Save the World Together: Pandemic

February 10, 2014

Save the World Together: Pandemic

Overall rating: 8 out of 10

Type: Board game, Co-operative

Suggest Ages: 8+

# of Players: 2-4

Playing Time: 45min+

Replay-ability: 7 out of 10

Expansions available: Yes

Cost: Approximately $40

 

Introducing, Co-operative games! Co-operative games are games in which everyone playing (or most people playing) are working together to defeat the game. These games are the best for many reasons. You can play them with sore losers, people who always win, and people who are nervous about learning new games because the sore losers can't be upset about the game, an object winning, the always-winners only win if you do, and the nervous people don't have to feel like they're playing alone against people who are already better than them. 

I really recommend this game to everyone. Co-operative games build relationships instead of destroying them... And also I think this game would be great for teaching (older--8+) children teamwork, listening skills, and strategy. (We all know that even adults need to relearn these skills! Myself included.) The reason I list listening skills is because the rules explicitly state that members have to agree about certain actions before other players can take them. 

So what is Pandemic? 

The premise of Pandemic is that every members is apart of a team of science/health related individuals who are trying to save the world from 4 diseases. These diseases are represented by different colored disease cubes (red, blue, yellow & black). Each of these diseases attacks different sections of the board. For example, the yellow disease is located in southern USA, South America, and Africa.

From this angle, you can see how the diseases are located in different areas. You can also see the cure vials.

 When a city has three disease cubes (like Santiago does in the photo above), there is the risk of an "Outbreak". An outbreak occurs when a city that already has three disease cubes gets pulled from the "infection deck" again. Santiago is probably the best place for an outbreak to happen because the mountains prevent it from being connected to any other city except Lima. An outbreak causes the "outbreak counter" to go up one space. If more than seven outbreaks occur, the game is lost. The outbreak also means that any city connected to the outbreak city receives one cube of that disease color. In the case of Santiago, only Lima would get a cube. 

Here is a view of the entire board. The green cards are the "infection deck" that cause cubes to be place on different cities each turn. The Outbreak counter is to the left. The infection rate counter is under the infection deck. And the blue cards are the "cure deck."

Each turn: each player has four actions per turn. They can move to different cities, remove disease cubes, build research stations, give/take cards from other players, and/or cure a disease. Each player has a specific role that comes with special abilities. For example, the Medic can remove all the disease cubes from one city for one action and remove all disease cubes of a cured disease by simply entering that city. He's (probably) the most helpful role, but everyone gets a special ability. 

To win the game, you have to cure all four disease. There is only one way to win, but there are multiple ways to lose. This idea seems to be common to co-operative gaming. I think the idea is that if there are multiple people working one problem then the problem has to be more difficult. Anyway, you lose pandemic if 1) there are more than seven outbreaks, 2) the cure deck runs out of the cards before you can cure the diseases, or 3) you run out of disease cubes.  

 It is VERY important to read all of the rules! My friends and I played this game wrong for so long because we neglected to read everything. (Duh!) But now we play it right and still love it! 

If you play this game and decide you love it, you can share that love with the game creator, Matt Leacock, on Twitter. I tweeted at him, and he actually replied!! 

You can also see this game played on YouTube with Wil Wheaton on his TableTop Series. 

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below!