New Game Round-up: Dirty Detectives, Cemetery Fights & Zombicide Through the Ages

Zombicide: Black Plague takes the zombie apocalypse into a fantastical medieval setting! The arcane powers of the Necromancers have unleashed a zombie invasion in the age of swords and sorcery, and it's up to your group of straggling survivors to not only stay alive during these dark times, but to take back the realm and punish those responsible for the apocalypse!

Zombicide: Black Plague allows you take control of paladins, dwarves, knights, and magicians, wielding powerful swords, crossbows, and even magic spells to defeat the zombie hordes and its Necromancer overlords. The classic Zombicide rules have been revamped for this new incarnation of the game, while still retaining the nonstop action, tense atmosphere and easy-to-learn rules that made Zombicide a classic. Equip your survivor with equipment like chainmail armor or shields to defend against the undead, pick up spell books to perform fantastic enchantments, or light up a pool of dragon bile to create an all-consuming inferno of dragon fire!

Take on the zombie invasion from the medieval streets to secret vaults that create quick passages through the citadel (and often hold special artifacts). Chase down the elusive Necromancers to keep them from multiplying the zombie masses. And tackle a whole new set of missions through which your group of survivors will become the heroes of the land (or the last victims of the zombie massacre).

Bring Out Yer Dead is a morbid game of grave family plots.

As the head of your family, you must get the "dying" members of your family into the best plots in the city's newest cemetery. Each day the Grave Keeper brings the cart around the city and you must vie to get your family members in the cart before other families do. But be careful! The Grave Keeper is a lazy guy and any coffins he can't fit in the cart are tossed aside in the river; he'll never bother to bury them at all!

Get your recently departed family members buried in the best plots in the cemetery to gain influence in the city. You may even have to resort to some early morning grave swapping — or you could just rob the graves of all the jewelry you can dig up...it isn't like they're going to need it anyway! Influence is everything! The player with the most influence at the end of the game wins.

In Dirty Detectives, everyone has been assigned to solve the same murder, but solving murders is hard work, so instead each detective is going to try to frame someone for murder. Each time a player touches a piece of evidence, they learn what it is, but unfortunately now that evidence points to their involvement in the crime!

The games uses 17 cards, 16 of which are laid out in a 4x4 grid with the 17th card in the active player's hand. Each card has an arrow on the back of it, and during play these arrows point at the players.

On a turn, you have the one extra card in hand and pick up any card from the board. You choose one of these cards and place it face-down in the empty space with the arrow pointing to you; to end your turn, pass the card still in hand to your left-hand opponent, who now takes their turn.

On your turn, you can also make an accusation. To do this, name a weapon and a motive, then pick up two cards pointing to the same opponent and look at them. If these cards match what you said, reveal these cards to everyone because you've just won the game; if you're wrong, however, place these cards facedown once again, but now pointing at yourself.

Each card also has a special reveal benefit. When you place a card facedown on the board pointing at yourself, normally only you know what that card is; if you reveal the card, everyone now knows what it is, but you get to do the reveal benefit on that card, e.g., looking at cards without pointing them at yourself or rotating cards to point at opponents.