Introduction to the game
Pandemic is a cooperative game, for 2-4 players, where you play as different disease-fighting specialists whose quest is to treat different diseased cities all over the world while researching cures for each of the four different diseases plaguing the world. Each of you will assume a unique role within the team, with special abilities that will improve your team’s chances if applied wisely.
The game-board depicts several major cities on Earth, e.g. New York, Washington, Buenos Aires and Bangkok. On each turn, a player can use up to four “action points” to do one of the following:
- Travel between connected cities
- Remove one infection cube on from the city currently stationed in
- Discover a cure using five cards of the same color, or type.
- Travel to cities whom which card you possess
- Travel from cities whom which card you possess
- Build a research station of the city currently stationed in if you possess it’s card.
In addition to these actions, every player plays as a different class, or character. They range from the Medic , whom can remove every infection cube from a city with just one action, to the Scientist whom can research a cure for only four cards of the same type (down from five).
A deck of cards provide the players with player cards at the end of each turn. Most of these are beneficial, giving the players the ability to travel to cities for free or cards which can be used to research the cure for each disease, but spread out within the “Player card”-deck are “Epidemic”-cards. Epidemic cards spice up the gameplay by placing three infection cubes on a randomly drawn city. For every Epidemic card drawn you also move the infection-tracker up on – which will ultimately increase the amount of disease cards drawn each turn.
This brings me to the other deck of cards; the infection-card deck. When each player has finished his or her turn, they get to draw a set amount of cards from the infection deck. The amount is determined by how many Epidemic-cards have been drawn earlier in the game, ranging from drawing two cards each turn up to four on harder difficulties.
If adding an infection-cube to a city would result in there being more than three cubes in the city, an outbreak will occur instead. An outbreak places one infection cube, of the infection which caused the outbreak, in every adjacent city. This also moves the outbreak-tracker up by one. Outbreaks can also chain with each other, which is a way to quickly lose the game and is something you constantly have to plan for.
The only way to win the game is if every cure has been researched, but you can lose the game in a number of different ways.
- You are defeated if you run out of infection-cubes for any infection
- You are defeated if the eight outbreak occurs (When the Outbreak-marker reaches the top of the tracker)
- You are defeated if there are not enough cards in the player draw deck when someone has to draw new cards.
The best and worst parts of the game
The best thing about Pandemic is the co-op system. It creates an environment where everybody tries to help each other to reach the end goal, which makes it a great game to play with family or friends in comparison to more competitive titles like Monopoly. If the game is lost, everybody has lost, if the game is won; everybody has won through a team effort – this makes the game a very conflict-free title.
The adjustable difficulty of the game is definitely a nice feature. While a group of new players should not expect to win their first game, after a few games you will find that your group will consistently be able to win the recommended “beginner”-difficulty. The game provides additional epidemic cards that can be added to keep the game challenging for many more future play-sessions.
The game simulates, in a civil sense, how a crisis like this could actually play out and how CDC-strategists would tackle it. It also does a good job of making every player feel unique and that they all contribute to the end goal in their own way. Some players will contribute by moving other players, other by just moving to a location to build science stations to make the location more easily accessible to other players.
But in turn – this is also the worst part of the game. During a few of our sessions, it didn’t feel like everybody got to play the way they wanted to – they had to play the way everybody else needed them to. This was common in all but one of our play-sessions – one player didn’t really ever have much choice about what to do with their own character. This can make the game tedious for some players, but while they may not have much choice about what to do they can still discuss every other decision each player makes during their round. There was a whole lot of backseat-gaming during our sessions.
Core game system
The core game system is the action system. This is how the players interact with the world and affect which outcome the game will have. Since each player will play the game differently, both due to their own personal strategies as well as which role are assigned to them, the actions are what will differ from each session and each player. It is what decides whether or not the players will win the game or not.
Each player has four actions which they can spend each turn.
Actions are split into two categories: Basic actions, which can be done at all times, and special actions, which require specific conditions to be able to be of use. The actions avaliable to each player are the following:
Basic actions:
- Drive or ferry – Move your pawn to an adjacent city.
- Direct flight – Discard a card and move to the city pictured on it.
- Charter flight – Discard the card showing your current city and move to any city on the board.
- Shuttle flight – Move your pawn to a city containing a research station if your pawn is in a city containing a research station.
Special actions:
- Build a research station – Discard the card showing your current city to build a research station there.
- Discover a cure – Discard 5 cards of the same colour. Your pawn must be in a city containing a research station.
- Treat disease – Remove a disease cube from the city your pawn occupies. If the cure is found, remove all the cubes of that colour from the city.
- Share knowledge – Pass a card from one player to another. Both players must be in the city pictured on the card that is passed.
Some actions, like Charter Flight, Direct Flight or Build Research Station requires the player to use one of his player cards in order to complete the action. As the win condition is to create cures using these cards, each player have to weigh in if it’s worth using a card, a limited resource, to travel when the same card can be used to win the game.
The most interesting system
The most interesting system in Pandemic, acording to me, is the epidemic- and, by proxy, the outbreak system. When an epidemic card is drawn from the player card pile three things happens.
- You draw a card from the bottom of the Infection draw pile and that city becomes infected; adding three infection cubes to the location.
- The infection rate is increased, this will soon change how many infection cards that are drawn after each players turn.
- The Infection discard pile is shuffled and placed on the Infection draw pile.
This is the most interesting system because it spices up the gameplay, adding a bit of tension and randomness to the game; but not so much that it becomes unfair (Well, maybe once or twice). The fact that the cards in the discard-pile gets re-used over and over again help enforce the feeling that it’s a disease spreading – as it attacks areas whom are already vulnerable to attack.
Target group interpretation
The recommended age limit for the game is people over the age of ten, as it is stated on the game box. This is most likely due to the fact that communication is crucial and a player not well-versed with words and communication might have a bad time playing the game; they may just become a pawn to the overall group.
I think the recommended age limit is fair, but I also think that the game is best enjoyed by people who can understand the real world problems at hand, which will result in a more immersive gameplay experience.
Conclusion
Most things in the game come together very well. While some players may, at certain points in the game, feel left out of all the action I feel that this is a minor concern – It’s up to everybody to make sure they have a good time. The game is a better in many ways than, in my opinion, more competitive titles like Monopoly or Risk to play with family and friends as there is little to no conflicts between players; just friendly discussions.
Pandemic is also a good civic simulation about how a global pandemic could actually spread throughout the world.
But there are several bad sides to the game as well. While the Epidemic system is great for the tension, an Epidemic at the wrong location at the wrong time could cause so many outbreaks that the game ends at turn 2 (Yes, that actually happened once.)
Overall; Great game to play with friends albeit a bit random at times.
 
|
