Z-Man Games UNBOX Now | Pandemic | Board Game | Ages 8+ | For 2 to 4 Players | 45 Minutes Playing Time
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| You and your team are the last defence standing in the way of deadly diseases that threaten the world! From designer Matt Leacock, Pandemic is a cooperative game of teamwork for two to four players. | As members of an elite disease control team, you must keep four deadly diseases at bay. Work together as you travel the globe to treat infections while collecting the cards you need to discover a cure for each disease. | The clock is ticking as outbreaks and epidemics fuel the spreading plagues. As a cooperative game, players win or lose together. | Only by working together can you keep the outbreaks in check and find the cures in time! |
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| Over the course of the game, players use actions to move between hotspots while treating diseases and setting up a network of research stations that help them cure diseases and make movement more efficient. | Each player manages a hand of cards matching the colours of the four diseases. These cards allow them to travel more quickly between cities or—if a single player can collect five cards of the same colour—discover a cure for a disease. | But plenty of challenges stand in their way. Outbreaks can spread diseases across the board and random epidemics can intensify a disease in a moment’s notice. | Access two free scenarios available for Pandemic: Government Shutdown and Isolation. |
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| Dimensions: | 30.48 x 21.84 x 4.32 cm; 907 Grams |
| Model: | ZM7101 |
| Colour: | One Colour |
| Pack Quantity: | 1 |
| Age: | 8 – 8 years |
| Assembly: | No |
| Colour: | One Colour |
| Quantity: | 1 |
When you get the rules start to be really funny
I bought this as a family gift from santa. Fun game for all and very nice to have a collaborative game rather than one in which someone feels bad cos they were unlucky
This a good cooperative game and the components are well made. The instructions are not that easy to understand initially, so would recommend watching YouTube play through alongside rules. It’s a pity Covid has tainted the title, as it’s a great game.
We’ll yes the instructions need a bit of decoding but, it just added to the enjoyment of the evening. It’s a good quality set which we will definitely be playing again.
It’s small enough to take on holiday as well.
Pros:
– Extremely fun to play with other people, if you’re looking for a fun team board game this is a good buy.
– Re-playable, this is a very re-potable board game, from the multiple difficulties to having new scenarios and challenges each game.
Cons:
– Fairly complicated, the game features various mechanics that can be a bit overwhelming at first.
– Intense, the game requires focus, especially on the harder difficulties. It’s not a game I’d say you could play laid back.
Summary:
This game is for people looking for a challenging team game, be ready to read the instructions a lot on your first few games but once you get the hang of it you’ll be playing it all the time!
Unique in that everyone plays as a team – so a great game to teach kids the value of teamwork vs competitiveness (unlike most games). Can also be adjusted (either officially following guidlines in the rules) or unofficially (by using your own judgement when setting up and playing) to make more or less difficult. It is not, however, one of those games you would play over and over again, as the games do start to become quite similar.
But in completing this she said, “That was really good. Can we get the next one?”
Which given her usual nonchalance is probably worth more than the loud acclaim of all the more usually enthusiastic Board Game Geek pundits put together.
Speaking for myself, I found each game so intense that I don’t want to play the next one for at least another year. But that, also, seems like veiled praise when I stop to think about it. How many board games make you feel so invested that the experience can be described as “intense”?
For now, we’ve moved on to Journeys in Middle Earth. It’s less intense because the effects of winning or losing any game within the campaign is a lot less pronounced than it is with Pandemic.
I’m not going to describe the game and the mechanics as such reviews already abound. But I hope that this description of our experience is helpful if you’re wondering whether to bite the bullet on this game that you can only play through once (well, 12 times or so) before throwing it away. Worth every penny, in my view, and highly recommended.
That said, here’s a final caveat. I think you should probably be reasonbaly proficient at board games in general, and regular Pandemic in particular before giving this a whirl. We did quite well but our group had a strong contingent of veterans. I got the impression that if an inexperienced group played, the game might be a bit merciless to them. And if that were to put them off, it’d be a crying shame as this is, in my view, a masterpiece of a board game; wonderfully conceived and superbly executed in every way.
Do not be overwhelmed with the many dice in the box. Different colours, each colour its own pips and each ‘technical’ role (player) have their own dice to roll. You roll your dice, to get actions: Treat disease dice, get to the right location, get samples, take dice out of the treatment center. Unlike the original Pandemic, in The Cure the actions you can take are determined by what action faces show up on your role’s dice: If you roll airplanes, you can travel all around the world but what will you be able to do when you get there? Get samples, but you need disease dice in the treatment center to sample! You need treatments, which lets you put disease dice into the treatment center, and you must be where the virus is endemic!
The beauty here is that you don’t get stuck with what you rolled. You can re-roll as many dice, as many times as you want, Remember though, 5 of your 6 dice faces are helpful actions but 1 is ‘Biohazard’. If you roll a Biohazard, you miss out on getting to use that dice for the rest of your turn and it advances the infection rate, causes epidemics and more. So do you re-roll and try to get a sample, risking the Biohazard, or do you use whatever action is already up? If you re-roll, how many times will you re-roll? Once? Twice? These choices are what make this game fun!
Each player gets unique coloured dice depending on their role. The Medic has special dice faces that are good at treating diseases while the Scientist has a higher probability of rolling samples AND only needs 11 or more to cure a disease on a Roll for a Cure. The Dispatcher lets you move people around the board more easily, though the board is much smaller than the original game with 6 regions. Cooperative games like this work well.
I love the linen finish and the art on the cards. The event cards are like the original Pandemic and the role cards are like ID badges. The dice all seem to be of good quality. You also get a cloth bag and location disks that are nice. The central score tracker it is very useful for tracking info, as a place for region disks, as a treatment center area.
The rulebook logical, has examples and is well written: An easy game to learn from the rulebook. The back page even has clarifications on some specific role and event cards. Familiarity with the original Pandemic helps but is not needed.
Obviously there is a lot of luck in this DICE game. You have the luck of the action roll, the way disease dice come out on the board, and Rolling for a Cure. The skill part really comes in working together, leaning into the strengths of your role, and taking educated risks based on probabilities. Normally if you get some really bad rolls and everything crashes and burns, it’s short enough and easy enough to set up (~3 minutes) that you can just play again! I do miss the big world map, but I get more tension from the rolls and the overall fun crammed into a 30 minute is beter than the original game of ‘Pandemic’, good as I think that game still is.
This is alot of game for the price: There is a “let’s play it again!” quality and fun .
RECOMMENDED
It’s one of those games where the rules are relatively simple, and yet the game provides the challenge. Make sure you read the instructions carefully as while they are simple, it’s easy to miss a step in the turn sequence at the beginning. Take your time until you’re fluent with it – it won’t take long.
The game was ordered directly from Amazon (and dispatched from Amazon too), and while at 17.99 I had a suspicion it might be a counterfeit but it clearly wasn’t. The box, the cards and accessories are quality you’d expect, if not a bit more. Great value.
I totally recommend this title which gave our playing group some memorable evenings already.
Absolutely fantastic game. It is a bit slow going on your first few playthroughs as you’ll be checking the rule book and be playing different roles each time with different skills to remeber.
But this is a great game once you get your head round it. Really good co-op makes you work together and talk through your plan. The different roles all bring something useful so everyone has an impact on the game.
It’s not an easy win but you are able to adjust the difficultly as you go by shuffling more or less Epidemic cards into the deck. But makes winning feel even more of an accomplishment.
Board, cards and pieces are all good quality.
I bought this for my partner and myself to play over the Christmas break. I thought it was a good choice as it was on topic with what’s currently going on around the world.
We found that the games can go on a bit longer than the recommended play time of 45 minutes.
Out of a handful of attempts, we have only “won” the game twice. We found that you need a certain amount of luck with the cards that come out.
One of the character cards is really helpful, the Scientist. This character allows you to cure an infection with just 4 Player cards (instead of 5) which helped us win the game by quite a bit. A maximum hand of only 7 cards means you have to keep discarding Player cards that you don’t want or need. However, because you are relying/hoping on what the next cards are that come out, you can end up unintentionally throwing out a lot of Player cards into the discard pile. One of our games actually ended in this fashion.
I have heard that some people decide to play a 2 player game with 4 characters which I think would make the game a lot easier. We might try that sometime.
My partner finds the game a bit stressful whereas I like the challenge of the difficulty that the game offers. It is rewarding when you do actually win though.
I agree with a lot of reviews that say it’s a game that could teach young people lots of board game skills, such as strategy and balancing priorities.
Overall, I’m pleased that I bought the game. Definitely one to have in the collection.
Oh my god, this game! I got it for my partner for Christmas and we played it most of the evenings since! Because it’s a cooperative game and we don’t compete against each other we thought it wouldn’t be as fun, but we were so wrong! The game is so addictive and exceeded all of our expectations. The rules might seem complicated at first and you might not feel like reading the lengthy instructions, but trust me, it’s worth it. Once you start playing it all comes together and creates a smooth logical game. I’d recommend watching a YouTube video if you’ve no patience for instructions (we did both). It’s definitely one of my favourite board games so far (and I played a few!).
I absolutely adore this game. The mechanics are really well balanced and because of the constant addition of new elements and mechanics the game remains fresh and exciting. Nothing better than being able to open a new box or a new door in the dossier.
Beyond that the game itself is great, its a true co op experience in which everyone feels like they have a valuable role and are able to contribute, even if stronger personalities are playing. We’ve had lots of discussions trying to figure out what the best strategies are, only for an epidemic card to be pulled and everything having to change.
Best game I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing and worth every cent.
I bought three games at the same time. A quick and easy competitive game, to get people into the idea of getting together to play board-games. A co-operative “pirates” game because it would be exciting and you don’t have to worry about who’s winning or losing. And this, 3rd iteration of the Bestest Game Ever ‘Pandemic’. This was meant to be the alternative to the pirates game and the one we played last once people were used to the idea.
Instead, we played Pandemic Iberia first. All except me new to playing (grown up) board games. Everyone loved it. Non game-players loved it, men loved it, women loved it. Probably even the dog loved it, although I think that was mainly the treats he was passed from the table. Every game session became ‘can we play Iberia’. It was 3 months before we played anything else and 4 before we got to the third game. *Sigh* Ah well, at least they enjoyed them all and I’ve definitely got my money’s-worth from this one.
Don’t buy this until you have finished playing all the other games you want to!
This extension pack enhances the original Pandemic game with new roles, a new virus and a way to make an existing virus even more dangerous. The extra items open up the dynamics of the game making each game a challenge to decide how best to use the combination of people available, each with their own skills. You can also add a fifth player to the mix which although it gives you more skills it does reduce the number of turns each player has before time runs out – an interesting quandary.
Another great advantage of this extension is that you can fit all of the original game into the custom made tray along with all the new items – a one box solution so no space issues in the cupboard!! And don’t forget the petri dishes that are also provided. Simply great. If you have the original game you need to buy this – so order it today!
Luck – adding dice to a game speeds it up, but brings too much luck into it, this game has no dice, it does have cards which add randomness, but because of the way revealed cards are periodically returned to the top of the deck, this actually reduces the luck plus adds to the tactics by knowing such-and-such danger card is now back in the top 6? cards, and plan accordingly.
Co-operative – I love the co-operative element in that you either all win, or all lose, so you need to work together, no sulking from the first loser of a game. Either way, it gets you all talking and interacting and suggesting and contradicting, which has to be a good thing as you feel like you’ve really participated.
Pacing – the pacing (especially if you are just learning the game) is excellent, the first couple of rounds you are moping up the virus and accumulating cards thinking ‘this is easy’ we’ll have won in no time, but the game steadily gets harder and harder with the pace set just right in that the final victory/defeat is probably decided by just one last turn either way. It even has a means of adjusting the difficulty according to the players.
Replayability – this is very good, there are several characters with different skills to use, some good some useless for some of the game then essential at certain times. This gives variations in how you play it. Plus the initial distribution of the four infections varies (maybe only three of them are on the board to start?)
There are many expansions to this game but you hardly need them as this has all the fun and skill you need for a roughly 45min game.
My advice would be to find a good YouTube video explaining the game first, then read the rules, and have them to hand for the first game. It’s a lot to take on all in one go, but once you get going the gameplay is logical and easy to follow.
Gameplay-wise, the tension can quickly start to mount as the viruses start to spread through the cities and this really brings out the best in relationships with your other players. You really have to communicate and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
All I learned about my father from playing Monopoly with him is that he has a great poker face and is even more miserly in a fantasy reality than real life! I also know my mother is a wanton cheat who would really rather the game would hurry up and get finished! Those kind of games, with players pitted against each other, just don’t make for a happy Christmas/get together!
The box and components are sturdy, the instructions are clear, well illustrated and easy to follow and the graphics etc look nice.
Highly recommended!
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This is the first board game I’ve ever played where all players are part of the same team, and I found it to be very engaging. It makes you competitive, but as a team, not as an individual, which is ‘refreshing’ and a nice change from the typical board games.
It plays well both in 2 or 4 people, and if playing in 2 we prefer using two characters for each person (to have two special powers instead of one). There are many variants in which the game can be played, so I don’t expect to get bored of it any time soon.
I found the game to be very difficult if you use all 6 epidemic cards, but with more experience you can develop strategies with your team mates and actually win or at least get closer to doing so.
I think that Pandemic is a great choice for every person who enjoys board games of some sort. I totally recommend it, especially as it is a great 2 player game.
Over four separate days and around 18 hours of game play we had a huge amount of fun. Any reservations we had about having to mark the board permanently or make changes to cards were alleviated almost immediately by how exciting it was to see the game evolve as we played it. Objectives and goals changed as we played out an interesting story with shocking twists and turns. There was one shock in particular which genuinely affected me as much as the biggest movie twists I’ve ever seen – the kind that you don’t see coming at all and leave you reeling for days afterwards.
When it was all over we all felt sad and perhaps my only criticism of this game is that, at the end, all you can really do is throw away the beautiful board and game components (some you could keep as spares for the original game). I haven’t been able to bring myself to do that yet and maybe I’ll think of some interesting way to preserve it.
On a practical level, the rules are quite involved – some would say complicated – and, of course, they change as the game goes on (stickers are revealed with new rules which must be stuck into the rule book in designated spaces), but for the most part they’re well explained and the rewards make it worth the effort. It’s a lot easier to get to grips with if you’ve played the original Pandemic game before, and some of the early game play will be familiar to you if you’ve played some of the original game’s expansions. Not only in terms of the hours of game play and huge fun that this game delivers but also in terms of the quality and quantity of things that the box contains which are added to the game as it progresses, Legacy Season 1 is unquestionably full value for money even at 55. We’ve now got Season 2 and will be starting that next week!
We played this with our 8 year old and 10 year old daughters and once we got the hang of it, we all had so much fun, collectively being disappointed when we initially lost and wanting to go again to win! On the first read of the rules, we were daunted but it is actually quite an easy game to play with minimal setup.
In most board games you are competing against each other, so it was refreshing to play a game where you have to all collaborate if you want to stand a chance of winning. This was a major selling point to me and I am pleased to say that the game certainly requires teamwork and it was very pleasing playing as a group together rather than trying to outdo each other. The atmosphere playing this game was very positive and we were all soon immersed in trying to stop the spread of infection and cure the diseases, discussing various strategies and approaches with the different roles each player had and the cards they were dealt.
Having only played traditional board games, this was the first game of this type we have played. I was unsure how my youngest daughter would take to it and wasn’t sure if my wife would like it but they both loved it. There is plenty of replay value in the game, particularly as there are 3 difficulty levels (increasing difficulty with adding more epidemic cards to the deck).
Overall, I can highly recommend this game.
Have played several games now and love that even with only the two of us how with the 7 different role cards we can switch it up and play different strategies. The number of epidemic cards can also be reduced for easier play and as it’s a co-op game you can even play multiple roles if you wish. I’d only reccomend sticking to the 4 max roles/players however.
The game it’s self is really easy to pick up and after one play through of double checking details we knew everything that was required. Perfect for 30-60 mins of play without too much setting up (or space required) or overthinking after a day of work. I know that this is a game I can get out at christmas and my family would take to rather then just being confused. There’s enough in it still however for multiple play throughs as well as several expansions to increase it’s life, which I’m looking forward to purchasing in the future.
If I had a complaint it would be that the actions you can do are quite limited and it would be nice to see a few more card types. I imagine the expansions will address some of this however.
How is it played?
Pandemic is a turn based cooperative game where you can take up to 4 actions per turn. These actions involve moving around the world to different cities, removing virus cubes from infected cities, building research centres and curing diseases. After each turn, you draw cards to help you cure diseases (some of which may actually cause an epidemic which will spread a disease). And then you draw further cards to advance the viral outbreak. This finely tuned balance is what keeps the virus spreading so you have to work together to stop the spread as well as cure the disease.
How do you win?
You win if:
– you cure all diseases (you don’t have to eradicate them by wiping them off the map, but kudos if you do)
You lose if:
– You can’t draw any more player cards
– You run out of virus cubes and can’t spread a disease further (it’s out of control at this point)
– You have too many outbreaks
The key is to work together as a team and use each of your unique abilities at the most opportune times. It’s a fantastic game that combines strategy, teamwork and luck! It’s quite daunting the first time you play it, but after a few playthroughs, the mechanics become clearer and it can be enjoyed by players of all ages. If you have more than 4 players, it works quite well with one person acting as a host for the game and offering their insight to things you may have missed.
It also has a lot of expansions which increase the replayability of the game, but in my opinion the core game is enough to start with for a while. This really is a great game!
I received the 2013 English version of the game which came with plastic components which is the version I wanted (it was shrink wrapped with a Walmart sticker). The game is great, everyone that I’ve played it with has thoroughly enjoyed playing and it is different to most other board games as all players work together to win the game. This game deserves 5 stars, however with the copy I received, three of the seven pawns (player pieces), do not have a flat base causing wobbling. All the cubes are damaged chipped in one corner,some worse than others. The board doesn’t sit flat when it’s unfolded, however I gently pushed against the fold the ‘wrong’ way and fortunately it didn’t damage the board and it sits flat now. With the damaged cubes it is only annoying for myself and one other player, the other players do not mind. For now I just turn the cube so the damaged corner is on the base and out of view. I didn’t want to send the game back as we’re all enjoying it too much so instead I’ve contacted the manufacturer of the board game who said they will send out replacements for the damaged components but it may take up to eight weeks as the replacement parts are being sent from America.
If you’re on the fence about buying this game, you can download a pdf copy of the rules from the manufacturers website before you make up your mind. I highly recommend this board game.
EDIT: The replacement parts arrived one month after requesting them, the pawns / player pieces are great and don’t wobble or easily fall over. The new cubes all have the same damage chipped in one corner. I’m guessing as it’s affecting every cube including the replacements it’s likely how the cubes are created / removed from moulds/sprue at the manufacturer and I’ll have to learn to live with it, it helps that this game is so good.
The rules of the game are tight, simple enough to learn and convey a sense of being able to affect the state of the game without wholly relying on random elements. A single turn consists of a player taking four actions which include moving, treating a disease, building a lab and curing a disease. After this the player will draw two cards, most of which are useful but a few (4-6 as determined at the start of the game) are epidemics which cause the disease to intensify through making them more likely to spread. Finally 2-4 more cards will be drawn from a second deck to determine which cities either became or increased their levels of infection this turn. After this play passes to the next player and they follow the same turn structure.
The game is won when all four diseases are cured which you do by spending an action at a lab and discarding five cards of that diseases colour. Curing a disease does not, however, remove it from the game, if there are still cubes of that disease’s colour on the board it can still spread. To stop a disease from affecting the board again you must remove all its disease cubes from the board and then that disease becomes eradicated. This is not required to win the game, but in certain circumstances can make your like much easier. Losing the game can happen in a number of ways. One way to lose is the card pool you draw from each turn works as a kind of timer, if ever someone can’t draw at the end of a turn you lose. Another way is every time you are told to place a disease cube on a city with three disease cubes of that colour already there you cause an outbreak which puts disease cubes of that colour on each connected city. This, in turn, can cause a chain reaction effect making you repeat the action (although never back to a city that is part of the chain) and for every outbreak you move the outbreak marker along a track, if it reaches the last space you lose. Another way of losing is if you run out of disease cubes of a certain colour and have to place one, the disease is classed as having infected too many people and the game ends.
So that’s the basic overview of the game and if it sounds entertaining to you in any way you should try the game out. Having said that there are a few downsides to the game. Firstly, as I said, if you are a beginner in the world of board games it is a great starting point, but if you are more of a veteran it is harder to recommend the game. The content, for me, feels a bit too light, and after a game or two you’ll likely have come up with a strategy that works unless you get unlucky with card draws or your role cards (this is more of an issue in the two player version). After about half a dozen games I also felt like I’d seen pretty much all the game had to offer and it was consigned back to my bookcase to be used only when there was someone new to introduce into board gaming. Of course, this in itself should make it a buy for even the most grizzled veteran, a game that successfully introduces new people to more complex board games without them looking for the exit. To some extent the problems would be fixed by adding a few more surprises to the decks, which is what the On the Brink expansion does, except I can’t really recommend that expansion on the basis there is so little physical content in it for the same price as the base set.
So, in summary, if you are new to the world of board games and this sounds good, get it. If you are used to board games, but have friends/family/significant others who you’d like to try board games, this is a really good choice (although there are other games that fill this slot). If you are a board gamer without any of that though it is a harder shout, you would really need the expansion to get more than half a dozen games out of it and then you are talking 40-50 which could, in my opinion, be spent on better games including its big brother, Pandemic Legacy.
Great game. I was very pleasantly impressed with this game when I played it with my family on holiday in Cornwall. The box is fairly compact for the number of items in the game. All tokens/pieces/chips are all stored in their own smal separate pinch-lock plastic bag. Cards are stored in the plastic tray which sits in the box. All pieces within the box including cards, tokens and the board are all of good quality build. The objective of the game is to cure pandemic diseases (there are more than one). You begin the game by setting up the board with the diseases according to how many players there are and how difficult of a game you fancy. You then randomly assign characters to each player (each has a unique skill) and begin the game. Taking it in turns each player has a number of actions to use per turn which can be a number of things (move, cure, build something). Then there is a random outbreak of a disease in a country somewhere. If a country has too many outbreaks then all hell breaks loose and the disease escalates rapidly. It is then the next persons go. The objective is to cure (not eradicate) all diseases on the board before it consumes the world. The first game took us over 2 hours to complete as we used the instruction manual heavily to understand the game, but the second and third games were completed in around an hour and a half. If you enjoy strategy games then this will be your cup of tea!
Lately I’ve been doing a fair bit for research on board games that can be played with 2-3 players, aren’t too simplistic or oozing a theme that might divide its players. What piqued my interest was the subtle theme and dice chucking gameplay of Pandemic The Cure.
Dice represent viruses that are blind-drawn from a bag then thrown at each player’s turn. These then end up in different regions based on their face value. Players then travel around these continents, trying to contain the virus and treat as many instances as possible. There are outbreaks, special events and the luck of the draw of course (who doesn’t love throwing dice?) to keep things interesting.
Players are able to choose from 7 distinct characters that have one or two special abilities and custom dice which is a very neat touch. Each person therefore excels in particular areas, but is able to make due on their own.
Although the official rules state that the game is made for 2-5 players, lots and lots of people play solo (nothing stopping you from picking two or more characters!), and I’d argue that even though not ideal, you can squeeze in more than 5 players since you have 7 characters. Just need to balance the difficulty using the board and dice – maybe some house rules – to offset this.
Production values are great and the coloured dice are a lot of fun to use. The game’s theme isn’t as strong and oppressive, making it both a great family game and brilliant choice for more serious gamers alike.
Although directed at 10 years plus, my nine year old loves playing this with us and I’d dare to say the whole family have improved their geography skills with this map-based game. There were definitely some shameful moments when I had to pick up the blocks slowly to give me enough time to scan the board to find one of the cities. The stand-out feature of this game is that it is a collaborative game, meaning all players work on the same team to “beat the board”. This means that even when the more competitive members of my family enter “beast mode”, their competitiveness is directed at the evil diseases sweeping across the globe, rather than at each other!
The very nature of collaborative games has its own challenges, as dominant players can end up dictating what everyone else does. Particularly when teaching new people how to play, I’ve found myself telling them what the smart move is and then realising I need to “pipe down” and let them learn! However, on its better days, players learn to listen to each other and use their own skills. This is the kind of game that brings the best out of my family and when we win, the cheesy high-fives and cheering makes it worthwhile.
My personal preference is to play this with three or four players, as with two players, it feels a little less balanced. However, that’s just a personal preference and it’s perfectly playable with two people. It does take anything between 40 minutes to an hour for an average game, and almost always ends as a close game. Either a narrow win or a frustrating end where we have the obligatory “if only we had one more round” discussion.
My best compliment to this game is that we have a huge toy chest filled with board games and this sits right near the top. Just under Settlers of Catan!
The first time I ever played Pandemic, was with two other people that had also never played it and the one guy that owned the game and assured us all that, despite our scepticism, we’d enjoy it. To cut a long story short, immediately after having lost that first game, we reset the board and started playing again. We were hooked, and I knew then that I’d have to get a copy for myself.
As for all boardgames, I’d suggest you try it as well before you invest (try searching for board game clubs/meetups in your area, you might be surprised by how many there are, and someone’s bound to have a copy of Pandemic, or alternately there’s an app version on iOS and Android, which, although not free, is still cheaper then the actual board game).
If, however, you’re not able to try the game out, but are still thinking about buying it, then all I can say is that it’s great and I’ve yet to play with anyone (whether a regular board game enthusiast or not) who hasn’t enjoyed it. The co-operative gameplay is a nice contrast to the vast majority of games, and the general difficulty of Pandemic means that there’s a real sense of challenge, with an even greater sense of achievement the first time you and a team of friends do actually win.
As for technical things, like the quality of the board, box, and pieces, or the clarity of the instructions, it’s all brilliant, with nothing at all to fault.
My friend has the original version of this game that comes complete with petri dishes and little glass vials of coloured liquids for the viruses. That version really has the look and feel of a lab curing infections. This version came with little plastic counters instead of the glass vials and there were no petri dishes to hold the small disease cubes. We bought a pack of sofa clear plastic castor cup dia 50mm as a cheap alternative to petri dishes so we could store the disease cubes. There is space in the box to store them. Part of the game involves turning over disease cards. Even though the pack was completely sealed and brand new one of these cards was marked on the back. The point of these cards is you shouldn’t know when they could come up in the game so it spoils the surprise when we see that card on the pile. Despite this we have played the game about 8 times in the time we have had it and still enjoy playing it.
The delivery from the seller was quick and great so this review is no reflection on them it is more on the manufacturers.
teaches quick and efficient strategy, teamwork, basic geography
Perfect as for couples so for whole family as you are not playing against each-other nobody walks away angry from table.
Limited amount of turns depending on how many player play as the player deck runs out of cards before the cures are found the game is lost and that is one of 3 ways to lose the game so you need to develop effective quick tactics on every turn and full cooperation with other players.
There are no dice in the game, you can do up to 4 actions per turn, so the game is very balanced and not purely based on luck.
If you fail to treat an infection in time you risk an outbreak, you can only have 7 outbreaks then its game over when the 8th comes or you risk running out of infection cubes that is the 3rd way to lose the game.
The game board and all pieces are very good quality and very detailed, lovely graphics, only cards and board are from card everything else is in plastic, there are many pieces but you get 2 compartments in the box and all pieces come in separate resealable plastic bags.
Took us 2 people 90minutes to play the 1st time so for experienced players it can be 30-45 minutes if played without expansion sets that are available separately.
There are three levels of difficulty based on how many ‘epidemic’ cards you use. We’re finding the second level (using 5 cards) a good level for us as we need to work hard to win, but still feel we have a chance. It’s pitched right so we usually only JUST win or JUST lose and this makes us want to play it again straight away!
I’ve played with two and three players, but the game allows for up to four people. It’s a great game played with just two players. It’s usually just my boyfriend and I playing and we often find board games don’t work as well with two players as they do with more, but Pandemic works very well and doesn’t require adapting the rules.
It didn’t take too long to understand the rules and because you’re working cooperatively it isn’t too daunting to introduce new people to the game. I’ve introduced this game to someone who plays a LOT of board games as well as someone who hasn’t played a board game since they were a child and both people really enjoyed it.
My only negative comment is that a couple of the player roles are better to play with than others. When I say ‘better’ I don’t necessarily mean it’s easier to win with them, but that they just aren’t as fun to play with. That said if you work together and play to your strengths you can still have a very enjoyable game.
I’d happily suggest this to anyone looking for a new game to play.
Pandemic is a co-operative game that sees players work together to seek to cure and then eradicate a number of diseases that are outbreaking across the globe. Each player plays a different role and each character has different skills depending upon which card they draw at the onset of the game. The aim of the game is to travel the world by moving your character from city to city by various means in order to manage the spread of disease before things get out of hand.
Mechanically speaking, the game is quite straight forward with initial infections being determined by drawing cards at the onset of the game and then further infections taking place at the end of each player’s turn when random city cards are drawn. Players must work together to remove disease cubes whilst collecting cards relating to each of the four specific diseases in order to find a cure. The difficulty can be set by adding greater numbers of ‘epidemic’ cards into the deck, which means that there are more outbreaks and things are a bit faster-paced and more challenging.
This is a great introduction to co-operative gaming. My wife has warmed to board games since we played this and it stops us having to try and outdo each other in competitive play (she is too nice as she sees how frustrated I get when she is unaturally lucky and wins everything we play). Seriously though, whilst competitive gaming is good fun with friends, sometimes it is far better to have co-operative gaming within the family unit.
In terms of quality, the board and box are sturdy and the components are genuinely nice to handle and play with. The cards do get a bit worn given time and a decision will need to be taken as to whether protective sheaths are worthwhile. I would say yes but the game does get some serious playing time at our house. When things get stale and the strategies for each character type have been mastered, make sure you progress onto Pandemic on the Brink .
All in all a strong 5 stars and a glowing recommendation from me. Enjoy…
But I have to say as this was my first board game in 20+ yrs, I was very impressed. Despite being a multidisciplinary PhD student with what I consider to be pretty awesome problem-solving capabilities, I’m really abysmal at learning how to play games. They always seem too complicated! I can’t cope! I get confused and bored very quickly… not to mention that nobody likes feeling like they’re the dumbest person in the room whilst everyone else is losing patience with their ineptitudes… LoL… But that’s how I felt about board games before I met this one.
First off, what’s this? I’m not playing against the people I’m playing with? I am supposed to co-operate? Alright maybe I like to make it sound like I’m a loner, but truth is I’m happiest when everyone is my equal and I am allowed to help and ask for help as part of a team. Second of all, the rules weren’t that complicated, so even *I* was able to follow them and learn them without losing my patience or getting bored (although it helps to have an experienced board gamer to help you take those first baby steps).
Even better, once I started playing, I was able to use the kinds of problem-solving I *am* actually good at (the kind that made me good at doing research), which meant that much to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed playing it too! We’d have beaten the game first time if my husband hadn’t managed to put *all* of the ‘helpful’ cards in cannon at the very bottom of the card deck. We beat it twice more. Granted this was on the easiest setting, and we chose the roles we wanted to learn how to use first, but I was still pretty shocked that my usual ineptitude didn’t screw us over.
If you have an understanding, background or passing interest in pathology I think you’ll find this game interesting. It might annoy you in some ways at first because you may note a couple of differences to real life *but*, it’s actually pretty good when you take a step back and think about it. If you have no grasp of those things or interest in them, I think you’ll still enjoy the game plenty. It’s challenging, it offers everyone a chance to develop problem-solving skills that I consider exceptionally useful and if you’re someone like me who really doesn’t like beating other people but prefers working along side them, you might just love this game to pieces.
Nothing unites like a common enemy after all. 😉
First off the quality of the board and pieces is top notch, the look and feel is lovely and having played it a fair few times now no sign of wear and tear has appeared on any of the pieces or cards.
The game mechanics are simple to understand and each player has access to a card that gives a quick run down of the basic turns rules/actions on a general level as well as any character specific rules on their cards. This neatly means once you’ve played it a couple of times you don’t need to refer back to the manual. Which is nice.
The game has one way to win, which is curing every disease, but many ways to lose which means even when you’re a seasoned player and think you’ve worked out a solid strategy how to win you can be blindsided and lose. The difficulty level of the game can be altered as well using the number of Epidemic cards which is a nice touch so that you can gradually increase the challenge. Also the different player roles make each game different as skills you may have relied on previous games are now unavailable – the random selection process ensures people are forced out of their comfort zone which adds to the variety of the games.
All in all this is a brilliant game to bring people together, especially in a regular group of gamers who spend their time working out ways to screw each other in a desperate attempt to win, you won’t be disappointed to spend an hour playing this.
A cooperative board game is a welcome change from the competitive norm, and Pandemic does it very well. The premise is that the world is being overrun with diseases, and each player is part of a team who must save the day.
Winning the game is never a certainty. It requires you to work together to make difficult decisions, and to research cures for all the diseases. However, you’ve got to balance that with treating the existing infections. If you focus too much on treatment, you could run out of time to make the cures. If you focus too much on research, the infections could spread too far and wipe out humanity.
The mechanic is cleverly designed to give you a different experience each time, with infections spreading and resurfacing in different places. Each player is randomly assigned different specialist skills, which must be put to use if you want to stand a chance of winning. Some combinations of skills work better than others. Having more players means you have more specialist skills in total, but it also means your resources are spread more thinly.
I thoroughly enjoy playing this game. It has a moderately steep learning curve, as there are a lot of things to keep track of. It’s definitely worth it though, and I think anyone who can handle the complexities is likely to enjoy it too.
The rules and play have been covered extensively by other reviewers, so I won’t go too indepth. The game lasts for roughly an hour. Gameplay can often feel tense – more often than not you feel as if the game is one step ahead of you, and as the diseases begin to grow and spiral out of control you can feel feel the heat. If you don’t manage to get it under control before there are so many outbreaks, you will lose the game.
I’ve played this game with different groups, and despite it’s popularity it’s been pretty hit and miss with some folk. Some people can’t get over the presentation or theme. There’s a bigger reason why those people didn’t enjoy it, and why I hated my first game:
Co-operative games like these can sometimes suffer from someone taking the lead. If there’s one player who has played the game quite extensively, it can suffer from that person telling inexperienced players what they should do. Having someone else telling you how to take your turn is dull and ruined my first set of games, but luckily there’s a rule within the game that states that players should not reveal the contents of their hands to one another. This keeps things fairly social and forces players to talk to one another whilst playing.
The only other whinge I have is that sometimes the game seems to be a cakewalk. This comes down to luck of the draw and what characters you get at the start of the game. Sometimes you know if you’re going to have an easy time depending on the characters you’re dealt.
If you’re already this far into the reviews, then you must think that you might enjoy the game in some form. As long as you like strategic games, you can’t go wrong and you should definitely give it a whirl. I’ve yet to get my missus to enjoy it though, so we quite often just play Lord of the Rings instead!
Took the gamble with the whole misprinted board thing, but mine had the Sao Paulo – Lagos link. So I reckon the misprints are very few and far between now.
Sadly my copy took a while to get to me, but that was mostly due to the snow disruption I think.
I’ve played the original version before only a couple of times. But friends have assured me that a few of the subtle changes are decent improvements.
The most obvious differences to me are the appearance. But my friends have noticed the changes with some of the roles and a few other things.
Appearance-wise I think the board looks and feels far better. The quality is a definite improvement. I’m not quite sold on the new smaller plastic blocks which represent the 4 viruses. But I can see why some people like them. I think I prefer the wooden blocks. But I can see that the size of the old wooden blocks did cause issues with blocking the names of the Cities on the board. This seems to happen less now when we play with the new plastic blocks.
For me I would prefer to have the Research Stations painted. But then, what colour would they painted them so as not to be the same colour as player pawns or viruses. I’m seriously tempted to pain them myself, just because I don’t like the clash of painted wooden pieces with plastic virus blocks and then unpainted wooden Research Stations. I would’ve preferred a more universal “painted wood for everything” look.
But all the pieces are certainly functional and doesn’t in any way affect the way the game plays, which in reality is of course the main concern. But if you’re fussed on aesthetics, then these sorts of things could have you constantly scratching your arm until it bleeds, rocking backwards and forwards, mumbling to yourself.
As for the game itself, I’ve always enjoyed Pandemic. I love the gameplay, and the cooperative aspect of the game. I do think there should be more cooperative games out there. I do think this game needs to be played 2-3 times before you finally start to remember all the different ways your pawns can move around the board, and are able to devise game strategies according to your role. The first couple of times you play is hindered slightly by having to learn the mechanics as you go whilst trying to devise a strategy that enables you all to win.
Overall, I’m pleased I’ve finally got myself a copy of Pandemic. I love this game, and how it brings people together to argue (discuss) strategies to collectively win.
Buy it, and save the world.
From the 2008 Edition (and near identical 2012 reprint) there a few changes to components and artwork, plus 2 new player characters, but other than that game play is pretty much the same as before. The 2008 Edition has a more old fashioned feel (that some people like) but this is bit more modern and a little bit more interesting visually (imo). Owners of the original don’t have much reason to update (in my view)
Basically you have to work together to save the world. Every game plays differently and every game is challenging, you wont beat it first time. Play is fairly low on luck so you have to be thinking and planning from the start. I really don’t know what else to say, it is about THE best co-op game out there.
Component quality is reasonable but not outstanding. A lot of plastic components (all 96 disease markers, look funky though) but decent quality board and cards – pretty much what to expect from a modern Z-Man made game. I don’t like the colouring of the player markers (there are 3 that are a different shade of “greenish” and the orange Medic card has a red player marker) and the unpainted Research Stations (why aren’t they painted I wonder?). The Blue colour infection cards are more like purple too, which is slightly annoying if you are sensitive to such things. For those concerned about rumours of faulty boards (the first print run had missing link between Sao Paulo & Lagos) we got our copy from Amazon in early March 2013 and had no issues. If you do have a faulty board email Z-Man and they should send out a new one
If you have only ever played “traditional” board games like Cluedo you really should try Pandemic, though if you are just starting out in the modern co-op genre then Forbidden Island is a little less challenging (and more family friendly, F.I. plays well with younger players from 6 or 7)