GameWick Games Shuffles the Horror
October 23rd, 2014
News, Press Release
-A GameWick Games Press Release-
GameWick Games, an indie board game company based in New Jersey, celebrates this Halloween season with Shuffling Horror Week, a week long series featuring their zombie card game, Pittsburgh 68: A Game of Shuffling Horror. From October 25th through Halloween, Larry Wickman, the game’s designer and the company’s Chief Gaming Officer, will be running the game at local game and comic shops.
(The schedule of store visits can be found here.)
Released in the fall of 2012, Pittsburgh 68 has been steadily shuffling into game shops across the United States. Wickman jokes, “We’ve got zombies in stores from here to San Diego at this point!” He is currently at work on the next product in the Shuffling Horror line: Roswell 51, a mash-up of 1950’s alien invasion flicks.
But how and why did an NJ guy with a penchant for game design pick Pittsburgh as his game’s namesake?
“The title pays homage to the time and place when slow moving zombies ruled,” explains Wickman. He notes that zombie lovers get the title reference immediately, though others need to be let in on its origin: George A. Romero filmed his cult movie Night of the Living Dead in Pittsburgh in 1968. For this reason, many recognize Pittsburgh as the Zombie Capitol of the World.
The game’s eerie artwork by Steve Blickenstaff captures the look and feel of the zombie flicks and horror comics of the late 60s. Blickenstaff is a regular featured guest artist at NJ’s Chiller Theatre Expo, where the artist and game designer met. Blickenstaff’s artwork has been seen on The Cramps Bad Music for Bad People album cover and on horror film The Deadly Spawn: Millennium Edition’s dvd cover. He has also designed artwork for the band They Might Be Giants.
The game’s title was not the only aspect of the game inspired by the silver screen: Wickman designed the game to play like a movie, too. The game is played in four reels. At the start of the game, one player is designated as the director and responsible for dealing the cards and controlling the flow of the reels. All other players begin as survivors, striving to make it to through to the end of the film. As the cards are dealt, players are confronted with horrific events, tough strategic choices, and, of course, lots and lots of zombie attacks.
The game packs one more twist: when the players are eliminated, they are not out of the game. In true living dead style, they begin playing as zombies and join the director’s efforts against the remaining players. Wickman says that “this an aspect of the game that zombie fans love. The game intentionally does not define a win condition. Players who make it to the end get bragging rights. They were the lucky ones!” He also warns that, true to form with the cult classic that inspired Pittsburgh 68, sometimes no one makes it out alive.
Shuffling Horror Awaits!
For more information on Pittsburgh 68, visit GameWick Game’s website (GameWick.com) and download the free Pittsburgh 68 Starter Script which summarizes the unusual and fun rules of play. (The rules can be found here under the Free Bonus Material secion.)
Press release by GameWick Games, LLC © 2014
