Inhumane Harvest: Making a Hectic Tabletop Game

    Back in 2011 or so I began running a very ad hoc zombie game with the minis I had collected up until that point. It was a mostly 4+ hit and wound, make it up as a went game, but it planted a seed that I wanted to get back to at some point. Fast forward to 2023 for the first One Page Game Jam organized by Bigboygametime, and I figured that would be a great place to get my zombie game organized and finally written out. After a few days of writing out some rules that hopefully made sense, and doing a few water colors and sketches, it was finished. Well, that came and went. The game was now one very dense page of rules and original artwork. I ran it for my Wife and our buddy Jarrad a few times on and off and it was a pretty good time. From there I kept going back to it, and decided to do an expanded front and back page ruleset with more optional rules to make the games more interesting. Then, over the next couple months it snowballed into 20 pages, tons of original art, and a lot of restructuring to what it is now.

Above: One of my first water colors to test the style I wanted to go with.

    My goal for this game was to create something that threw you into a fast paced zombie apocalypse story where you essentially play a third tier character from a book or movie that is nameless and wouldn’t be noticed if they went missing. You’re the expendable person going out on supply runs. You’re the background actors of this story! From the get go I wanted to stress that you might randomly roll a bad ass character who kills zombies and gets tons of loot, but more likely you'll roll a random person with a knife and a rifle who will get shredded eventually after being cornered by a horde. Also, that badass character will at some point, get overwhelmed and slip off a roof, get grabbed from behind, or run out of ammo at the worst time. My point being, No one is the main character. This is a game that encourages the story being told over "winning".

    I should mention, the game’s name is taken from a Cannibal Corpse song that just jumped out at me one day while listening to that album as being the perfect name for this game. It was perfect. The game is brutal and I want it to feel like a CC song almost in a way. Unrelenting and overwhelming at times, but in the end, still fun!

    Inhumane Harvest is unhinged, unbalanced, and sometimes unfair. It can be played solo or with as many players as you’d like, and runs very well with a GM overseeing the board and zombies. Players roll randomized character stats and roll for random weapons on two simple charts. The more players there are, the more zombies will be on the board. Players may choose to team up or fight against each other as rival groups for possession of precious dwindling supplies or work together to survive. The vibe above all is don’t be a bummer, roll off for rules disputes, and don’t be the reason your opponent isn’t having fun. In the end, after the dust settles, Inhumane Harvest should be about telling a fun solo or co-op story!

    All of the art pieces are my own original black and white water color or ink drawings from the past few years that fit the theme. I did about half of them for the rulebook specifically though, and found a lot of joy in theming the pieces for this project.

     

    Finally in early 2025, I made and printed the full rulebooks! I sold 40 something of the 50 or so I brought to Adepticon which was nuts. I've still got them if anyone is interested too! This was a real milestone in my hobby world, as I felt and still feel very proud of this silly little 20 page rulebook. 

    Being able to share this silly game with people and run games for friends has been really rewarding. It’s been great to run bespoke little scenarios at events.

    Above: Robyn, Victoria, Shaun, and Slade played in a game of Inhumane Harvest at Under The Dice Fest 2025 I ran where they each rolled a random survivor and worked together to fight a redneck militia while escaping a growing undead horde. This game was fast and loose, focusing on the story over nitpicking rules. It was the ideal way to play this game with folks who "get it"! 

    Here are the three Redneck militia guys I made for the UTDF25 game I ran. I really should go back and take better pics of these guys because some of the details are really fun.

    All of this is to say that you should make your game a reality if you've had an idea for one. Don't worry about it being good, just have fun with it! Playtest it to make it better if you want, but more importantly, have fun with people you care about playing your own Indy games! I love this zombie game I made. I'm still painting minis and slowly working on extra rules for it. If you want to know more about Inhumane Harvest, shoot me a message on Instagram!

    Below are some pictures I took of my display Diorama I made our booth at Adepticon this year. I thought it was a good visualization of how the game plays!

Thanks for reading through this truly incoherent purposeless rambling about my game. I'll write more about it at some point. Maybe I'll post about how I paint my zombies or something. 

Luv, tYluR