If you were looking for an engaging cooperative game, well, with certainty, we can say that you stumbled upon the right one. This game revolves around communication between the players. Namely, in order to successfully play this game, you need to decide what is more urgent to do, and also, you need to plan the future moves.
If you want to play this game, we offer you our Pandemic board game review, so you can get information on how to play it.
| Players | 2-4 |
| Age | 10+ |
| Duration | 30 – 60 minutes |
| Difficulty | Hard |
Game Description
The Pandemic board game rules are not hard to understand, but you need to think quickly and decide what you think is best for the infected population. Below, we have pointed out what is of the utmost importance for you to know in order to have smooth gameplay, but not an easy one because many things can go wrong if you make a bad decision.
The goal of the Pandemic board game is to stop illnesses from spreading and to find all four cures for the diseases by assembling five cards of a specific color. To make this game more difficult, after every player’s turn, one of the diseases will spread someplace on the board. In case that three of them are in the same location, diseases will start spreading to surrounding cities. Having all of this in mind, you now get why team-play is important while playing this game.
While playing Pandemic, you will be battling viral diseases that have broken out at the same time in the whole world. The players are specialists whose task is to stop the illnesses from spreading and to develop cures for plagues in areas where the situation can potentially be catastrophic for mankind. As already mentioned, there are four diseases that the players must stop from destroying humanity.
In this game, the players use a deck of cards, which offer them abilities, but on the other hand, you can, unfortunately, get a card that can speed up the development of a disease, or that can escalate the activity of some illnesses. There is also a second deck of cards, which is divided from the deck we mentioned before, and those cards regulate the spreading speed of the infections.
Gameplay
The game board illustrates a couple of centers that have the most population on Earth. Each turn, the players have the opportunity to choose from four actions. They can travel from city to city, help the infected people, develop a cure, or construct a research center. With the purpose of finding the best solution, the players must debate among themselves what is the best option, hence the cooperation gameplay — you don’t play against each other.
All the players have a maximum of seven cards, so deciding about which card to trade, use, or not use at all is the thing you should contemplate together. As the time of playing is passing by, infections are spreading more rapidly. Additionally, there are epidemic cards that the players can get, and those cause the cities to get infected again, and the players’ job is to stop the diseases from going viral.
If it happens that one or more illnesses have spread despite the players’ attempts to contain them, or if they ran out of time, all the players lose. However, the outcome you are hoping to achieve if you want to win is to cure all four diseases.
In one team, every player has their role, and the goal is to combine their strengths so they can beat the plague. For instance, there is a role of Operations Expert whose job is to build a research center which is momentous for developing cures for infected people. The role of Scientist is important because they need four cards, instead of five, to get rid of the diseases.
If you haven’t figured it out, there are a lot of ways to lose in this game. For example, if you can’t contain all outbreaks, if you don’t have appropriate cards that you can use or any card to draw, you have certainly lost. The only way to win is to cure all four diseases.
Pros
- One of the first cooperative games
- You will be on the edge of your seat while playing it
- Easy to learn the rules
Cons
- For some people, it is hard to master the gameplay, but after a certain time, they should become better at decision making
- The difficulty of the game is high, but luckily for you, you can choose how much epidemic cards you want to use in the play
Verdict
This is a classic game, and any individual who is a board game fan should try to play it. It is easy to understand the rules, but not so easy for devising a strategy. It requires a long debate for each turn.
It is unique in a way that people who try to play it will have the opportunity to face grave situations, and what is scarier, saving their kind is in their hands. Luckily, this is only a game, and nobody will die if you make a mistake, but it’s fun to pretend since it gives you a rush.
There are a lot of versions of this game, and there’s no need for us to tell you how popular this game is. The creators have won many awards.
