8 ways to fight off boredom during a grid-down event

I read so many articles on dealing with SHTF scenarios. Everything from bugging out, what gear to have, how to get home, what to eat, etc. But I see very little on what people can do with their down time during long-term grid down situations.

Trust me, after a few days without electricity (and your electronic devices), monotony can and will set in. In addition, keeping your mind occupied will not only relieve the monotony, but it will also help to reduce stress and calm those fears of dealing with the unknown.

Several years ago, I went through about a 36-48 hour time period where I was snowed in without electricity. I was able to keep my phone charged by leaving it on my car charger in my car. But without my PlayStation, TV, or laptop things could have gotten pretty boring after awhile. Fortunately for me, I was born in a time where PlayStations and Xboxs did not exist. (I got my first Atari 2600 at age 9 though.) So growing up I was a HUGE fan of different board games. During the power outage, I was able to keep myself entertained the old-fashioned way.

Games like Risk and Stratego always intrigued me as a kid. In my teenage years, my friends and I would spend countless weekend hours playing board games like Axis and Allies and Shogun. And in the long hours of an extended SHTF period, having some plans/games in place for keeping you and your family entertained might be a wise decision. Honestly, you will have a LOT more down time in an extended grid-down scenario than you think.

So I thought it would be fun to look at some board games out there that could help keep boredom at bay while you are hiding from zombies in your bunker. Many of these games have an “Apocalyptic” or survival theme…for obvious reasons. All of these games I either own, have played, or are on my wish list. I have also included a video for each game explaining the game play. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: The game descriptions below are directly from the game publisher.

Axis and Allies – Axis and Allies is the most successful of Milton Bradley’s Gamemaster series.

It depicts game depicts WWII on a grand scale, full global level. Up to five players can play on two different teams. The Axis which has Germany and Japan, and the Allies which has the USA, the United Kingdom, and the USSR. A full map of the world is provided, broken up in various chunks similar to Risk. The game comes with gobs of plastic miniatures that represent various military units during WWII. Players have at their disposal infantry, armor, fighters, bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, troop transports, anti-air guns, and factories.

All of the units perform differently and many have special functions. Players have to work together with their teammates in order to coordinate offenses and decide how best to utilize their production points. Players also have the option of risking production resources on the possibility of developing a super technology that might turn the tide of war.

First published in 1981 by Nova Games and then later in 1984 by Milton Bradley, it has been one of their most popular board games. Over the years, there have been multiple renditions and many different variants of this game that have come out. To someone unfamiliar with this game, this might cause some confusion. To help you learn about the various versions and updates, I have posted a second video below the first video (which explains game play mechanics). The second video is sort of a “Buyer’s guide”, explaining all the different versions of this game.

Dead of Winter, The Long Night – Dead of Winter is a meta-cooperative psychological survival game. It puts 2-5 players of a small, weakened colony of survivors in a world where most of humanity is either dead or diseased, flesh-craving monsters. Each player leads a faction of survivors with dozens of different characters in the game. This means players are working together toward one common victory condition — but for each individual player to achieve victory, he must also complete his personal secret objective. This secret objective could relate to a psychological tick that’s fairly harmless to most others in the colony, a dangerous obsession that could put the main objective at risk, a desire for sabotage of the main mission, or (worst of all) vengeance against the colony! Certain games could end with all players winning, some winning and some losing, or all players losing. Work toward the group’s goal, but don’t get walked all over by a loudmouth who’s looking out only for his own interests!

Dead of Winter is an experience that can be accomplished only through the medium of tabletop games. It’s a story-centric game about surviving through a harsh winter in an apocalyptic world. The survivors are all dealing with their own psychological imperatives, but must still find a way to work together to fight off outside threats, resolve crises, find food and supplies, and keep the colony’s morale up.

Dead of Winter has players making frequent, difficult, heavily thematic, wildly varying decisions that often have them deciding between what is best for the colony and what is best for themselves.

The Long Night version is a standalone expansion for Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game that introduces the Raxxon location where horrible experiments will spill out into the town unless players can contain them.

The game has players at a new colony location trying to survive with new survivors against brand new challenges. Can you handle being raided by members of other colonies? Will you explore more and unravel the mysteries of the Raxxon pharmaceutical location to find powerful items but release stronger enemies? Or will you upgrade your colony to help it better withstand the undead horde? These are all choices you will get to make in this new set, and if you want, you can mix in the survivors and cards from the original set to increase the variety even more.

I own both games. If you are interested in this game, I would strongly encourage you to purchase The Long Night version. It has more, exciting features than the original. (You do NOT need the original version to play.) Here is a great video explaining game play and the upgrades of the new version.

Doom and Bloom’s Survival – The near future: the global superflu has arrived. You and a few other “lucky” survivors are all that’s left in center city. All around are groups of raiders that claim large swaths of land as their territory. There are resources left by those who did not survive, but you’ll have to overcome challenges to add them to your supplies. You were prepared and have a few resources to start with: food, fuel, and weapons. Your goal is to expand upon them, find medical supplies, and collect enough survivors to help you establish a settlement. If you can get to your final location with everything you need before anyone else, you win the game!

Doom and Bloom’s Survival! is a board game for 2-4 players. It takes place in a post-pandemic world where there are few survivors, one of which is you. Your mission is to have your character accumulate supplies like food, fuel, weapons, and medical kits, as well as scout locations that may serve as a haven in which to start over.

You start off in once-peaceful center city, now controlled by raiders out to get what you have. There are plenty of resources out there, but you have to get to them and survive various encounters and attacks to reach towns that have potential as safe havens. You’ll have to plan your route to include spots that have the assets you’ll need to stockpile. Some of these spots are controlled by raiders, and you’ll have to survive attacks to gain the items you need.

Once you’ve scouted locations, you’ll have to return to center city for your family and more supplies. You then pick a location as your final destination. If you can get there with the required supplies and survivors, you win the game! Below is a video from the game’s creators explaining game play.

Editor’s note: The game creators, “Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy” run a preparedness website with a heavy focus on the medical aspect of survival. Joe Alton, M.D. is an retired, actively licensed M.D.  and Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American College of OB/GYN. Amy Alton, A.R.N.P. is an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse Midwife. Hence they know medicine! Their site (Doomandbloom.net) is a WONDERFUL source of information and material that can help you be medically prepared for disasters big and small. I encourage you to check it out.

Pandemic – In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

The 2013 edition of Pandemic includes two new characters—the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist—not available in earlier editions of the game. There are add ons to the original game as well.

Last Night on Earth – This zombie game is a survival horror board game that pits small-town heroes head-to-head against a horde of zombies. A team of four heroes is chosen by one set of players, and the zombies are controlled by one or two players. Each hero has its own special abilities. The board is modular, which changes the layout of the town and start positions of each hero. The game comes with several scenarios, which include simple survival, rescue, or escape. Differing combinations of heroes, scenarios, and board configurations offer a lot of replay-ability.

A hero deck and a zombie deck deliver tactical bonuses to each side. Combat is resolved using six-sided dice, modified by the weapon cards with which heroes may be equipped. Many of the cards include zombie movie tropes to achieve a feel of playing out a horror movie. All the game art is photographic, enhancing the cinematic feel. The game also comes with a CD soundtrack of original thematic music.

Each hero has its own plastic sculpted miniature. The game also has 14 zombies in two colors. Other objects and effects are represented by high-quality cardboard counters.

Each Game Round is split into two Turns, the Zombie Turn and the Hero Turn. During the Zombie Turn, the Zombie player(s) get to move and attack with their Zombies as well as possibly spawn new Zombies. During the Hero Turn, each Hero gets to take a Move Action (move, or Search if in a building) and attack, in any order they wish. The game ends when either the objectives of the Scenario are completed or when the Sun Track Marker reaches the end of the track.

Twilight Imperium (Fourth Edition) – A game of galactic conquest in which three to six players take on the role of one of seventeen factions vying for galactic domination through military might, political maneuvering, and economic bargaining. Every faction offers a completely different play experience, from the wormhole-hopping Ghosts of Creuss to the Emirates of Hacan, masters of trade and economics. These seventeen races are offered many paths to victory, but only one may sit upon the throne of Mecatol Rex as the new masters of the galaxy.

No two games of Twilight Imperium are ever identical. At the start of each galactic age, the game board is uniquely and strategically constructed using 51 galaxy tiles that feature everything from lush new planets and supernovas to asteroid fields and gravity rifts. Players are dealt a hand of these tiles and take turns creating the galaxy around Mecatol Rex, the capital planet seated in the center of the board. An ion storm may block your race from progressing through the galaxy while a fortuitously placed gravity rift may protect you from your closest foes. The galaxy is yours to both craft and dominate.

A round of Twilight Imperium begins with players selecting one of eight strategy cards that both determine player order and give their owner a unique strategic action for that round. These may do anything from providing additional command tokens to allowing a player to control trade throughout the galaxy. After these roles are selected, players take turns moving their fleets from system to system, claiming new planets for their empire, and engaging in warfare and trade with other factions. At the end of a turn, players gather in a grand council to pass new laws and agendas, shaking up the game in unpredictable ways.

After every player has passed their turn, players move up the victory track by checking to see whether they have completed any objectives throughout the turn and scoring them. Objectives are determined by setting up ten public objective cards at the start of each game, then gradually revealing them with every round. Every player also chooses between two random secret objectives at the start of the game, providing victory points achievable only by the holder of that objective. These objectives can be anything from researching new technologies to taking your neighbor’s home system. At the end of every turn, a player can claim one public objective and one secret objective. As play continues, more of these objectives are revealed and more secret objectives are dealt out, giving players dynamically changing goals throughout the game. Play continues until a player reaches ten victory points.

I do not own this game, but it is certainly on my wish list!

Risk Legecy – This description is spoiler free, containing nothing outside the initial rulebook for the game. Details on why this is important in the description.

Risk Legacy represents what is if not a new, at least a rare concept to boardgaming: campaigning. At its core, the game, particularly at first, plays much like regular Risk with a few changes. Players control countries or regions on a map of the world, and through simple combat (with players rolling dice to determine who loses units in each battle) they try to eliminate all opponents from the game board or control a certain number of “red stars”, otherwise known as victory points (VPs).

What’s different is that Risk Legacy’ changes over time based on the outcome of each game and the various choices made by players. In each game, players choose one of five factions; each faction has uniquely shaped pieces, and more importantly, different rules. At the start of the first game, each of these factions gains the ability to break one minor rule, such as the ability to move troops at any time during your turn, as opposed to only at the end.

What makes this game unique is that when powers are chosen, players must choose one of their faction’s two powers, affix that power’s sticker to their faction card, then destroy the card that has the other rule on it – and by destroy, the rules mean what they say: “If a card is DESTROYED, it is removed from the game permanently. Rip it up. Throw it in the trash.” This key concept permeates through the game. Some things you do in a game will affect it temporarily, while others will affect it permanently. These changes may include boosting the resources of a country (for recruiting troops in lieu of the older “match three symbols” style of recruiting), adding bonuses or penalties to defending die rolls to countries, or adding permanent continent troop bonuses that may affect all players.

The rule book itself is also designed to change as the game continues, with blocks of blank space on the pages to allow for rules additions or changes. Entire sections of rules will not take effect until later in the game. The game box contains different sealed packages and compartments, each with a written condition for opening. The rule book indicates that these contain the rule additions, additional faction powers, and other things that should not be discussed here for spoiler protection.

The winner of each of the first 15 games receives a “major bonus,” such as founding a major city (which only he will be allowed to start on in future games), deleting a permanent modifier from the board, destroying a country card (preventing it from providing any resources towards purchasing troops in future games), changing a continent troop bonus, or naming a continent, which gives that player a troop bonus in future games. Players who did not win but were not eliminated are allowed to make minor changes to the world, such as founding a minor city or adding resources to a country.

It should be noted that although cards are ripped up over the course of the game, there are so many cards added via the sealed packages, that the game does not suffer. Nor is this a “disposable” game, merely a customized one. The game can continue to change beyond the 15 game campaign, and even when it finally does stop changing, you still have a copy of Risk that is completely unique, and plays better than any other version of Risk.

Initial games take approximately 30-90 minutes to play, which includes a brief rules explanation and setup.

Catan – In Catan (formerly known as Settlers of Catan), players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources (cards)—wood, grain, brick, sheep, or stone—to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game.

Setup includes randomly placing large hexagonal tiles (each showing a resource or the desert) in a honeycomb shape and surrounding them with water tiles, some of which contain ports of exchange. Number disks, which will correspond to die rolls (two 6-sided dice are used), are placed on each resource tile. Each player is given two settlements (think: houses) and roads (sticks) which are, in turn, placed on intersections and borders of the resource tiles. Players collect a hand of resource cards based on which hex tiles their last-placed house is adjacent to. A robber pawn is placed on the desert tile.

A turn consists of possibly playing a development card, rolling the dice, everyone (perhaps) collecting resource cards based on the roll and position of houses (or upgraded cities—think: hotels) unless a 7 is rolled, turning in resource cards (if possible and desired) for improvements, trading cards at a port, and trading resource cards with other players. If a 7 is rolled, the active player moves the robber to a new hex tile and steals resource cards from other players who have built structures adjacent to that tile.

Points are accumulated by building settlements and cities, having the longest road and the largest army (from some of the development cards), and gathering certain development cards that simply award victory points. When a player has gathered 10 points (some of which may be held in secret), he announces his total and claims the win.

Catan has won multiple awards and is one of the most popular games in recent history due to its amazing ability to appeal to experienced gamers as well as those new to the hobby.

Die Siedler von Catan was originally published by KOSMOS and has gone through multiple editions. It was licensed by Mayfair and has undergone four editions as The Settlers of Catan. In 2015, it was formally renamed Catan to better represent itself as the core and base game of the Catan series. It has been re-published in two travel editions, portable edition and compact edition, as a special gallery edition (replaced in 2009 with a family edition), as an anniversary wooden edition, as a deluxe 3D collector’s edition, in the basic Simply Catan, as a beginner version, and with an entirely new theme in Japan and Asia as Settlers of Catan: Rockman Edition. Numerous spin-offs and expansions have also been made for the game.

I do not own this game but I have played it before. It was fun and I have put this game on my wish list.

For some, purchasing board games may not be financially feasible right now. But that does not mean you should not have things available to keep your mind busy and occupied during a grid-down situation.  I would at least have a deck or two of playing cards in your supplies. You can buy a deck of cards for just a buck or two at the local dollar store. (This deck has survival tips printed on them!) There are so many games you can play with just a deck of cards. Here is a website with rules for over 30 different card games!

Dominoes is another option. You can find cheap sets for just a few bucks, and can provide hours of fun.

Well folks, there is my list of 8 different board games that I would recommend for you, your family, and your friends to play. The best part is that you don’t have to wait until you are surviving the zombie apocalypse to play these either! All of these games can bring hours of entertainment for you and your family/friends.

This list is by no means complete, as there are plenty of other fun and exciting board games out there. Tell us your favorite apocalypse or survival games in the comment section below.

Stay safe out there!

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