A Guide to Z-Man's B-Movie Card Games

The following is a guest post by Heather Johnson:

I consider myself both a die-hard gamer and devotee of bad cinema, so I was delighted to discover Z-Man's B-Movie Card Game series over two years ago. When I began my love affair with these simple, yet highly amusing games, there were only two sets in the series. What began as a parody of cheesy 1950's sci-fi movies evolved into a vast line of games, each poking fun at a different genre of b-movie.

The object of the game, which is worded so beautifully by Z-Man, is:

Players are making a B-Movie by playing Characters, Props, and Locations in their movie and sending Creatures to attack the other players' movies in order to kill off their Characters. SFX cards can modify attacks and do other wacky stuff. When Roll the Credits is played, the player with the most points wins!

An example of a character is the "Spoiled Little Rich Girl," while a prop could be "The Book of the Dead" and a location might be a "Cabin in the Woods." As you can imagine, just the random drawing of these cards can make the typical movie you'd see on basic cable television at 3am.

The series now includes the following games:

• Grave Robbers From Outer Space – The first in the series, it combines everything you love (and hate) about old school sci-fi cinema.
  
  
• Grave Robbers II: Skippy's Revenge – Skippy, a golden retriever, is a recurring character in each B-Movie game.
  
  
• Kung Fu Samurai on Giant Robot Island – A send up of bad Asian cinema, from Yakuza crime dramas to giant monsters.
  
  
• Cannibal Pygmies in the Jungle of Doom – It's pulp fiction adventure movie time! Indiana Jones, Tarzan, it's all here.
  
  
• Beserker Halflings in the Dungeon of Doom – This one was released during the height of the Lord of the Rings movie craze, so there are plenty of elves and hobbits sprinkled throughout.
  
  
• The Scurvy Musketeers of the Spanish Main – Likewise, this one took advantage of the pirate movie craze spawned by Pirates of the Caribbean.
  
  
• Bell-Bottomed Badasses on the Mean Streets of Funk – This was one of the more hilarious in the series, poking fun at 1970's blaxploitation.
  
  
• Bushwackin' Varmints Out of Sergio's Butte – The most recent in the series is about westerns.

What is even more brilliant about these games is the fact that they are all compatible. Yes, you can combine two or more decks to create a hodge-podge of bad cinema. Admittedly, I enjoyed the Grave Robbers sets the most, but they are all worth owning and great fun. If you are movie buff, then you will appreciate all of the humor and obscure allusions throughout each game. I can't recommend the Z-Man B-Movie games enough.

By-line:

Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for business credit card and best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.