Pandemic (board game)

Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and first published by Z-Man Games in the United States in 2008.[1] Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. The game accommodates two to four players, each playing one of seven possible roles: dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher, operations expert, contingency planner, or quarantine specialist. Through the combined effort of all the players, the goal is to discover all four cures before any of several game-losing conditions are reached.

Pandemic
Designer(s)Matt Leacock
Illustrator(s)Joshua Cappel (graphics and illustration), Régis Moulun (cover painting), Chris Quilliams (2013 edition)
Publisher(s)


Publication date2008 (2008)
Genre(s)
Players
  • 2–4
  • (5 with On the Brink expansion)
  • (1–6 with the In the Lab expansion)
Setup time10 min
Playing time45 min
Random chanceModerate
Skill(s) required

Three expansions, Pandemic: On the Brink, Pandemic: In the Lab, and Pandemic: State of Emergency, co-designed by Matt Leacock and Tom Lehmann, each add several new roles and special events, as well as rule adjustments to allow a fifth player or to play in teams. In addition, several rule expansions are included, referred to as "challenge kits".[2]

Pandemic is considered one of the most successful cooperative games that has reached mainstream market sales, condensing the type of deep strategy offered by earlier cooperative games, like Arkham Horror, into a game that can be played in a limited time by a wider range of players.[3]

Aside from expansions several spinoffs have been released, most notably Pandemic Legacy: Season 1. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 adds an ongoing storyline and permanent changes to the game and has been rated highly by the website BoardGameGeek on its board game rankings.[4][5]

Leacock began designing the game in 2004, after realizing that competitive games were making for strained evenings with his wife. He based it on the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.[6]

Gameplay
Game setup
A game in progress

The goal of Pandemic is for the players, in their randomly selected roles, to work cooperatively to stop the spread of four diseases[7] and cure them before a pandemic occurs.[8]

The game consists of a game board representing a network connecting 48 cities on a world map, two decks of cards (Player cards and Infection cards), four colors of cubes with 24 cubes each (each representing a different disease), six Research Stations, and a pawn for each role. The Player cards include cards with each city name (the same as those on the board); Event cards, which can be played at any time (except some events in expansions) to give the players an advantage; and Epidemic cards. Infection cards consist of one card for each city on the board and a color of the disease that will start there.

At the start of the game, Infection cards are randomly drawn to populate the board with infections, from 1 to 3 cubes for a number of cities. Players start at Atlanta, the home of the Centers for Disease Control, and are given a random role and a number of Player cards based on the number of players.

On their turn, a player can take up to 4 actions, consisting of any combination of the 8 possible actions (some of which require cards, including curing). After taking their actions, the player draws two Player cards, reducing their hand down to seven cards if necessary.[8] If either draw is an Epidemic card, the player moves the Infection rate marker one space, draws a card from the bottom of the Infection deck and places three cubes on that city, puts that card into the Infection discard pile, reshuffles the discard pile, and places it back on top of the Infection deck (so that cards just drawn will come out again soon, unless another Epidemic follows shortly after). After the two Player cards are drawn (Epidemic or otherwise), a number of Infection cards are revealed (increasing throughout the game and corresponding to the Infection rate marker), and one cube of the indicated color is placed on each city drawn. Should a city already have three cubes and a new cube is to be added, an Outbreak occurs, and each interconnected city gains one cube of that color. This can create a chain reaction across many cities if several already have three disease cubes on them. After the infections are resolved, the player on the left has a turn.

The game is over if the players either win (by discovering the cure for all four diseases) or lose (by having 8 outbreaks, not having enough disease cubes of a color to place at any time, or not having enough Player cards when someone needs to draw).

To aid in winning the game, players are given roles that allow them to alter the above rules. Five roles were introduced with the original core game, with 7 in the 2nd edition, but additional roles were added through the game's expansion. For example, the Medic is able to treat all cubes in a city with a single action or, once a cure for a disease has been found, can remove cubes of that color in the city he is in without spending an action, while the Scientist needs only four cards of the same color to discover the cure (instead of 5). The players are also helped by the Event cards, which allow for similar one-time actions, such as direct removal of a few disease cubes or immediate construction of a research station.

Pandemic requires the players to coordinate their efforts to win the game, specifically in gathering and sharing the necessary cards to discover cures while moving in coordination around the board and preventing Outbreaks in an efficient manner. However, a criticism of the game, dubbed "quarterbacking" is that there is a tendency for one player – the "alpha gamer" – to control the game. However, this is not limited to Pandemic – other cooperative board games can also suffer from quarterbacking.[9]

Expansions

On the Brink

In 2009 the first official expansion was released, featuring several new roles, rules variants for a fifth player, new Special Event cards, and new challenges for the players.

There are eight Role Cards in this expansion, including a revised Operation Expert card and a Bio-Terrorist card, which pits one player against the rest of the team.

The challenges include a fifth disease, Mutation, which must be cured or not present at the game board when the players score for victory. Another challenge is the Virulent Strain, which makes one disease particularly deadly, replacing standard Epidemic cards with new ones. Each such card represents a special nasty effect that this particular epidemic has on the game play.

In the Lab

This is the second expansion, released in the summer of 2013,[10] with a new game board that allows players to research disease cures in a laboratory. The goal of this activity is the same as in the base game—to find cures for diseases—but this time with an added research aspect. Players can also use new characters and new special events included with the expansion. In addition, it added a one-player mode[11] and a team play mode,[12] in which teams of two compete to be the most effective team.[13] In the Lab requires both Pandemic and On the Brink to play,[14] and also requires replacement decks if using the first editions of Pandemic and On the Brink.

State of Emergency

A third expansion, released in March 2015, adds new roles and events and three new challenges: The Hinterlands, where animals spread diseases to human; Emergency Events, in which unpredicted events have a negative effect on the game; and Superbug, where a fifth disease is introduced that cannot be treated.[15][16] The expansion is compatible with the two previous expansions, but neither is required. The purple disease cubes included with State of Emergency make the set included in On the Brink redundant.[17]

Scenarios

Z-man Games has released free-to-download scenarios, with changes to the base game. Various scenarios are set to be released.[18] As of March 2017, scenarios Isolation[19] and Government Shutdown[20] have been published.[21]

Editions

A second edition of Pandemic was released in 2013, with new artwork and two new characters: the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist.[10] Some prints of the second edition had an error with a missing line between Lagos and São Paulo[22] and edge-to-edge printing on cards.[23]

A second edition of the On the Brink expansion was released in 2013.[10]

In July 2018 it was announced that a 10-year Anniversary Edition will be released in Q4 2018. This edition will include detailed miniatures representing the individual roles, updated role cards, a larger board, and wooden disease cubes. All components will be contained in a metal box made to represent a first aid kit from the early 20th century. This edition will be a remake of the original game, but will include additional room within the box to hold expansions.[24]

Replacement decks

The Pandemic base replacement deck updates the first edition of Pandemic to its second edition.[25] It has been discontinued.

Compatibility pack #2 updates the first edition of the On the Brink expansion to its second edition. It has been discontinued.

The In the Lab expansion (released after the second editions of Pandemic and On the Brink) requires the second edition(s), or the first edition(s) along with its compatibility pack(s).[26]

Spinoffs
Matt Leacock signing a copy of Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 at Lucca Comics & Games 2018

Six spinoffs or alternate versions of Pandemic have been released by Z-Man Games, all of which are stand-alone games and are not compatible with the original or with each other.

Pandemic: The Cure

Released in 2014, Pandemic: The Cure is a dice-based game that uses a similar rule set to the original board game but strips down the number of cities and leaves the outcome of turns up to chance via dice rolls.[27] An expansion to the game, Pandemic: The Cure - Experimental Meds, was released in November 2016, adding a fifth disease and a new hot zone mechanism.

Pandemic: Contagion

Pandemic: Contagion is a card-based version of the game, first released at Spiel 2014, that puts players in the role of the diseases and, unlike the base game is non-cooperative. The object of the game is to eradicate the human race by spreading infections.[28]

Pandemic Legacy
  • Season 1 – Released in October 2015[29] and designed by Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is a legacy version of the base game released by Z-Man Games,[30] similar to Risk Legacy, in which the game added an ongoing storyline to the basic game, meaning the game board and rules change permanently after each game.[31] Each game represents one month of time in a campaign which simulates the passage of one year. If the players win the first game, they move on to the next month, and if they lose, they try again, but move on to the next month regardless of what happens in the second game.[32] New rules and components are included in packages that remain sealed until certain events take place, such as completing the game for a given month, or losing a certain number of games in a row.[5]
  • Season 2 – Released in October 2017[33] and designed by the same pair of designers Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau was a logical continuation from the original Season 1. The board game is set in a devastated earth 71 years after Season 1. This version changes the base rules of Pandemic enough to where a prologue tutorial game is included in the campaign so that players can learn the new mechanics.[34] Instead of diseases being represented by cubes, and the goal being to minimize the number of disease cubes placed, different cubes represent supplies, and disease starts spreading if supplies dwindle too low.
  • Season 0 – Released in October 2020, the third game in the series is a prequel taking place during the Cold War.[35]

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, designed by Matt Leacock and Chuck Yager, was released at GenCon 2016.[36][37] In this version of the game, players battle against occultists to prevent the summoning of the monster Cthulhu.

Pandemic Survival Series

Pandemic Survival is not a single game, but instead a series of separate historical games covering a local area instead of the entire globe.[38]

  • Pandemic: Iberia is the first game of the Pandemic Survival series, released in the fall of 2016 and designed by Matt Leacock and Jesus Torres Castro, Pandemic Iberia is set on the Iberian peninsula in 1848. It introduced developing railroads and purifying water as new mechanics. In addition, players could play to cure four specific historical diseases: malaria, typhus, yellow fever, and cholera.[39]
  • Pandemic: Rising Tide is the second game of the Pandemic Survival series, released in the last quarter of 2017.[40] Pandemic Rising Tide is set in the Netherlands, where players cooperate to prevent flooding of the country by the rising waters.[40]
  • Pandemic: Fall of Rome was released in the last quarter of 2018. Pandemic: Fall of Rome takes players back in history to the time of Rome when a weakened military has left the borders open to invasion from countless tribes. Players must recruit armies, fortify cities, forge alliances, and find peace with their neighboring peoples.[41]

Pandemic: Rapid Response

Pandemic: Rapid Response is a real-time cooperative game set in the Pandemic universe, released in 2019 and designed by Kane Klenko.[42] In Rapid Response, players take on the role of an international crisis response team tasked with delivering essential supplies to cities affected by natural disasters.[42] Players roll dice and allocate the results to various actions, including producing resources, piloting the plane towards affected cities, recycling the waste created by producing resources, and dropping off finished supplies in the cities that need them.[42] The game takes place in real time, with the game briefly pausing and a new city being added after a two-minute timer expires.[42] Players win by delivering relief to all cities and lose by running out of time or creating too much waste.[42]

Pandemic: Hot Zone - North America

In June 2020, Z-Man Games announced plans to release Pandemic: Hot Zone - North America on July 31.[43] In Hot Zone - North America players assume the role of a disease control unit and must discover the cure for three deadly diseases in North America.[43]

Acclaim and reception

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 has been generally received very positively. It has been described as a "leap forward in modern board game design",[44] and "the best board game ever created",[5][31] quickly becoming the highest rated board game of all time on the influential BoardGameGeek website.[4][5] The Guardian has claimed that "this may be the best board game ever created",[45] BoardGameTheories stresses that its strategic depth is increased significantly because players have to balance the interest of the current game with that of the overall campaign while making decisions,[46] and Board Games Land described the game as "smart, dramatic and thematic, designed to create those memorable moments full of emotional highs and lows only a handful board games can match".[47]

As of the first quarter 2019, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is the second highest user-rated game on BoardGameGeek, while Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 (#32), Pandemic (#74), and Pandemic: Iberia (#79) also fall within the top 100.[48]

Awards
  • Pandemic won the 2009 Origins Award as "Best Board Game".[49]
  • GAMES Magazine – Best new family game 2009[50]
  • Golden Geek Award – Best expansion 2009 (for Pandemic: On the Brink)
  • 2016 SXSW Tabletop Game of the Year Winner (for Pandemic Legacy: Season 1)[51]
  • 2016 Dragon Awards Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game Winner (for Pandemic Legacy: Season 1)[52]
  • 2016 As d'Or - Jeu de l'Année Expert Winner (for Pandemic Legacy: Season 1)[53]
  • Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 won a record four Golden Geek awards in 2015:[54]
    • 2015 Golden Geek Board Game of the Year Winner[55]
    • 2015 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Winner[56]
    • 2015 Golden Geek Best Strategy Board Game Winner[57]
    • 2015 Golden Geek Best Innovative Board Game Winner[58]
  • 2015 Cardboard Republic Immersionist Laurel Winner (for Pandemic Legacy: Season 1)[59]

In 2013, an iOS version entitled Pandemic: The Board Game was released by Asmodee Digital.[60] The digital game was ported to PC five years later and released via Steam.[61]

A novel based on the game will be published by Aconyte Books and written by Amanda Bridgeman.[62]

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