Zombie Fluxx FAQ

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Please add Frequently Asked Questions about Zombie Fluxx here, as well as the official or commonly accepted answers to each question.

See also the regular Fluxx FAQ file for more answers to common Fluxx questions.

• Q: Why do some of my cards have a jagged mark in the bottom left corner?
  • A: If you leave those marked cards out of the deck, and ignore anything on a goal about requiring zombies (or not) in order to win, you can play a simpler game that's good for people new to Fluxx. Look for the explanation and list of marked cards under "Playing without zombies" on the Zombie Fluxx package insert.

• Q: Do "dead friends" still count as Friend keepers? Do they become Creepers instead? Do Friends in your hand turn into Zombies when "Dead Friends" is played? What about Friends drawn later?
  • A: Friend Keepers do NOT count as Keepers if the Dead Friends rule is in play. In this case, Friends are treated exactly like Creepers instead. They become Keepers again if the rule is discarded. They are NOT considered Creepers until they actually hit the table - a Friend in the hand is still a Keeper. (The words "in play" were added to this card in version 1.1, along with a wording change that specifically declares that Friend Creepers are Zombie Creepers.)

• Q: If you have a weapon to kill Creepers and you have a Dead Friend, do you have to kill the Friend off, or can you wait for the Rule to go away by not attempting to kill any Zombies on your turn?
  • A: Killing Zombies is always optional. The point of Dead Friends is that, if you are going to kill a Zombie, the first one you take down has to be your Dead Friend. But becoming non-violent in hopes of unZombifying your Dead Friend is a fine strategy.

• Q: Does Larry count as towards the nine zombies needed for Zombie Baseball Team and/or as the One for Four, Three, Two, One?
  • A: Yes. Larry is considered One Zombie. However, having Larry prevents you from winning even if the Goal allows for victory with Zombies, so while he counts as One Zombie, he does not help with those goals.

• Q: Does "creeper" equate with "zombie" for purposes of Let's Shamble? How do you count multi-Zombie creepers? What about non-Zombie creepers (such as the Radioactive Potato from the party pack)?
  • A: All Zombies are Creepers, but not all Creepers are Zombies. If a card says you need "a Zombie" then any Creeper card featuring a Zombie-something will do. (But the Radioactive Potato doesn't Shamble, it gets tossed around.)

• Q: Can the Radioactive Potato be "killed" with the Shotgun - or killed in any other way that Creepers are killed?
  • A: Andy writes: "Things that kill Zombie Creepers don't kill the Evil Spud unless it applies generically to any Creeper like the Destroy a Creeper action. Zombie Season and the Weapon Bonus options certainly don't affect the Potato, but feel free to come up with House rules. For example, I'd say no to being allowed to use the Shotgun on the Spud (that's just gonna break it up into little radioactive tater tots) but that you can bury the Potato if you have the Shovel."

• Q: If I play Zombie Repellant, and I have two Creeper cards in front of me, can one Creeper go to one player, and the other to another player?
  • A: Yes.

• Q: If the Zombie Victory goal is out and there are 5 or more Creeper cards on the table and one person has the Zombie Repellent card and a zombie gets passed to the person with the Zombie Repellent, is the Zombie Victory condition fulfilled? Or does "instantly" imply that the person never actually gets the zombie card? For example, it is given to him, and he passes it on to somebody else before he sets it down?
  • A: The game continues, Zombie Repellent keeps you from ever truly being in possession of a Zombie. (See also: Andy's reply)

• Q: If Zombies are dealt out to you at the beginning of the game, what is the protocol- do you just grab for the draw pile, and whoever gets there first gets the first card? Or do you wait until your turn?
  • A: Andy writes: "We don't have a very strict protocol on that. Everyone looks at their hand and as they find they have Zombies they grab more cards as needed until everyone has 3 non-zombie cards in their hands. Then someone takes the first turn. Chaos seems to work fine here. That said, one way to handle this would be to decide who goes first before anyone looks at their cards, then have a pre-round in which each player takes a pre-turn in which they reveal and replaces their initial Creepers. I don't think that's needed for casual play, but it's probably a good idea for more competitive situations like the official tournaments we'll be starting to run this summer."

• Q: Do multiple Pair of Zombie cards move together or separately? If I choose to kill a regular Zombie Creeper with my Shotgun and I have 3 Pair of Zombies cards in front of me, do they all move to other players or is it one move per one kill?
  • A: In this case, all three Pairs would be moved, and they can be moved in any combination to different players. But a Pair only moves when it is front of the player doing the killing.

• Q: Can you shoot another player's Zombie with the Shotgun?
  • A: Yes. It's a ranged weapon so you can shoot it at any Zombie on the table. This is not true for POW! Keepers though, which only work as weapons against your own Zombies.

• Q: If another player has a Zombie and a Pair of Zombies and I have the Shotgun and I kill his Zombie, does his Pair of Zombies move?
  • A: No. The reason the Pair of Zombies decides to "run away" is that, as a pair, they've put together enough of what's left of their dead brains to realize that they're in a dangerous area and need to leave. This doesn't happen if a zombie near them simply keels over because of a distant shotgun shot.

• Q: Regarding the Start the Clock Promo Card, does the clock keep ticking if the rule is discarded? Also, does the game end as soon as the timer rings, or at the end of the turn during which the timer rang?
  • A: Andy's answer: On the face of it, the strict interpretations would be answers of "The timer goes away when the rule does" and "Sorry, you don't get to finish your turn when the timer rings." However, depending on the situation you may want to go with other interpretations. The point of the rule is to force the game to come to an end, since there are times when you really need for a Fluxx game to stop within a predictable time frame. (For example, you're at the airport and your flight is boarding.) So, in some cases you might want to create a house rule declaring that Stop the Clock is immune to being discarded or reset. Similarly, when the timer does ring, you might in some situations need to be hard-nosed about ending the game promptly, however in this case I usually favor leeway. Sure, any given Fluxx turn has the potential to go on for too long, but unless the airplane is leaving it's reasonable to allow a grace period. After all, it really doesn't seem right for the game to end with no winner if you're in the middle of your turn and you could have won if you'd just had a few more seconds to finish what you were doing. So here are my actual answers to the questions: "It depends" and "The person whose turn it is gets to finish that turn and win in the usual way before ending the game because of the timer."

• Q: When playing for a Zombie Baseball Team with Start The Clock in play, does the person with the most zombies get to claim partial victory when the timer goes off, and thus get to win? (This question then also lends itself to asking what happens with 10 cards in hand when Start The Clock is in play? Does the person with the most cards when the buzzer goes off claim partial victory?)
  • A: For the 10 cards Goal, yes, if one player has more cards than anyone else when the timer rings, that player wins. However, the Zombie Baseball Team case is trickier: Which matters more, having enough Zombies for the team, or having the Baseball Bat? If one player has the Bat and another player has at least 9 Zombies, I'd call that a tie, with no one winning, just like if the Goal was Milk & Cookies and you have Milk and I have Cookies. On the other hand, if I have the Bat and you have 8 or fewer Zombies, I'd say I win. (I fully meet half of the Goal conditions, and you don't.) Lastly, if no one has the Bat, then I think it would be fair to say that the player with the most Zombies is the closest to assembling a Zombie Baseball Team, and therefore wins.

• Q: Does Zombie Repellent work on Larry The Zombie? What about Sonic Tranquilizer?
  • A: Yes and Yes. Larry is a Zombie, so the Repellent will drive him away just like any other Zombie. As for the Tranquilizer, it says you can ignore any Zombies you have when trying to win, so if you have the Tranquilizer, it's as if you don't have Larry. (Unless "It's Not Working!" is in play, of course.)

• Q: If Dead Friends is in effect and you own the Shotgun, do you have to kill any Friends in front of other players before killing your own Creepers?
  • A: No. The card says "your" Friends, so you can ignore others' Friends.

• Q: What if the Radioactive Potato or a homemade Creeper are in the deck? Several of the cards refer to "Creepers", but obviously are thinking only about Zombies, not other Creepers (e.g. No Zombies, Zombie Victory).
  • A: If a card says "Creeper" without reference to Zombies, treat other Creepers the same way as Zombie Creepers. If it seems weird, make up a reason why it works that way; if a situation is too weird to accept, make a special house rule about it.

• Q: When Out of Ammo is played, if a player has the Can of Gasoline and the Chainsaw, can he keep them both?
  • A: No. The Chainsaw is kept, but the Gasoline is discarded. (The Chainsaw runs out of gas, so you refill it from the Can of Gas, which is then empty.)

• Q: Is the Sonic Tranquilizer optional?
  • A: Yes. The Sonic Tranquilizer is a device with an off switch, so if you don't want to ignore your Zombies, you don't have to. Any card that says "can" or "may" is optional, according to the choice of its owner.

• Q: If Alice has 4 Zombies, and Bob has 3 when Zombie Boss is played, then Alice is the Zombie Boss. What happens when Bob gets another Zombie, making them tie at 4 zombies each? The card text implies that Alice would remain Boss as bob does not yet have more than the current Zombie Boss. However, this violates the no-hidden state ideal of Fluxx, so they must either both be Zombie Boss, or there temporally be no Zombie Boss.
  • A: Alice remains Zombie Boss until Bob gets another Zombie or Alice loses one of hers. Yes, this does create a memory condition, but it's easily overcome by placing the Zombie Boss rule card in front of the current Zombie Boss.

• Q: What happens if Zombie Victory occurs when the Zombie Boss is unable to win due to possession of Larry or the Potato? Does everybody lose, or does the Zombie Boss text override the Larry and Potato text?
  • A: Zombie Boss is a rule that allows you to win with Zombies; however, Larry says you can't win even if the rules or goal would allow you to win with Zombies. Therefore, in this situation, even the Zombie Boss loses, and Larry (or the Potato) will be the winner!

• Q: Suppose my opponent has the Zombie Quartet, I have the Shotgun and a Single, Duo, and Trio Zombie, and the goal is "4,3,2,1." I have not drawn yet. May I shoot the Zombie Quartet with the Shotgun before I draw, so that I can take it myself?
  • A: Yes. You can use the optional Shotgun action at any point during your turn, including as the very first thing you do.

• Q: Why are Brain Baseball and Brain Sandwiches on the list of cards to use when playing Zombie Fluxx without Zombies when these goals both require that you have a zombie to win?
  • A: It might seem like these Goals become impossible if you play Zombie Fluxx without Zombies, but a close reading of the special rules for Playing Without Zombies uncovers this phrase: "Ignore any text on Goals about requiring a Zombie (or not) to win." Thus, those two Goals become just like most others, simply requiring a specific pair of Keepers. But it's easy to miss this point. We should probably make a Meta Rule card for this, now that we have that concept...

• Q: Do cards like Zombie Quartet count as '4 zombies' towards the Zombie Ungoal, and Baseball team? To put it another way, can you win Baseball Team with a bat, a Zombie Duo, Trio, and Quartet?
  • A: Yes and Yes.

• Q: For the "I'll hold them off!" goal to be met by using a POW! keeper does the "Weapon Bonus" rule card have to be in play?
  • A: No. (It would need to say so on the Goal card for that to be the case.) POW Keepers "can" be used as weapons, when the circumstances are right, i.e. when the Weapon Bonus is in play, OR when the Goal is "I'll Hold 'em Off!"