Give Me the Brain Review

At time of writing, it is October and I’m looking through my games and thinking “what games have that spooky Halloween feel?”. At which point I spy ZOMBIES!!! Let's be honest, a Zombie themed game makes for perfect Halloween fun. Now, a Zombie based board game is not entirely new. Legendary offerings like Zombicide spring to mind, but, how about a game where you play as the Zombies? That also work in a fast-food restaurant. Wait, what? Yep, you read that right... “Give Me the Brain” is a card game where the players are Zombies working in a fast-food restaurant aiming to be the first to get their jobs done and finish for the night.

The problem? Well, being Zombies, you generally lack a fair amount in the cognitive capacity department. In fact, there is only one brain to go around and some jobs you just can’t get done without it! Add in that your colleagues might hand you the mop just as you are about to finish up, scuppering your chances of winning, or the boss might catch you loafing off and give you another job.

I first encountered Give Me the Brain at a friend’s stag do several years ago and even this was some period of time after its first release in 1996! The current edition available on Zatu is the 2015 Superdeluxe edition. The version I have is the third edition, the changes being some slight differences in the cards. Play, however, remains unchanged.

What’s in the Box?

Opening the box, alongside the instruction booklet, there are cards that make up the game deck. They fall into a few categories but we’ll discuss that as we discuss gameplay later on. You’ll also find a rather large grey “brain” that looks amazingly like a six-sided dice (because that’s what it is).

Playing the Game

The game is played with a deck of custom cards. The cards fall into three types. Bid Cards, Job Cards and Objects. You also have a 6-sided die representing “The Brain”.

Each player starts with 7 cards. The Brain starts “on the floor” (in game canon… it can just be in the middle of the table for now).

The game starts with a bidding war for the brain. Players roll the die with the highest scorer starting this round of bidding, in future this will be the player that just dropped the brain (we’ll cover that later). Each player gets one chance to play a bid card. The bid cards are identified by the large “Give Me the Brain!” text along with a reason and associated artwork. Whilst discussing these cards it seems a sensible time to note that the silly artwork and reasons a Zombie may need the brain on these cards adds to the fun of the game. For example, “Give me the Brain! This Man has a Gun” and a picture of a zombie surrounded by bullet holes and missing a large chunk of his head.

The Bid with the highest score wins the round. Some of the lowest bid cards have a second higher score in brackets. This higher score can only be used if you are the player that just dropped the brain.

At this point turn taking can begin. On their turn a player can play a job or object card. All job and object cards have a cost requirement. One or Two hands and possibly a brain. A player can play up to two hands worth of jobs in a turn (2 × 1 hand cards or 1 × 2 hand card). However, a card showing the brain can only be played by a player that currently has the brain (or an object that can act as the brain). Players take it in turns to play cards in this way and the winner is the first player to successfully play all their cards/complete all their jobs.

If a player does not have a card to play, or does not wish to play a card, they must spend the turn “Loafing off”. Doing so means that they must either draw an additional card or discard their hand and draw an equivalent number of cards plus another; either way they end up with an extra card. This represents getting caught slacking and given extra work.

So, from that description, the player with the “Brain” will just win. However, the brain is slippery! Every time it is used to play a job/object there is a possibility the player drops the brain. Whenever a card requiring the brain is played, the player must roll a “skill roll” to keep the brain. They roll the “Brain” dice and must meet or exceed the score indicated on the brain logo printed on the card they just used. A failure results in another bidding war.

Even this is a simplified version of events, because the job cards and object cards themselves have an effect. Whenever a job card is played the impact of the card is noted in bold, this action must be carried out and may be beneficial or detrimental to the player that used the card. Ideally you are going to try and avoid detrimental cards, but, when you have to play all your cards, sometimes needs must!

Object cards are similar to job cards, but, they remain in play in front of a player and may have an ongoing effect on the game. For example, the “Dog Brain” object allows you to play a card requiring the Brain even if you do not have it but then passes to the player on your right.

As a result, divesting yourself of all your cards to win the game becomes a lot trickier and generally happens as a cleverly played combination of cards at the right moment rather than simply playing your stock two hands worth of cards and happening to be able to run out.