The Walking Dead: Surrounded squeezes the entire zombie franchise into a tiny card game

Experience The Walking Dead franchise, perhaps the most popular Zombie series ever, through a tiny new card game.

The Walking Dead started out as a series of comic books created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore beginning in 2003. Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which an outbreak of the undead causes the entire USA to shut down, becoming a chaotic and bloody battlefield of zombies and survivors.

The comic book series has since been adapted into a television series by AMC that began airing in 2010, with several spin-off series released including Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: Dead City. The Walking Dead has also been turned into a series of video games, such as Telltale’s episode The Walking Dead: Season One released in 2012.

The Walking Dead: Surrounded is an upcoming board game for one to four players in which everyone works together to survive in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Entirely contained inside a tiny pouch small enough to fit in your pocket, Surrounded challenges players to explore an ever-growing map containing various locations, some of which could hold life-saving resources that players need.

As a co-op game, Surrounded sees players putting their heads together to extract as many resources as they can from each area they come across. On the flip-side of these location tiles could be a collection of survivors and/or leaders that players can recruit into their group, potentially strengthening their numbers. Whilst survivors can gain players points and help with scavenging, leaders offer powerful abilities that could turn the tide against the zombie hordes: as long as they’re not fighting against each other.

Throughout the game, players will also draw map tiles featuring Walkers - the franchise’s titular members of the undead - who can very quickly spread across the entire map, if players aren’t careful. The group will need to utilise the resources, survivors and leaders they acquire during the travels to keep these zombies in check.

The Walking Dead: Surrounded was designed and published by Button Shy Games, a company that specialises in producing tiny ‘wallet games’ that players can easily carry around with them, alongside Skybound Entertainment.

Players can get The Walking Dead: Surrounded right now for £10 ($12) on the Button Shy Games website, as well as an expansion called Under Siege for £4 ($5).