The Lab of Dr. Martuese

Above is the first playable prototype of The Lab of Dr. Martuese. This game is intended as a spin off of Dawn of the Zeds from Victory Point Games. It is a thematically linked game, not a mechanically linked game. The Lab of Dr. Martuese is not a State of Siege, and basically has zero mechanical connection to Dawn of the Zeds. In this game each player plays a chimp in the Lab who is trying to help or hinder the efforts of Dr. Martuese in creating a Super Zed. The first playtest was played with the following basic rules:

1. The player to the right of the player with the Martuese token will draw three resource cards, place one on top of the event deck, and give the remaining two to the player with the Martuese token. Then they will move the time marker one space clockwise around the rondel.
2. The player with the Martuese token will choose one of the two cards they are given to play and place the other on top of the event deck.
3. The played card is resolved as follow; if the symbol on the card matches one of the unresolved dice then one die with that symbol may be moved to the resolved dice area. The player with the Martuese token must move the time marker a number of spaces clockwise around the rondel that are indicated on the card.
4. Resolve Rondel - Look at what space on the rondel the time marker is in. Do what it says. If the time marker moved onto or past the start space, the Police Investigation marker must move one space towards Police Arrive.
5. If all dice are resolved, move the Step marker one space towards Martuese Victory, reroll all the dice in the resolved dice area and place them in the unresolved dice area near the Step marker.
6. Pass the Martuese token to the player on your left.

The game ends immediately if the Police Investigation marker is moved into the Police Arrive space with the player playing Horatious winning. (Horatious is the chimp that was added to the Dawn of the Zeds 3rd edition as a stretch goal of the kickstarter) It ends with a Martuese Victory if the Step marker ever moves into the Martuese Victory space AND at least 3 of the body parts are not rotten.

After the initial play, and after some discussion a few things are going to change. Or at least be tried:

• There needs to be more ways for events to happen, so I'm thinking of making it so that if the player with the Martuese marker can't play a card with a symbol that matches an unresolved die, they must play it as an event. The time still affects the play.
• Instead of always having the player to the right draw cards and passing the Martuese token, I think I want to try using two tokens, one for Martuese and one for Lab Chimp, and have them leap frog around the board. This would mean a player would spend two turns as Dr. Martuese and interact with both his neighbors. And each player when playing as their chimp would interact with both their neighbors as Martuese. I think this will lead to the players having better information, but I'm worried it will be difficult to explain in the rules.
• Some more variation in the Victory Conditions. Right now either Horatious wins or everyone else wins. I'm thinking each chimp could want to make a different type of Super Zed, and when Martuese Victory occurs you determine what type of Super Zed was created by looking at what body parts are in what condition. Different combinations of Fresh and Rotten equate to different Super Zeds. And if no one made the Super Zed they wanted the game wins.