Zombie Old Maid (ゾンババ) 2018

Once, there was a woman who was too busy playing board games that she remained single throughout her life. (Board games do have such an appeal.) During her lifetime, she won prizes at all sorts of major game tournaments and became a billionaire.

Then a rumor spread that she lies in her coffin with game components made of gold, but time has passed without anyone finding that coffin. And, on this day, from among millions of games, you have found and acquired this coffin by spending a large sum of 500 yen. (Hurrah!) However, you have opened the coffin and found out that the rumor about the gold components was not true, though it was not entirely false either. The coffin contains mysterious unknown components collected by the deceased from across the world over the years. And many of them are human figures. (Eek!) The woman, who has become a zombie, is trying to put a curse on you to turn you into a zombie. She is vexed to have died without playing enough games and therefore has a grudge against you, who opened this coffin so joyfully.

So now is the time to play this game and win it in order to nail in the coffin and put the zombie old maid into an eternal slumber. Well, do not fear. This is a simple game like any other Old Maid. All you need to do is just get rid of the cards in your hand quickly. Go ahead and break the curse with joy!

—description from the designer

In this Old Maid variant, pairs are made up of a color card and a gray card. A player that has one of the two Zombie Old Maids has to show his gray cards to the other players. When drawing a card from him, other players can choose to draw one of his (concealed) color cards, or to choose one of his gray cards - but then they get the Zombie Old Maid too. The goal of the game is to be the first to empty your hand.

—user summary