Designer Diary: Last One Alive

I have always had a thing for thematic games, so I have always end up designing those: Police Precinct, Spurs: A Tale in the Old West, and Champions of Midgard.

Ever since I became a parent, I have also appreciated games that weren't too long or complex. I have yet to play the really deep thematic games out there, though I am sure I would love them — but time is a crucial factor when you have small kids. Therefore, I guess I was bound to make a lightweight, fast-paced dice game at some point.

One of my favorite settings is the zombie apocalypse, but I wanted to take a different approach than the traditional zombie games, which tend to be co-operative or semi-cooperative. Instead, I made Last One Alive 100% competitive, complete with player elimination. Usually I am no fan of player elimination, but it makes sense for this fast-paced, brutal game.

The Dice

I am a big fan of custom dice. (In case you doubt me, just look at Champions of Midgard.) I believe it has something to do with both my play and design style, as well as my background in the computer game industry. I have worked on many action-paced games and enjoy when you can cut through the fluff and get into the action fast to start enjoying the actual gameplay. Dice are not computer game peripherals (mouse, console controllers, joysticks), but they give me something physical to do, a haptic feel in which I am doing something with heft (albeit small).

As for dice randomness, I find it great as I don't want players to overthink everything. I am not the guy to design analysis-paralysis games in which the player who can maintain a grand overview and keep the most data in their head always wins; I like to throw in some uncertainty from the game's point, and dice fill that role fine.

That said, some luck mitigation is always nice, which is why we added the scavenge tokens. If all goes bad, you might have a token to throw in to save your skin. Furthermore, you also get to decide which dice you want to roll — and that is central to Last One Alive: Do you go all defensive to survive longer, or do you take chances with the black zombie dice to try to eliminate your opponents? The latter will put pressure on them even if they don't die, but you will also risk rolling ambush results — which will lead to zombies coming after you.

Prototype and Playtesting

I went online to purchase blank dice of different colors, one color for each die type: attack, scavenge, barricades, and zombies. As for artwork, I drew every icon by hand — a new approach for me as I usually just download pictures — then printed them on plain paper. The icons were cut out and glued onto the dice, and a reference sheet was made to make game sessions run smoothly.

My initial tests were with other Danish game designers and volunteer testers. We used to meet regularly at cafés in Copenhagen to playtest each other's games as it's an excellent way to test and get qualified feedback...plus you get to have nice coffee in a cozy environment.

The tests went fine, and I carried on to take the game to Bastard Café, the largest board game café in Denmark, and also to a small game event with the computer game industry (making it a cross-industry event).

In general, game tests went well as Last One Alive is a smaller game, and it scales well for different numbers of players.

The Tokens and the Bag

The players are holed up in their own safe houses, which can be reinforced with scavenged items, weapons, and barricades. Initially, I had more dice and no tokens; you would always keep your rolled barricade or supply results (until they were destroyed or spent) so that required more dice if other players were also able to roll barricade and scavenging dice. When I went to Ares Games with the game, however, they saw the opportunity to add the round cardboard tokens — which makes total sense as otherwise the production cost would be sky high thanks to all those dice.

Introducing the tokens also meant introducing the token draw bag, which is a nice feature since you get to rummage around in it as you scavenge. I envisioned the scavenging as if you were going from one abandoned house to another, digging through the mess to try to find useful stuff — occasionally disturbing a zombie, if you are unlucky. The bag worked nice for this; also, it let us add in the zombie head token, which increases the zombie threat. Again, this was a nice touch coming from the playtesting at Ares Games, led by Paolo Mori as they suggested a way to make sure the game didn't drag on forever. This is especially a problem if all people go with the turtle strategy, not rolling any zombie dice. Now, with these zombie tokens, they have to as each drawn zombie token means that all players must now roll an extra zombie die on their turn.

SPIEL

The release of Last One Alive both started and ended with SPIEL in Germany; I had already had some nice talks at SPIEL with Roberto Di Meglio, Director of R&D of Ares Games, about other designs. When I introduced him to the small dice game, I was very happy to hear that he liked it; I was also pleasantly surprised since it was quite different from their other games.

Then, at SPIEL '21, the game was finally released, and I was delighted to hold a copy in my hands. The look and feel of the indented dice is awesome, and it was still fun and fast to play after several years of design and testing. We demoed the game and sold out pretty quickly at the fair, so now I am eagerly waiting for the new print run to arrive.

Ole Steiness