The Last Kids on Earth: Hit the Deck! Preview

The Last Kids on Earth: Hit the Deck! is the second game based on the young-adult novel series and the Netflix show. I’ve never read the series myself, as my kids weren’t really interested in the post-apocalyptic story with zombies when I tried to read the first book with them a few years back. The town of Wakefield has been taken over by zombies and giant monsters, and it’s up to Jack Sullivan and his friends, June, Dirk, and Quint, to survive this Monster-Zombie Apocalypse. 

The last game in the series The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom was an action RPG that followed the story in the Netflix series. Hit the Deck! does something different and instead is a strategic, card-battling game. When starting the game, you get to select who you will play from Jack Sullivan, June Del Toro, and Quint Baker. Each character has their own abilities and traits to make them unique from the others. They will also have their own special deck of cards they will use in battle. For my playthrough, I selected Jack. He has five hearts for HP and the teamwork ability that allows him to draw another card whenever he plays a teamwork card. Then, if he is not at max health, he will gain one strength; his weapon is a sword.  

The kids live in a treehouse which doubles as their base of operations known as the Tree Fortress of Awesomeness. The base contains an armoury where you can see all the weapons that the group has available to them, a TV that shows the stats for all of the characters, a bulletin board where all the daily quests are posted, and a crafting table where you can refill any of your consumables or make upgrades to your gear, spending the bottle caps that you earn as rewards when you successfully complete a mission.

When you select a quest or mission to go on, you will gear up with weapons from the armoury. This will give you cards to add to your deck to battle with. The characters have a selection of offensive and defensive cards to use while going up against the zombies. Once you play all your cards, the deck will be reshuffled, and your hand will be redrawn. During battle, you have a certain number of points to use up before your turn. Each card costs a different amount to play, so it takes some strategising to figure out how to maximise these points before the enemy gets to take a turn. Most battles will have multiple swarms of zombies to take down, so don’t get too excited when you take out the first couple of enemies. Once they are defeated, you will be shown a screen showing your battle stats. It shows the time it took to complete the battle, how many enemies you defeated, items collected, how many cards you played, the highest single-turn damage, and how big your winning streak is. If you are defeated in battle, you will be taken back to the treehouse, and you will have to challenge that quest again.

While on your quest, you are shown a map of Wakefield and all the areas you will stop at to battle the invading zombies. Some of these locations allow you to select which of the two actions you want to do like, search the gas station shelves to find consumables or pose for a photo with the mascot to potentially upgrade a card by 25%. This was a nice touch, and it was fun to feel like I was playing a choose-your-own-adventure story.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun The Last Kids on Earth: Hit the Deck! is. Especially since I am not familiar with the stories or characters. There is a lot of strategy involved when selecting cards to play, so this isn’t just a click random cards type game. I can’t wait to play more, add new cards to my hands, find new weapons, and try out all the different playable characters. If you are a fan of this series or just card-battling games, this game may be worth checking out!