 2 larger 6-sided dice and set them next to the scavenge board. These are the encounter dice.
Each mission, tells you what the objective to win is, what cards make up the scavenge decks, and what tiles to select for the map. Once the scavenge decks have been created, place each one on its’ corresponding space on the scavenge board. Next, each player selects and places a tile until all tiles are laid out to create the board. Next, players decide where to place the “van” tile along one of the outer edges. Each player sets their hunger die to “1” and draws 4 cards from their deck to form their starting hand.
MA is played in rounds, consisting of the following steps. First, roll the 2 encounter dice. If the dice match the number of one or more of the revealed, place a monster token on that tile. If a player(s) are on the tile, then each one makes an evade check, roll lower than their evade skill, indicated on their character card. If they fail, remove the token and draw a monster for each token on the tile. Each tile can hold a maximum of 3 monster tokens, even if the encounter dice roll that tile more than three times.
Next, each player draws a card from their character deck. If a player is never able to draw a card, they die and are eliminated. Character cards come in two types; gear or action. After drawing a card, the player has 4 actions to choose from: move, draw a card, play a card, fight a monster, trade a card, scavenge, and may do the same action more than once. To move, a player can move to one adjoining tile. If it is not revealed, turn the tile over and follow any instructions indicated. One move is considered one action. Players on the same tile may exchange scavenged cards only, not any character cards. To play a card, select a card from their hand and play it. Gear cards are added to their player area. Each gear card has an encumbrance value, and a player may not have more than 4 points of gear.
Action cards state a specific action that can be performed and then place the card in the discard pile. A player can fight any monster that they have the range to attack, Apply damage to the monster from the gear or action used. If the monster takes more damage than their health, they are defeated and placed in the monster discard pile.
To scavenge, select a card from the matching color scavenge symbol on the tile. If a tile has no scavenge symbol, a player cannot perform this action.
After a player has taken 4 actions, they take damage from each monster that is in front of them. Finally, the player increases their hunger by one. If a player ever has a hunger level of 6, they are starving and turn their character card over to their starvation side. Each turn they do not eat, they take damage until they finally starve and die.
The game continues until either all characters have died or they complete the mission. MA is a simple game to play, yet requires a lot of resource management. Players need to deal with hunger, health, and encumbrance, while trying to complete the mission. Death comes in many ways; by monsters, starvation or lack of resources (character cards) in the wastelands after the world ends, it’s up to you to figure out how to survive another day!
I am a huge fan of this theme, and this game delivers that experience very well. The replayability is very high, with several monsters to choose from and several missions in the base game. The components are very good quality, nice card stock, wooden tokens, and decent cardboard tiles, extra tokens, and standees. I think it is a great value for the price point ($45.00) The game has some expansions already (Kaiju) and one that is on pre-order (victorian horror).
If you like games that pit you at the end of the world, then Maximum Apocalypse delivers!
Zee Garcia, of the Dice Tower, has a good review that shows how the game is played as well as offers his expert opinion on the game as well. Having played it several times, I do have to agree, it can be swingy, as finding resources and where the objective tiles land, is totally random and can make the game anywhere usually from 45-90 minutes, or even shorter. I played one where the set up took longer than the actual game, as the objective token was right next to the van! Just had to find a gas station, gather the required fuel and we were done, 20 minutes to be exact. Despite the “swinginess,” I find it to be a strong game and I personally enjoy it and am glad that I added it to my collection.
Written by Ed Carter
