As they approach your home, the evening wind carries the stench through the air. Your dog barks wildly, frenzied by the smell. You awaken from a restless sleep, look out your window and see staggering corpses on the move.

You are halfway down the stairs when you hear footsteps on the porch. You run into the living room and pry open your gun cabinet. As you fumble, the front door collapses from the weight of a pair of rotting corpses.

They shamble into the hall, arms outstretched, reaching for you. You unload your shotgun into them. They fall back.

To your horror, they rise...

Welcome to the World of Survival Horror

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a complete roleplaying game. In it, you will find:

Eleven different walking dead settings allowing customisation of the storyline.

A comprehensive zombie creation system to surprise and alarm players.

Detailed character creation rules for Norms, Survivors and the Inspired.

A full exposition of the Unisystem rule mechanics, useful for any game in any time period.

A list of equipment crucial to surviving a world of shambling horrors.

- From the All Flesh Must Be Eaten Rulebook -

Picture the scene. A dark and secluded house. There’s very little power if any, the radio - your only communication with the outside world - just constant alerts and news warnings. The dead have risen from the earth, and are feeding on the flesh of the living. Armed with the last three rounds for your shotgun, you can hear them coming closer, ever closer. Pounding on the doors...

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a role-playing game of survival horror, with zombies being the key ingredient. When you think “Zombies” you immediately think of “Dawn of the Dead” and the rest of Romero’s classic trilogy, or the “Resident Evil” computer games. AFMBE is this and so much more.

I have to admit, when I first heard of the game I thought it was going to have a limited lifespan. I mean, there’s only so much zombie horror before it gets repetitive, right? Wrong. I originally bought the game because I really enjoyed CJ Carella’s “Witchcraft” RPG, also by Eden, which uses the same mechanics - Unisystem. I figured, why not? May be fun to throw a few zombies into my Witchcraft games...

Little did I realise that AFMBE has far more to it than I originally realised.

Unisystem quickly became my favourite system. It’s simple, to the point, and resolves everything with one simple rule. A task that everyone thought White Wolf had accomplished with its World of Darkness... but you soon realise that each race and supernatural creature actually has different rules and quickly becomes tricky to integrate. Unisystem, with Witchcraft, did the whole “goth horror”, but a lot more interchangeable. It’s easy to pick up, and it’s no surprise to discover that Unisystem is to be the system of the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG, it’s almost made for it.

Anyway, back to All Flesh... So you’ve got your system. It’s quick, simple, and effective. Guns hurt - a lot. Zombies are scary, and bite. What more could you want?

Well, to keep things from getting stale, the Zombie Master (GM) has a whole range of powers and abilities that he can bestow upon the zombies, from wall crawling to specific hit locations to kill; from spitting acid to the ability to open doors. The zombie creation system is quick and easy, and gives you a guide as to how tough they are going to be for the average character to kill.

But, as with most Eden Books, the giving doesn¹t end there. Think of a setting for a zombie movie... then multiply that by 10. The options given to you are endless, and thanks to coming supplements - they will continue to grow. From zombie Nazi’s resurrected by Hitler’s occult division, to battling zombie-lords, the options for settings and possible causes for the zombie outbreak are many. A whole bunch of possible settings are given some detail in the main rule-book alone, something very rarely seen in a core book.

With future supplements allowing player character zombies and such fantastic settings as the world of Hong Kong Action Movies, and the Weird Wild West, I can’t recommend AFMBE highly enough. As always, Eden prove themselves to be the masters of the quality RPG - excellent production values, gruesome and high quality art and design - and a funky size to the book which is to be the norm for the main Unisystem products. Pick up a copy today and start blasting those zombies!!!

Reviewed By Dave Chapman