RPG Solo Adventure Review: Z-Town

Review by Michael K. Eidson

Product: Z-Town: Solo Rpg Adventure
Product Type: Zombie-Themed RPG Rules and Solo Adventure, 72 pages
Author: J. Freels
Cover Artist: J. Freels
Publisher: Ziggurat Chemical
Publication Date: September 8, 2008
Review Date: June 27, 2009

Get Away to Beautiful ZOMBIEVILLE says the sign on the cover of Z-Town, a 72 page roleplaying solo adventure complete with rules. In front of the sign stands a green-skinned zombie, whose partially flesh-stripped fingers grasp a blood-soaked post card. On the post card is this hand-written message: It's not like they said. If you come, bring Guns! To the left of the post card, a little box declares this warning to anyone considering playing the adventure: CAUTION: ZOMBIE THEMED VIOLENCE. Near the bottom of the cover are a whole horde of undead miscreants, headed your way. At the top of the cover, flowing down around the book title, is a mass of red, as though blood were seeping down from some unknown place above. It's all very creepy.

And that's just the front cover.

J. Freels does an incredible job blending words and images to set a spooky, tense mood in this zombie-infested solitaire adventure. Things start out slow, no threats, just a leisurely hike, and before you know it, mwa ha ha, you're trapped in a city of the walking undead. Unarmed. Not good for you. It is possible to escape, but to do so, you'll have to find a decent weapon, and that as quick as possible. If you play the game a couple of times, you should soon discover where to get the best weapon, and you'll want to have it with you before you do much exploring.

With Z-Town, you get seven pages of easy-to-digest rules. No separate rules book to buy. Are you familiar with solitaire roleplaying adventures? Some might refer to this type of game as interactive fiction. If you've experienced Tunnels and Trolls solitaires, Fighting Fantasy adventures, or the classic Sorcery! solo games, then you have an idea what to expect here. Otherwise, if you're familiar with Choose Your Own Adventure books, where you read one paragraph and choose an option that sends you to the next paragraph to read, then that's the idea here, but you have a character sheet to track things like your character's strength and health and equipment. The game ends if your character dies in an encounter—but you can just generate another character and try again.

This format for print solo games has been around for over thirty years, and continues to see some success today, despite the easy availability of video games. Some people still enjoy the intimacy of the written word and hand-drawn illustrations. And this adventure delivers with well-written, moody descriptions, accompanied by quality black-and-white illustrations to give your imagination that little extra boost in visualizing your foes and the environment. Since the illustrator is also the author, the illustrations depict exactly what the author had in mind. The text and illustrations complement each other well.

Z-Town is divided into two parts. In Part One, you explore the town, occasionally encounter the random zombie, put it to its deserved rest (if you're lucky), and fight your way through the town until you reach—a particular place. I don't want to give away too much, as the mystery is part of the enjoyment of playing this game. Once you reach the end of Part One (the narrative will tell you when), you're ready for Part Two, where, if you survive, you may discover the secrets of Z-Town. (Though the game ends in such a way as to leave this reviewer eager to learn more. Might there be a sequel?) I like that the adventure is split into two parts, because it allows you to start playing at the beginning of Part Two if you try and try but have a difficult time getting through Part One alive. Of course, for your first sojourn into Z-Town, you'll want to start with Part One. If you get through Part One alive, you'll be much more prepared to take on the zombies and other undead lurking in Part Two, where situations are a bit tougher than they were in Part One.

In my journeys through Z-Town, I discovered a couple of quirks that I'll mention here to help those who journey there henceforth. For the first quirk, I offer this piece of errata to fix a minor problem: In paragraph 68 in Part One, the paragraph states, Give yourself 200 XPs for your discovery. To avoid confusion, it should state, Give yourself 200 XPs for your discovery (you may only "discover" this once per game). Otherwise, you could technically rack up unlimited XPs by flipping back and forth between paragraphs 68 and 11 (or 68 and 16). This is clearly not intended. Also note that when you leave paragraph 68, the two paragraphs that you can visit from there (11 and 16) are written from the perspective of your heading towards 68, rather than just coming from there. It's not easy to come up with the right wording for every paragraph of a solo, given that you can reach some paragraphs through different means. Z-Town doesn't have many glitches like this, fortunately.

The other quirk I'll mention regards the Random Encounter Table at the back of the book. This quirk only gets noticed if your character dies as a result of your random encounter while playing Part Two. The Random Encounter Table directs you to paragraph 28 if your character dies. If you're playing Part One, that's fine—paragraph 28 in Part One is the paragraph that says your character is dead and the adventure is over. But if you're playing Part Two and your character dies during a random encounter, you should turn to paragraph 95 in Part Two, not paragraph 28. The game is obviously over if your character is dead, but paragraph 28 in Part Two won't tell you that. Turn to paragraph 95 instead—you don't want to miss the grim humor of that paragraph.

Overall, I give Z-Town high marks for style and presentation. There are only a couple of minor quirks, which won't impact the game for you at all now that you've read this review! So what are you waiting for? Z-Town awaits your arrival! Dare you venture there? Can you escape once you go in? You can—if you aim for the head and use your brains.

Yum. Brains.

Buy it here: Z-Town: Solo Rpg Adventure

Free Z-Town Character Sheets (PDF)

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About The Reviewer: Michael is the manager of Eposic Diversions LLC and chief editor for the Eposic web site. He has been interested in reading since before he first read Harold and the Purple Crayon, which he considers a classic. His first role playing experience was in 1976 with Tunnels and Trolls, a game of which he is still a fan to this day. He can be found on the wall in Trollhalla, where he sometimes offers his services as a web developer. Today his leisure reading interests are primarily science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His real job carries the title of Senior Software Engineer and he works for a Fortune 500 R&D IT company. He currently lives in Windermere, Florida, about five minutes from Disney World, with his wife Mary and their dog Rusty.

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Legalese: The above review is the opinion of the individual reviewer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Eposic Diversions LLC. This review is Copyright ©2009 by Michael K. Eidson. Online rights have been licensed by Eposic Diversions LLC. Please respect these rights and do not further distribute this review or any significant portion of it without permission from the rights holder. If you quote from this review, please give credit to the author. If your quote is on the web, a link back to the full review is appreciated.

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