Pyramid Review
Virus Alert! Card Game
Published by ZenoGames LLC
Game Design by Bill Stackpole
Illustrated by Dorothy Hogan
100 full color cards; $14.95
ZenoGames LLC has started up operations on what they hope will be a series of family games, and Virus Alert! is one of the first pair of offerings. It's a card game that puts you in the role of a computer hacker looking to cause a little connected mayhem.
The object of the game is to be the first player with 10 uninfected Objects on the table. Objects are the various computer programs, documents, and web sites under your control. Players must balance getting their Objects out while tossing viruses onto their opponents' cards.
Each player starts with five cards, and he cannot have more than five when his turn ends. He starts by drawing a card, then playing a card if he wishes. If he doesn't want to play one, or he can't, he discards any excess and play passes to the left. Since you're only allowed one play per turn, you have to choose between placing one of the critical 10 Object cards in front of you or sabotaging other players when they do the same.
When Object cards are down, Action cards will have something to tamper with. The most basic play is to hit someone (or more likely, several someones) with a Virus. The game comes with 25 plastic green tokens that represent viruses. When you play the card, you roll a six-sided die (also included) and place that many tokens on the Object cards of . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 4, 2002
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