Zombie Princess
Ted Alspach's Zombie Princess is Bézier Games' 'sequel' to the trick-taking game Rebel Princess, which was published in 2023 by Zombi Paella. It's a standalone trick-taking card game for 3–6 players which you can think of it as a spiritual successor to Rebel Princess: you don't need to own, have played or even have heard of the earlier title to play Zombie Princess but if you do have Rebel Princess you'll recognise the artwork of Alfredo Cáceres. Like the traditional playing card game Spades, on which Zombie Princess is based, the game can be played by players all competing individually or as a team game where players partner with the player(s) opposite them.
Players have individual princess character tiles with asymmetric abilities. Curiously, given the title of the game, none of them are zombies! The game comprises four successive hands of cards, each of which launches with its own randomised rule for the number of cards to be swapped with another player before playing the first trick of the hand. At the start of each hand, players have to predict how many tricks they think they are going to win and they score points according to the accuracy of their prediction. Players can also earn skulls; these count as half points but, crucially, they can be spent at the end of a hand to correct over or under predictions so that players still score for the tricks they took. It's important tho' that all players follow properly the ordered sequence for scoring at the end of each hand because you have to have the skulls to pay penalties; taking the end-of-hand steps out of order spoils the game by making it too easy to pay the penalties.
Standard trick-taking rules apply: you must follow suit if you can, and if you don't have a card in the suit that's been led, you can play any card. If the card you play is in the trump suit, the highest trump will win the trick. There's just one card that has a special effect: if you win a trick that includes the frog prince you can decide at the end of the hand whether or not to count that trick towards the prediction you made of how many tricks you'd win. The flexibility that that engenders makes that card especially valuable.
It's the accuracy of players' predictions of how many tricks they'll take that forms the core of Zombie Princess. It's not so much the special powers or princess ability tiles that make the game seem more convoluted, rather it's the finickity and unintuitive adjustments to mitigate the effect of getting fewer or more tricks. On the plus side, the scoring gives the game an educational aspect: playing Zombie Princess can boost youngster's arithmetic and basic algebra skills!
For us, Zombie Princess shines brightest as a team game where players have to work together like Bridge partners to help finesse each other's trick totals.
