a different zombie game

You could twist the plot. Make the player play zombies that have to eat (or turn) the humans befor the rescu team comes in. Make the game take place in a resertchbase and th ehumans have discoverd a cure and if one lives it is al over for the zombies.

You can do the oposit of normal zombie games. normaly the zombies move "automated" unless there is a player controling them. Her it could be the other way around, the humans move automated, fater then zombies but still automated. In al zombie films there is always alot of stupid humans who runns in the wrong direction or into corridors/alleys with no way out of exept the one where they came in. Whitch is now blocked by zombies ofcors.

You can even make it a team co-op game if you want. one side playing the sombies, coming from two difrent directions. the other team playes the scientists who have the cure. And have to survive by al means nessicary. If the player have several scientists and onley one need to survive then you can easaly get a strategick feel to it.

Zombies have been done to death (so to speak) so it's getting harder and harder to stand out while playing them straight. Here are some suggestions for twists:

1) Give the game a satirical theme by calling the zombies something else, with a flavour of evangelism or contagious thinking. For instance, the players are "free-thinking" anarchists and the zombies are brainwashed consumers. "Gadgetsssss!!!" Or the players are nobles during the French Revolution and the zombies are revolutionaries. Or the players are "decent" teens and the zombies are teens under the influence of sex, drugs and rock & roll.

2) Find a humorous setting which relates to the mechanics somehow. Zombies at a historical reenactment. Zombies on a cruise liner. Zombies in the ice-skating rink.

I'm not sure a twist on theme will sell it to many more people. I think that for many zombie-loving folks, they'll buy almost any zombie game so long as they *play* differently from each other - theme variation be damned. So maybe put the emphasis on your mechanics instead of the theme (which equal numbers may avoid, simply because it's a "zombie" game)

For instance, there's a game called Zomboree that is frankly the same ol' zombie theme (small town, players play survivors; need to survive 1 week while some players become zombies and try to take down the remaining survivors) but played in a large group setting like Bang or Mafia/Werewolf with mechanics to encourage lots of cooperative play.
(There's a quality playtest edition for Zomboree here)

Your brief description indicates a highly tactical game where player/zombie positioning is very important. Is your mechanical focus on movement, and using board terrain to manipulate it? Or is it about weapons and bashing the zombies? I'm inferring that it's more about the stress of survival rather than killing the zombies since the goal is to survive a number of turns. So do players play a collection of townsfolk, and as they lose them they are faced with diminshed resources (townsfolk) and increased opposiion?

You also say players cooperate, so I assume there is a collective victory - does this mean the zombies move on an algorithm, or that players choose where to move them? If they move on an algorithm, you've got a good opportunity to have players plan moves ahead that place zombies in compromising situations (stuck, killed, or with pants-down). This plays well into a tactical game with very limited offensive actions by the players.

For theme, a cooperative, turn-limited game like this really does seem to work well in a confined space like a submarine as suggested, a sealed-off farmhouse, or an abandoned military installation. Does your game have resources for the players to grab, or tasks for them to perform? In these cases a theme that can be zoned (like rooms in a house) will lend itself well. I'd almost suggest staying away from a standard grid-based tactical board, since you want something different - use a board more like Mystery of the Abbey.

Okay, now instead of just throwing mechanics at you that you probably don't need - some themes, like you actually want:
- They're not zombies, just people mind-controlled by a super villian. And if they get you, you'll be controlled, too!
- Again, not zombies, but giant, self-replicating oozes that make more oozes when they feed
- One more un-zombie theme - townsfollk are actually bloodcells, and the zombies are just viruses floating in the blood stream
- Zombies on a submarine (I liked that suggestion, Aust.)
- Zombies on a plane (hey it worked in the movie...wait, no it didn't)
- Well into the zombie apocolypse, players are a raiding party looking for supplies
- Players are administering a cure to a non-undead zombie threat, and are waiting for it to take hold

Best of luck -

We are actually working on a game called ZOMBIE CRUISE SHIP right now ;-)

I see it in the same light as medieval , or other castle-time games. Done to death
Thing is, i still buy these type of games, because its a realm that i enjoy entering....regardless if i've been there before. So just plug away, but make it simple, if you spend alot of time on a re-run, you are the only one who gets mad when it doesnt sell.

that said, here are some suggestions: (though the theme is a re-run, dont let the game be one)

1) YOU are the zombie, and have to infect alot of people. (like a reverse Pandemic)
2) A zombie cooking game, where you serve human parts to a committee of zombie judges.
3) A fighting game, where when you lose HP, your limbs fall off or something.
4) A card game with a twitch mechanic, and the cards you try to scoop up are brains cards.
5) A "frag-ish" type of game inside a home depot, and you need to build makeshift weapons from fertilizer and such.

those are just a few off the top of my head.

How about having the players level up and gain more gear. They get stronger and if/when they get turned into a zombie then they keep their more powerful character in zombie form. This would encourage Players who wanted to become Zombies to at least play humans for a while to level up and not be a grunt zombie.

Then on the flip side have the amount of experience gained or whatever is used to level up the players distributed between all remaining humans. So the total amount of XP available would be (for instance) 10 x the # players. Then if all 6 players are still human they each get 10 XP. However, when 3 players have turned to Zombies the Humans will get (60/3) 20 XP each allowing them to level up faster and deal better with the now stronger Zombie horde.

As for the benefits of leveling up or what the Humans would do to get experience, I'll leave up to you to figure out.

This is a thread (and a genre?) that I think could benefit from a read-through of this write-up of the SCAMPER creativity tool:

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_02.htm

Instead of "product," put in the word "zombie" and see what you can come up with.

First of all I'd like to know WHY you'd want to make a zombies game though since there are already so many and the entire theme has been very much played out in all media through recent years.

But if you are serious about it, I do have a few suggestions for themes.

-Aztec revenge.
Undead aztecs who died of the plague and by the spanish rise up to fight against the spanish, who are already small in numbers.
The player characters would be conquistadores, pirates, missionaries and such. The pike and shot era equipment and jungle enviroment might make for a fresh game with different opportunities.
Use that jungle and that equipment in the gameplay to your advantage.

-Egyptian pyramid and explorers.
Indiana jones style explorers broke open a tomb and awoke mummies and zombies. The gameboard would be the maze within the pyramid, maybe split in different smaller boards to allow for different compositions of the gameboard. The goal could be to purify the temple or somehow stop the effect of the curse so the dead go back to rest.