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Hope is fading as the dead drive out the living. There’s nowhere left to run, and all that’s left is survival. There is no rescue party waiting, no help from kind strangers...in the world of The Walking Dead, there is no sanctuary…
The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary is a cooperative board game of desperate survival set in the world of the popular AMC television series. Designed by Adam and Brady Sadler (Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game), No Sanctuary puts players in the roles of iconic survivors from The Walking Dead, working together against desperate odds as they navigate a variety of scenarios. Whether the survivors are scavenging for supplies, fighting off waves of the dead, or even standing toe-to-toe with the living, the group must find a way to work together even when its members’ interests may be at odds.
No Sanctuary features a unique leadership mechanic in which players take turns assuming the role of the group’s leader. Each turn, the leader must choose the group’s approach by drawing two event cards and choosing one. Since players cannot discuss this decision, the pressure is on the leader, and the leader alone will pay the price if the group is unable to follow the approach for the turn. Make enough bad decisions, and the leader may have to relinquish his role and let the next survivor take charge of the group.
Each survivor in No Sanctuary comes with a unique deck of cards to represent their special actions and abilities, as well as their flaws. This deck not only drives each survivor’s playstyle, but it also serves their health, so hand management is crucial to surviving each scenario. Equally important as staying alive, group morale is an essential part of the game. Many game effects will cause morale to drop, and if it reaches zero, the players lose the game. Maintaining the group’s tenuous psychological stability is just as important as staying alive!
With its unique gameplay and innovative leadership mechanic, No Sanctuary offers players a deep and engaging way to experience their favorite episodes of The Walking Dead, and even explore beyond the show’s storylines!
- Captures the feel of the show, focusing on human dynamics over just zombie killing.
- Unique leadership and defiance mechanics create interesting decisions.
- High replayability due to unique survivor decks, abilities, scenarios, and modular elements.
- Detailed miniatures and standee options.
- Cooperative game that is challenging to cooperate in.
- Can be difficult to cooperate.
- Discard effects for event cards are usually bad.
- The Walking Dead universe, survival, difficult cooperation
- The Grizzled
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card Play — Players have their own secret hand of cards that dictate their choices and actions.
- character abilities — Each survivor has unique powers, abilities, and a unique deck of cards, leading to different playstyles.
- cooperative play — A fully cooperative board game where players work together towards a common goal.
- Dice mitigation — Players can use focus tokens to turn focus symbols into successes and exert symbols by discarding cards (which represent health) to make actions successful.
- Dice Rolling — Player actions involve rolling dice, which are used to boost actions and can be mitigated through successes, exerts, and focus tokens.
- Event deck — The game uses an event deck that can lead to multiple ways to lose if it runs out.
- leadership — A designated leader gives orders and makes choices, but players can defy them, causing stress.
- modularity — Special walkers with unique rules can be shuffled in to add variety to scenarios.
- Morale — The group's morale can drop to zero, resulting in a loss.
- scenario-based play — The game includes scenarios with special rules, including AI-controlled 'rival' groups.
- Stress mechanics — Stress is a negative factor in the game, accumulating from failed leadership or defiance, and adding stress dice to rolls.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's a cooperative game where it's kind of hard to cooperate.
- The walkers are more like environmental hazards in this game.
- Designing is cutting like you have at the very beginning have many many ideas and then you just cutting cutting cutting until it's done.
- I love the dice tower network.
- I'll just say it's a 16 by 16, so I hope you got bolted to the wall.
References (from this video)
- Wonderful player cooperative dice rolling hand management game.
- Uses characters and abilities thematic to the TV show.
- Surviving in the world of The Walking Dead
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Movement — Moving characters around the board to take actions and interact with the environment.
- cooperative play — Players work together as a group of survivors to achieve a common goal.
- Dice Rolling — Used for action resolution, where successes, focus, and threat are determined by die rolls.
- Hand Management — Players play cards from their hand to resolve actions and maneuvers.
- Modular Board — Map tiles are used to create the game board, potentially varying based on the scenario.
- Push Your Luck — Rolling stress dice adds a push-your-luck element where certain results increase threat or fear.
- scenario play — The game is played through a series of scenarios with specific objectives and setup instructions.
- Set Collection — Collecting specific resources or completing objectives based on card draws and board presence.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is a wonderful player cooperative dice rolling hand management game
- there are three ways in which your group can lose the game if you run out of event cards to draw if your morale gets to zero or if one of the survivors is defeated
- each round consists of five phases planning survivor event walker and objective
References (from this video)
- Seems like it has a really cool concept
- In practice, it makes absolutely no freaking sense
- Tension comes from arbitrary mechanics, not player actions
- Takes agency away from the players
- Mechanics tell you your group isn't working
- Sunk this game hard
- Characters have different action types (cautious, middle, aggressive) and the leader dictates the group's approach.
- The Walking Dead
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Characters have three different types of actions they can do: cautious, middle, and aggressive.
- Cooperative — Cooperative games where tension should come from player actions, not arbitrary mechanics.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I appreciate Tigris and Euphrates. I admire its design but I don't really enjoy playing it that much.
- One of the problems of Kickstarter and there are many problems with Kickstarter is that it creates games that are more flash than substance and one of those games for me was Vengeance.
- It's also quite similar to a game I really like called Pay Dirt and Paid it was on my hidden gems list.
- Gen7 for us was a hilarious experience of four people playing bureaucratic middle managers arguing and bickering while their colony ship started to burst into flames around them.
- I really didn't like tapestry I really didn't enjoyed it all and it's not because I wasn't good at it I knew how the game worked I could get big scores.
- The game keeps punching losers in the face.