Pandemic, The Game that Reminds you to Wash Your Hands
(With congested voice) "I recently caught the cold, *cough, cough*, and what better time, since we're talking about Pandemic, *KOFF! Seriously I'm fine - sniff." Pandemic is a co-op game. The mechanics of a co-operative game is that every player wants to achieve the same goal. Either, every player wins, or every player loses. The theme of Pandemic should be obvious. Again, if you don't know what pandemic means, you should seriously read more books. In the game, every player is trying to defeat diseases from multiple epidemics trying to avoid a worldwide Pandemic. For the instructions, here's video made the company of Pandemic, ZMAN Games.
For game play, here's another video by Geek and Sundry with Wil Wheaton.
The game takes like forty minutes, and the only way to win is to discover four cures for four different diseases. Sounds easy, but there are three ways to lose. 1, if the player deck runs out. 2, if there are too many outbreaks. 3, one color of the cube completely runs out. Teamwork is essential. Trust, me you need every person to play there. If one person doesn't do anything, just throw out your hope for victory. The game has this awesome way of changing emotion. For example, in one turn you might discover a cure and celebrate for a brief moment, but at the same time, there can be a massive outbreak leading closer to failure. I like the design especially the 2013 edition with a beautiful picture from Matt Leacock. The cards are well made, and the board is just great. The gameplay has a perfect of a mixture of hand management (when a player uses cards in a certain sequence or ways that reward players) and set collection (when a player collects certain items like cards or pieces) The unique thing about the game is the theme. The game gives you so much pressure. It pushes players to work together quickly and efficiently before time runs out. Admittedly, it does have its faults. Veteran players will most likely lead the entire team. Here is a conversation you'll often see in you one of your games.
"You do this, and you do that. Then I'll do this, and you discover a cure."
"Why do I have to do this? I don't have to listen to you!"
"Yeah, you're a noob; if you listen to me, we will win!"
"Well, this game sucks. I'm leaving."
Bang!!!
"You - you shot him!"
"Hey sit down. We'll finish our game, and deal with this later."
"But, he's dead! You killed him."
"Shut up. Shut up!"
. . . . . . . . . I think I went too far with this joke. I'm just going to end it. Another problem with the game is if a player isn't contributing enough, he/she (gender equality. I don't know why I have to mention this.) will probably feel left out and get bored with the game. The game can get exciting, but if one of the players isn't into the gameplay, it becomes dull. One of you will probably realize that you're just a bunch of adults (or teens) sitting at a table looking at a board with pieces. Then everyone leaves out of awkwardness. Don't ever think like this; it'll ruin the gameplay for everyone. In the end, I absolutely love this game. I'd like to recommend Pandemic for everybody, but I can't. Pandemic looks stunning, but I couldn't play it with anybody. Nobody did anything while we played Pandemic making the game stale. If you have friends who are very assertive, I highly recommend Pandemic for you. In fact, I'm trying to get Pandemic Legacy, but I need support. If you'd like to, please donate as much you can. Any contribution would be gladly accepted. Until next time, Bye *koff, koff*