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My old printer broke down on me, so I had to get a new one. It was to become a Canon Pixma MP270, color inkjet printer, scanner and copier in one… Why do I even bring up this completely uninteresting factoid? Because after a handful of years with a black and white laser printer, this new piece of kit has rekindled my interest in print-and-play boardgames!

So today, inspired by a glass of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7, I printed out the solitaire game Zombie in my Pocket.
In ZimP, you start your journey having just entered a house. In three “hours” (two reshuffles of the 9-card deck) you have to find the secret Evil Temple-room in the house and the Totem therein, then take it out to the gardens, finding the Graveyard and burying it there. All this while zombies are looking for you with evil intent.

Why “in my pocket”, then? Well, naturally the components all fit in your pocket. There are 16 tiles, 9 cards and a rulebooklet. That’s basically all you need. I recommend a pawn to mark where you are as well, and a piece of paper to track your health and inventory.

Every time you move from tile to tile you draw a card and deal with whatever is on it. A random event, an item or a pack of zombies. Should you survive it, you may carry on. As time passes by the events become more and more gruesome. Combat is ridiculously simple, subtract your attack value (1 plus any equipment) from the number of zombies attacking you, and lose that many health points. You can regain health at any time by “hiding in the corner”, but this takes time which, quite frankly, you don’t have.

Let’s see how I did on my first attempt.

To the sweet tunes of Norah Jones, I set off from the foyer. The first room I entered was the bedroom, where I was happy to find a candy bar, gaining a health point. As I stumbled onward into the bathroom (giving me the very appropriate event: “You try hard not to wet yourself”) I noticed something very disturbing. There were no longer any available exits from anywhere. I was stuck, with no sight of the Evil Temple. This triggered the event Zombie Door, meaning three zombies bashed through the wall attacking me.

Having dealt with these I passed through the hole in the wall, coming to a kitchen, where I was able to find a can of gasoline. This is a good tool in case you also find the chainsaw, or a candle to light it with, but useless on its’ own… I regained a point of health before carrying on, finding the dining room. This is good, as this is the point from which you enter the garden, but first I had to locate the Temple and the Totem, not to speak of killing the three zombies awaiting me here.

I took a left turn and found the storage, where I located two proper weapons. A golf club and a machete. The first hour had passed – two more ’til midnight. I went back to the dining room, killing off the now five zombies with my machete, and carried on finding the family room, where the sense of family (I guess?) raised my health by a point. This warm and fuzzy feeling quickly disappeared as the evil temple I was looking for was just beyond this room.

I killed four zombies and found the Totem, after which I decided I needed to rest for a while. Ok, so I sat in the corner hiding, but it gave me three very much needed health points back. Back to the dining room via the family room and another hour had passed. I had a mere hour to find the graveyard and bury the totem. I entered the patio, where an item was partly hidden. I decided not to waste time collecting it, but carried onward to the yard, where something “icky” (cards’ definition, not mine – probably David Hasselhoff...) made me lose a healthpoint.

Oh, the luck when I found the graveyard on the next tile! All I had to do to win the game was survive the punishment of two cards. Oh, how I would have wanted another candybar… But alas, I was first brutally attacked by four zombies, who inflicted one damage to me, leaving me with two left. The next card of fate – another five zombies! These would cost me my final two health points, killing me. I concidered my options, there were two. One – fight the zombies and die, failing the mission. Two – bravely run away from danger, which would have cost me one health. I could then return, if only I had the time. I didn’t. I would have had to rest on the next tile, and the return for another attempt. This would cost me three cards. There were two left in the draw deck. Of those two options, both of which led to failure, I chose to fight and die, very appropriately, in the graveyard…

ZimP is a fun fifteen minute distraction. There’s really not much in it, but it never tries to be more either. Success or failure depends pretty much on how quickly you draw the key tiles – the evil temple, the dining room and the graveyard. In my game, I had exhausted the entire deck of indoor rooms before finding the evil temple, which basically also could be the very first room you enter. But all this doesn’t bother me, as it is just a fifteen minute game. I did play it again immediately, this time dying even before finding the graveyard.

Is there much replayability? As much as you can get from 16 tiles and 9 cards… I expect I’ll play it a handful of times more, which means it’s more than worth the price, which in case you hadn’t figured it out, is nothing except ink, paper and the time you spend putting it together.