Pandemic (board game)

Pandemic (board game)

The box cover of Pandemic, 1st edition
Designer(s)	Matt Leacock
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Cappel (graphics and illustration), Régis Moulun (cover painting), Chris Quilliams (2013 edition)
Publisher(s)	Z-Man Games Κάισσα Hobby Japan
Players	2-4 (5 with On the brink expansion)
Age range	10+
Setup time	10 min
Playing time	45 min
Random chance	Moderate
Skill(s) required	tactics, cooperation, logic, logistics

Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games in 2008.

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 2 to 4 players, each playing one of five possible specialists: (dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher or operations expert). The game is unlike most boardgames as the gameplay is cooperative, rather than competitive. 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.

An expansion, Pandemic: On the brink co-designed by Matt Leacock and Tom Lehmann, adds several new roles and special events, and rules adjustments to allow a fifth player. In addition, several rules expansions are included, referred to as "challenge kits".

Gameplay

The goal of Pandemic is for the players, in their randomly selected roles, to work cooperatively to stop the spread of four diseases and cure them before a pandemic occurs. Pandemic setup consists of a game board representing a network between cities on the map of the Earth, two decks of cards (Player cards and Infection cards), four colors of cubes (each representing a different disease), six Research Stations, and a pawn for each player. The Player cards include cards with each city name (same as on the board), Special Event cards that can be played at specific times to take beneficial actions, 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 which are kept face up throughout the game.

On each turn, a player can take 4 actions which consists of any combination of the following:

• Movement, either between interconnected cities (car and ferry travel), to a city that the player holds that Player card of (direct flight), or to any city if the player is currently in one of the cities they hold the card of (charter flight). The latter two options require the player to discard the city card. A player at a research lab can also travel to any other research lab on the board.
• Sharing information with another player by being at the same city as that player and either giving or receiving the Player card representing that city.
• Treating one unit of infection from a city the player is presently in, removing a cube from that city.
• Constructing a research lab in a city that the player holds the city card for (discarding that card afterwards)
• Finding the cure by being in a city with a research lab and holding 5 Player cards of the same color. Finding a cure does not stop further infection of that disease until all cubes of that color are removed from the board; from then on, drawing an Infection card of a color that is eradicated will result in no change to the board's state.

On conclusion of the turn, the player draws two Player cards, discarding their hand down to seven cards. If either draw is an Epidemic card, the player places three cubes on the city from the bottom of Infection deck, puts that card into the Infection discard pile, reshuffles the discard pile, and places it back on top of the Infection deck. After the two Player cards are drawn (epidemic or no), a number of Infection cards are revealed 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 more cube of that color; this can create a chain reaction across many cities if several are already have three disease cubes on them.

The game is over if any of the following occur:

• More than 7 Outbreaks occur - a loss for the players.
• There are no more cubes of the specific disease color when they are needed during Infection or Epidemic - a loss for the players.
• There are no more Player cards to be drawn - a loss for the players.
• The players discover the cure for all four diseases - a victory for the players.

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

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.

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 puts one player against the rest of the team.

The challenges include fifth disease - "Mutation", which should 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

A second expansion is planned for release in 2013 with a new game board that allows players to move the pawns in a laboratory. The goal of this activity is the same as in the base game – finding cures for diseases – but this time in a new way. Players can also use new characters and new special events included with the expansion. In the Lab requires the 2nd edition(s) of Pandemic (and On the Brink), or the 1st edition(s) with Compatibility pack #1 (and Compatibility pack #2).

New editions and compatibility packs

A 2nd edition of Pandemic was released in 2013, with new artwork and two new characters: the contingency planner and the quarantine specialist. Some prints of the 2nd edition had an error with a missing line between Lagos and São Paulo and edge to edge printing on cards.

A 2nd edition of the On the Brink expansion will also be released on June 26, 2013.

Compatibility pack #1 updates the 1st edition of Pandemic to its 2nd edition. Compatibility pack #2 updates the 1st edition of the On the Brink expansion to its 2nd edition. The In the Lab expansion (released after the 2nd editions of Pandemic and On the brink) requires the 2nd edition(s), or the 1st edition(s) along with its compatibility pack(s).

Awards

• GAMES Magazine – Best new family game 2009
• Golden Geek Award – Best expansion 2009 (for Pandemic: On the brink)

Research

Pandemic has also been the subject of empirical published research studies as an example of a non-computer based activity that involves distributed Computational thinking.

External links

• Pandemic news page on Facebook
• Pandemic product page at Z-Man games
• Pandemic rules book, 1st edition
• Pandemic at BoardGameGeek
• Pandemic on TableTop 14.