If You Took the Zombies Out of “Dead of Winter”

Boring Background: I’m a board gamer and been thinking recently about how some games, especially co-op ones, remind me of real life. After all, isn’t daily life all about maximizing your resources and trying to get everything done before time runs out? So this lead me to:

If You Took the Zombies Out of “Dead of Winter”:

1. New theme = College Kids Sharing a House For a Year.

2. All the stuff about needing enough food every week stays the same. Most of the locations won’t change (in real life, you still need to go to the grocery store, gas station, library, etc.)–instead of weapons, you have textbooks.

3. You still have massive hoards outside your door. They’re just now called Visitors instead of zombies. They’re all at your house to party. Luckily, textbooks scare them away!

4. Instead of wounds and frostbite, you take hits to your energy and sanity. “Medicine” is now Coffee!

5. Instead of Biting a character….hmmm…maybe the guests traumatize the character so bad that the person “moves away”?

6. Instead of helpless survivors, you have babies (silly college kids should’ve used protection) and lazy friends/relatives who come to live with you.

7. Taking out the trash is still vitally important.

What’d I miss?

Bottom line: I suppose this little thought experiment just goes to show how much of an introvert I am ;-). I’m also pretty sure, this non-zombie Dead of Winter would basically be a board game version of The Sims.