| Designer(s) | Point Zero Games |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Point Zero Games |
| Players | 2 |
| Age range | 7+ |
| Setup time | 1–5 minutes |
| Playing time | 10-15 minutes |
| Random chance | Medium |
Army of Zero is a puzzle and two-player card game, published by Point Zero Games. A cash prize is on offer to the person who can provide the best solution to the puzzle. Army of Zero is an armchair treasure hunt, similar in concept to Masquerade and The Key To The Kingdom.
Contents |
The game includes two six-sided dice and a deck of ninety-nine cards. The cards are made up of eighty-four character cards, eight attack/defend cards, six cards defining the rules and one card which acts as an entry form into the puzzle competition.
The design of the eighty-four character cards includes a series of interconnected puzzles. The objective is to work out what the objective of the puzzle is, to solve it, and to submit the answer to Point Zero Games. A prize of £1,000 is on offer to the person providing the best solution by the closing date of April 30 2010.
Point Zero Games has stated[1] that the puzzle requires all eighty-four character cards, and that at least part of the solution is related to arranging the cards in a particular configuration.
The cards can be used to play a two-player game. Each player receives ten character cards, dealt at random. In each round, both players put forward one of their characters, and these two characters battle each other. In each round of combat, each player can choose to attack or defend, but no character can attack for more than two rounds in a row. Players can gain an advantage by successfully predicting whether their opponent will attack or defend.
The outcome of each round is determined by the rolling of six-sided dice and adding the appropriate character statistics. Each character card has four statistics: speed, combat, weapon and armour. Each of these is an integer number, and each can range between -2 and +2.
The statistics used to resolve combat depend on whether each player chose to attack or defend.
When a character is defeated, he or she is out of the game. When all ten of a player's characters are defeated, the other player is the winner.
Army of Zero has eighty-four character cards, depicting a series of odd fantasy characters. Each character is depicted as belonging to a particular "clan", each clan being named after an animal. The character designs are representative of the clans, so for example, the members of the Bat clan are all vampiric in appearance.
The various clans are as follows:
Each character also has a name and a rank, or title. Each character's name is unique, but there are only five ranks. The five ranks are:
Army of Zero was launched at Toy Fair 2009[2], held at ExCeL London in January 2009.
Tim Pickup won the game. The objective[3] was to find the missing character, who was General Voleda of the Crocodile Clan.