” What are we doing tonight ? – Well, I suggest we smash zombies in packs of twelve… – Mmmm, ok, I’m bringing cider. This is a dialogue, semi-fictional, which, for ten years, has come up very regularly among the community of board game enthusiasts. Ten years since Zombicide outrageously dominates the world of miniature board games.
The principle is simple, but you had to think about it: a cooperative game – all against the zombies – and infinitely adjustable, or almost. The success of the game was such thata second edition was released in 2022, after many extensions. With each new box created to accompany Zombicidecrowdfunding records fall.
A game to survive
Three men are hiding behind this colossal success: Nicolas Raoult, Raphaël Guiton and Jean-Baptiste Lullien. And strangely, originally, they are not absolute fans of zombies: “We, at the base, the zombies scare us, but a little laugh too. » While a new box, titled Undead or Alivejust got out, they agreed to come back for 20 minutes on the adventure Zombicide.
“We embarked on Zombicide at a time when the box for which we were working had just sunk, says Jean-Baptiste Lullien. With Nico, we were the only two salaried game designers in a company at that time. We got into this game just to keep working together. It was the only hope. »
“Apart from the desire to work together, the basic idea came quickly, says Raphaël Guiton. We looked for a theme. At that time, there was not yet the big zombie wave but it was starting. And above all, we very quickly embarked on a cooperative game. If this mode of play has since become commonplace on the gaming tables, in 2010, especially for a game of miniatures usually reserved for big players, it is unprecedented. “It came from what the three of us were going through at that time, from our esprit de corps. »
Horribly high-end figurines
After two years of designing the game, the band launches crowdfunding. Again, even if it is the norm today to launch games to appeal to communities of fans to pre-purchase the game, in 2011, it is rather innovative. Success is immediately there with a completely crazy curiosity effect.
“For this game, we absolutely wanted beautiful figurines, very high-end, explains Nicolas Raoult. But good stuff is expensive. Luckily the crowdfunding worked, you escaped a Zombicide with cardboard pegs. ” Instead of that, Zombicide is renowned for the quality of its varied and expressive figurines which allow immersion in the zombie universe.
“It looks like something for snobby gamers but with beautiful figurines, we want to release the game, and we wanted to make a game that works, which we want to play a lot”, agrees Raphaël Guiton.
Zombies walking but not just anywhere
Ten years of success followed with dozens of expansions, a fantasy range, another futuristic, and hundreds of alternative figurines drawing on the zombie imagination. “In ten years, we still don’t have the feeling of having exhausted the trick,” laughs Jean-Baptiste Lullien. We exploit the collective imagination around zombies, peddled by films, series or comics. But we can’t adapt everything because it has to work on a set. For example, we imagined a Zombicide in a carnival or a giant traffic jam, but it sucked. »
The other limit is politics. “Our zombies are neutral, they convey no discourse, explains Nicolas Raoult. They are not human, they do not represent anything or anyone, they are just there to get knocked out with impunity. The promise of Zombicide it’s being able to kill a million zombies without looking crazy! »
“Dramatic tension” and “fun”
However, there has borders that Zombicide can’t cross. “One could not imagine a Zombicide voodoo atmosphere in New Orleans. We are distributed a lot in the United States and there, it would be perceived as disrespectful, even racist. »
However, polemics or headaches are absolutely not the spirit of Zombicide. “The balance that we have to find is between fear, or rather dramatic tension, and fun, according to Raphaël Guiton. In a good part, we go from one to the other constantly. That’s why we test the games a lot beforehand, so that it’s difficult enough for us to have this little thrill “damn, we’re overwhelmed, the zombies are going to eat us”, without the game being impossible to finish otherwise it’s frustrating. »
“This balance is human, it is that of our three personalities, continues Jean-Baptiste Lullien. We don’t all have the same ways of playing. But Zombicide, it’s the alchemy of our three fun cultures. »
Zombies in the air
But then why did the trio feel the need to create a second season of the game, with a whole new system? “It was not a question of dusting off Zombicide but to adapt it to new ways of playing, explains Nicolas Raoult. Faster setup time, slightly shorter and more intense games. With the new Zombicide, you will still kill as many zombies, but in a shorter time! That’s why we removed the frying pan with which the characters started, to get to the heart of the matter more quickly: killing zombies. »
The other innovation consists in strengthening the cooperative aspect. In the new version, if a character dies, everyone loses. “We make choices together, we pay attention to each other… We like to develop this aspect of the game which was already there, explains Raphaël Guiton. Without going towards role-playing, we also accentuated the narrative aspect with more developed campaigns. This too creates tension. »
But at a time when dystopian fictions use the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for the ruin of humanity, how does Zombicide ? “For us, the zombie apocalypse is not necessarily just a negative dimension,” laughs Nicolas Raoult. Our game exploits the cathartic and positive aspect of being able to let off steam while surviving. »