Stupid Users: BETA is a one of a kind, IT vs Zombies, Card Game about building up an army and stealing or looting anything to win.
You read that right, IT vs Zombies. This isn’t your typical card game.
Get ready for a fast-paced, trash talking, turn on a dime, army building card game, Stupid Users: BETA. It starts like this; choose your IT Champion, cards are dealt, you’re fighting against the other players, and the evil Der Magicker a diabolical hacker. You see Der Magicker is building his army of zombies to take over the world and more importantly beat you and the other players.
Pay close attention because one card will change the game entirely or can be a win card with the correct gameplay. No sleeping allowed! Let the game begin, if you dare……
Setup
Pick your champion.
Each champion deck comes with their own cards which are colour coded to the character. Some of the cards have benefits if played by the matching character. Each champion also has their own unique power.
CREATE THE DECKS
Each champion separates their champion cards into I.T. and Zombie cards (marked on back of cards), then adds their cards to the community I.T. deck and Zombie deck.
Shuffle both decks and deal Each player 3 I.T. cards FACE DOWN from the shuffled IT Deck. Players cannot look at their cards until their First Turn. This is called the Support Call. You never know what will be on the other end of that support line. Now move onto Der Magicker and the Battlefield Setup.
Der Magicker Setup
Place Der Magicker (DM) at one side of the play area and place the Zombie Deck to the Left of him. Now place the I.T. deck across the field, leaving room for DM’s army. Deal 6 Zombie cards to the center of the play area for DM.
For this Phase, play the cards according to the following rules:
- Weapons are equipped on DM if he doesn’t already have one. Otherwise discard it to the Zombie loot Pile (to the left of the zombie deck).
- All Minion cards are played to DM’s army in the center.
- Chaos Action cards are discarded to the zombie Loot Pile
- Beta Components are equipped on DM if he doesn’t already have the Component, otherwise discard to the zombie loot pile.
Battlefield Setup
Examine the playing field below for reference on how to setup the game and what your champion area looks like.
- All minions are placed in front of the Champion Card (max= 5 per row)
- Weapons are equipped on the champion card
- Beta Components are equipped to the side of the champion card
With DM as the center Piece, all players set their Champion area around the table as shown in the rule book. Now that you know the layout and have your cards ready. It’s time to Battle!
Order of play
There are four phases of a Player’s turn:
DRAW
On the first turn, the player that last watched a zombie movie; or knows what Linux is, gets to go first. Then it goes around the table clockwise.
- I.T. Players – You have a MINIMUM hand Limit of 3 cards, you draw at least 1 card each turn. If you have less then 3, draw up to 3. You can have a maximum of 5 cards. If you have more than 5 cards at the end of your Draw phase, discard down to 5.
- Zombie Players – You draw cards equal to your combined attack power. Zombies play all cards immediately in the order drawn; since Zombie players don’t get a hand, their cards become the zombies.
ACTION
For I.T. Players the next phase is ACTION. For Zombie players the next phase is the EVOLVE Phase.
I.T. Players can choose to play as many actions as they want, or they can play none. You play an action card by announcing it and the effect, then discarding the card to the I.T. Loot pile.
Resolve 1 action at a time until you are done.
ATTACK
You can only attack once per turn and can only attack one player at a time. The player you attack must have Minions in their army; You can RECRUIT (aka steal) or ATTACK (aka kill) minions from another player; equal to the Attack power of your Champion. There are two types of Attacks:
- RECRUIT aka Steal
- Attack aka Kill
DER MAGICKER
Because he is a real jerk, DM takes a turn at the end of each player’s turn; but only if the player didn’t interact with DM in any way during their turn.
Der Magicker is stopped if:
- A player steals an equipped item from DM
- A player attacks DM’s Army
- or if a player evolves into DM’s zombies
DRAW CARDS FOR DM
Draw cards from the Zombie Deck equal to DM’s attack power. DM’s attack power is calculated the same as a champion. Base Power 1 + (Any equipped items)
Win Conditions
There are two ways to win BETA:
- ANY PLAYER GET 10 MINIONS IN THEIR ARMY
- ANY PLAYER COLLECTS ALL 4 BETA COMPONENTS
Stupid Users: Beta is quite possibly one of the weirdest, strangest and silliest theme for any game; I have ever played; and yet, the theme was the main reason I wanted to play this. Like seriously, an IT vs Zombie card game is an insane idea for a game. In my mind I pictured, Moss and Roy from the IT crowd vs Zombies. Even just writing IT vs Zombies makes me happy and chuckle to myself.
Excited to play this game, I organised a games night at my house. 3 friends, Shaun of the Dead on the TV and Stupid User: Beta on the table. The only thing missing was some Halloween or some brain candy. I’m such a nerd when it comes to a games night; I like to set a theme or atmosphere for the night. Nerdy Zombie was tonight’s theme.
Stupid User: Beta is insanely fun, it was everything I hoped it would be; A fun, simple, easy to learn and full of horribly amazing IT and Zombie tropes. I seriously want this game or theme turned into a cartoon series. That is how much I enjoyed the way Stupid Users handled the characters and theme of this game.
After we finished watching Shaun of the Dead; we finally decided to play Stupid Users: Beta. The game is fun, quick and in the same time it took us to watch Shaun of the Dead; we had played 4 games.
For anyone that has read my previous reviews would know, I suck at game. I love them, passionate about them and yet never seem to be good at them. But of the first 4 games we played, I won 3 of the 4. I have finally found a game I rock at. The guys I were playing with enjoyed this game so much too. Even though I’m the Beta Champion!! (Sorry I had to rub it in a little)
With a theme like this; along with so many troupes. The art needs to be handled so carefully. It would be quite easy to go complete overboard and overuse every troupe in both of these worlds. Stupid User: Beta has not done this, they have used their awesome comic book style; with just a sparkling of troupes and it works perfectly. I love the cliché of the characters, like Spike, cute nerdy tech girl with bright coloured hair; or Phillip Wong, the chubby Asian man, with the Thundercat sword of omen; but then the more straight-laced Jorge Villalobos, who is clean cute, shirt and tie with an ID badge.
It is the art that truly sells this game, the gameplay is quick and fun; the theme is insane and without the right artwork, this theme and idea could have gone horrible wrong.
Stupid Users: Beta was extremely easy to learn, quick and fun to play; and a theme that is so outlandish and insane; it just worked perfectly.
If you would like to get your own copy of Stupid Users: Beta; check out their preview Kickstarter page here.Don’t forget to hit the notification button, so you can be amongst the first to back this “Stupidly” fun game.
Stupid Users: Beta will be AR Enhanced
The Stupid Users: Beta game cards will be AR enhanced; allowing a player to point the BETA AR App at the cards to get more information; about the cards, trigger animations, interactive panels and 3D content.
