The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=40291.

One Foot in the Grave is a comedy horror RPG by Creepy Doll Studios and it is far from decaying or even dying, even when the PCs are “guests” at an Assisted Living Facility or (ALF). That’s right, you didn’t misread it; you play an elderly person who is trapped in an ALF that has just been infested with zombies thanks to a sick and often caught sleeping employee who had a fight with a hobo on his way into work. The characters must kill all of the zombies, or find the security guard who has the pass key to escape the ALF. The only problem is that he is convinced that everyone in the building is a zombie. Grab some, okay a lot, of d6s and let the fun begin.

Talk about 52 pages of fun! Creepy Doll Studios has managed to create a very legitimate, and really fun beer and pretzels type game. I’ve played and reviewed plenty of gimmick games, some work really well but the vast majority fall flat on their faces and end up being a huge waste of time. One Foot in the Grave is easy to learn and quick to play. Because it is a location based game, the Event Coordinator (EC) doesn’t have to come up with endless maps or even building plans; the building plans might be helpful, but with very little prep time this game can be fun and started quickly.

The cover of this book is great – the subdued zombie, green splattered with black sets the mood. Throw in a zombie, some well thought out text and you have a simple yet highly effective game book cover. Throw in the Creepy Doll Studios Logo in the top right corner and the entire package comes in at just right. The layout is fairly standard and most of the interior art is black and white silhouettes. Creepy Doll Studios isn’t a big publisher, however I feel like they know their limits and produced a clean looking book that still tells the story they want to tell. They stayed within their means and in this case less was more, and more importantly, more felt right.

[Read more at Roleplayers Chronicle]

OK, this is different. There are plenty of zombie games around, but in this one the live humans fending them off are... wait for it... senior citizens! Will their zimmer-frame assisted dodder be faster than a zombie shuffle?

The set up is simple. The seniors are residents in an assisted-living facility, and have decided that watching TV is more interesting than playing bingo. Then one of the aides turns up, having been attacked by zombies on the way to work, and things start to get lively...

The game system is simple too. It is turn-based, with both zombies and seniors having but one action per turn. Neither is capable of moving fast enough to do more than that. For this is a game in which the physical limitations that accompany old age play a major part - doing anything is tiring for the seniors and so they have to portion out their energy carefully to survive. Worse, virtually nothing comes with automatic success. Young whipper-snappers may be able to scamper upstairs without a thought, but even the simple things can be a challenge once you get old enough.

The task resolution system uses handfulls of dice (all D6s), and includes a neat mishap mechanism - a roll of 1 on a special 'Ooops!' die which can result in anything from the urgent need for a bathroom break to mishearing something or falling over.

There is also a creative use of bingo cards - a roll that comes up all sixes allows the player involved to roll two dice to generate a number, and everyone checks their bingo cards for that number. If in the course of the game anyone fills a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) they call BINGO and at that point the military storm the building and kills everybody - zombies and seniors alike - apart from whoever called BINGO.

All this explained, next we find out how to create our Senior characters. That's quite straightforward and descriptive. There is a similar and even more simple section for the GM that explains how the zombies function. A word or two about the assisted living facility, and you are good to go.

Neat concept, nicely executed. Some - perhaps older gamers or those who have elderly relatives - may find it a little distasteful, but it's fun if you don't take it all too seriously... and after all, not everyone who encounters a zombie horde is going to be a combat-ready sprinter!