About This Game Welcome to Pandemic Express - Zombie Escape! We've played a lot of Zombie Escape-style mods, and wanted to make something standalone, and on a large scale. Up to 20 players spawn in a large world. One of them gets randomly infected, and has to spread the infection turning everyone into zombies. The ongoing global pandemic is impacting the way people consume board games, and also how people make them. Check out our end-of-year roundup for more on how COVID-19 will change the tabletop. May 06, 2020 The game has been popular during the coronavirus pandemic, according to its original designer, Matthew Leacock. Google Trends data shows that searches for 'Pandemic board game' reached an all-time. PANDEMIC: THE BOARD GAME sends a team of up to four disease experts to stop four deadly diseases from spreading out of control. The game requires a team of at least two, although a single player can just control two or more teammates, since it's cooperative.
The best thing most of us can do to fight the global pandemic is nothing: stay home, stay safe, public health officials implore.
There's one place where that's not the case. In the board game Pandemic, players work as a team to fight the spread of disease across the globe. As a quarantine activity, knocking off 'disease cubes,' playing the necessary cards for a cure, and getting to 'eradication,' is deeply satisfying. It simulates some sense of power and control in a fictional version of our own reality. And thanks to a digital adaptation, you can play the cooperative game with friends from a distance.
The game has been popular during the coronavirus pandemic, according to its original designer, Matthew Leacock. Google Trends data shows that searches for 'Pandemic board game' reached an all-time high in March 2020. It has all been a bit overwhelming for Leacock, especially considering his personal circumstances: Leacock's wife came down with coronavirus in February.
'In my mind pandemics were things that theoretically could happen, somewhere, sometime. But it’s now all very real.'
'Personally, this has all been very strange for me,' Leacock told Mashable over email. 'When I first started designing the game in 2004, in my mind pandemics were things that theoretically could happen, somewhere, sometime. But it’s now all very real: Our family was affected in February when my wife came down with it. She’s recovered now, but it very quickly brought the reality of the situation into sharp focus.'
Here's how Pandemic works: The board is a map of the world, with cities from Riyadh to Buenos Aires to Atlanta (the CDC headquarters) connected by a web around the globe. As you turn over 'city cards,' those cities get 'infected,' which you signify with disease cubes. If a city gets four disease cubes, it causes an outbreak to every other city it touches. The aim of the game is to cure all four diseases (red, blue, yellow, and black) by collecting cards of that color, before a certain amount of outbreaks. It's a rare board game where your opponent is the game, not the players. Playing involves strategic coordination to move yourself around the globe, build 'research stations,' collect and share cards with other players, and cure and eradicate diseases. It's complicated, but fun, if you're into that sort of thing.
SEE ALSO: 7 of the best board games for interactive play
In the past, friends and I played the game from time to time, but we thought nothing of it. That changed when news of coronavirus started breaking through in early 2020.
I first played Pandemic the board game in the time of coronavirus at the very beginning. Before mandatory social distancing and stay-at-home orders were in place, but while coronavirus was percolating in Italy, in Tom Hanks' lungs, in the NBA. It felt like a cheeky thing to do. My fiancé, sisters-in-law, and I sat on the floor around the coffee table in the living room, and we tittered at the irony, greeting the unknown of a pandemic with mocking jest. We didn't know yet that that was the last time we'd be able to see each other for weeks, and weeks, and weeks.
We didn't bust it out again, mostly because, well, we didn't have people to play with. Besides, the seriousness of the situation made the idea of playing a game version of a pandemic less appealing.
Now, nearly two months into social distancing and with reopening plans in the works, that feeling has softened. Some friends discovered that there is an online version of the game, available on Steam, that works really well. One person has to buy it, but then you can invite remote friends to play once you start a game. My friends and I each used one computer for game play, and another computer for a video call, so we could play 'together.' (You could also get the same effect if you have multiple monitors or just listen to each other via Discord voice chat on your phone or in another tab while playing on your computer.)
I was surprised at how it felt..satisfying. Removing disease cubes in Milan was empowering. When we were able to gather enough cards to cure the 'yellow' disease, a 'DISEASE CURED' image popped up on the screen with a giant checkmark. It felt good, almost like doing something. There was also some sadness: If only 'curing' a disease were as easy as working together to collect cards. But the bittersweetness of success was more of a victorious rush than it was depressing.
Leacock gets how playing the board game in the time of an actual pandemic can be a bit of an emotional double edged sword. However, he hopes that people who do choose to play his game while social distancing can find some encouraging lessons within it.
'I totally get that some people would rather avoid the title — we’re inundated with news about the pandemic after all — but I’ve also been encouraged to hear that it’s given some people a way to talk about what’s going on, or have even used it as a way to fight back against the disease (if only in the game),' Leacock said. 'I also think the theme it promotes — that we all need to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate together to overcome a worldwide threat — is appropriate at a time like this.'
Pandemic is obviously just a game. At the very least, playing the virtual version will give you something fun and challenging to do with your friends. But maybe, as you remove those cubes, build research stations, and find a cure, you too might feel something more.
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You can find Pandemic on Steam here, which you can buy for $9.99. You can order the physical game here.
UPDATE: May 6, 2020, 5:53 p.m. EDT Pandemic creator Matt Leacock has released rules and a guide for how to play a tournament style game of Pandemic over Zoom. More remote world saving fun, hooray!
Before we lived with the reality of a global disease outbreak, Pandemic was just the title of a popular series of board games. In the time leading up to the lockdown, game stores noted interest in the Pandemic games had increased.
Games in the series have been regular fixtures in the Amazon board games top ten lists for a decade and Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is second on the BoardGameGeek user rankings. Australian sales have reportedly surged since isolation began.
Why have players turned towards a game about the very thing they are seeking to avoid in real life? Pandemic is providing more than entertainment – helping players think through problems creatively, focus, adapt and reflect on serious issues.
Since ancient times
Ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote the earliest games were created to help people cope with long term woes.
Pandemic Game Online Browser
In the reign of Atys the son of Manes their king there came to be a grievous dearth over the whole of Lydia; and the Lydians for a time continued to endure it, but afterwards, as it did not cease, they sought for remedies; and one devised one thing and another of them devised another thing. And then were discovered, they say, the ways of playing with the dice and the knucklebones and the ball … These games they invented as a resource against the famine … on one of the days they would play games all the time in order that they might not feel the want of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and had food: and thus they went on for 18 years.
We invoke this history when we take the benefits of board games seriously and understand the skills they can cultivate.
These benefits can include coping and well-being skills developed from games’ social problem solving experiences. The Victorian government is even interested in looking at how “gamification” can provide specific health gains, for example, using consoles to motivate physical rehabilitation exercises or using games to test kids’ hearing.
Much of the research has focussed on video games such as Minecraft, but the recent rise in popularity of board games means these too deserve closer attention.
Games such as Pandemic have led a resurgence in board gaming as an adult pastime, bolstered by a desire for authentic social experiences, disenchantment with online gaming (and trolls) and the proliferation of board game cafes.
Playing Pandemic
Pandemic was created by Matt Leacock, a former Chicago graphic designer who developed the idea after the SARS epidemic of 2003. The first Pandemic game was published in 2008 and was at the crest of the wave of new board games for adults. It is a game for 2–4 players and can be completed within an hour.
The game creator has said part of the game’s appeal is the way it “offers escalating moments of hope and fear that really draw you and your team in”.
There are no dice involved although there is a randomised deck of cards that models the spread of the viruses across a global map. Significantly it is a cooperative game where the players must work together against the game, to collectively make hard decisions about strategy. Each turn requires an allocation of limited resources – to stop outbreaks, create research centres, research a cure or focus on global mobility.
Though there are no official rules for doing so, some discussion boards outline ways to play Pandemic solo – making it ideal for isolation.
Back in the official version, players take on the roles of different specialists, including the scientist, the medic, the dispatcher and others. Each of these roles provides a specific power that allows them to break the rules of the game in an interesting way, giving each member of the team a distinctive niche, encouraging plenty of replay in order to find out how they all work.
Pandemic Board Game Online
While not the first cooperative game, it led the demand for new non-adversarial games. The popularity also came from the contemporary theme that appeals to a broader audience outside of fandom communities; there are no wizards or spaceships on the box art. Pandemic has been used in training settings and can be a useful way to introduce epidemiology in the classroom and challenge conventional ideas about globalised systems.
Expansion sets (additional cards and components bought separately) add more complexity, new roles and tougher viruses. There are standalone variants that use the game’s escalation models to challenge barbarian hordes attacking ancient Rome, battle rising floodwaters of industrial age Holland and even counter the sinister rise of Cthulhu cultists.
The most significant variant is the Pandemic Legacy games, which takes place in two “seasons” like television drama. Each Legacy season is made up of a series of games where events and consequences carry over to the next. Legacy games involve permanent changes to the board, introduction of new game elements and even asking the players to tear up certain cards.
Why now?
So why, when confronted with the reality of a pandemic would we be reassured by a game that eerily foreshadowed COVID-19? It’s not like the game trivialises the problem. Pandemic presents problems as complex, requiring changing strategies but ultimately presents a solution via cooperation and clever planning.
Playing the game at home might provide a chance at creating order out of a crisis. We can feel reassured wicked problems require evolving strategies, setbacks may be temporary and provide routes to more creative solutions. Games provide a safe environment in which to manage complex systems and deal with ill-defined problems.
The popularity of games such as Pandemic have led to the creation of new games with serious themes and spaces for creative problem solving. The King’s Dilemma explores complex ramifications of political dealmongering. Holding On: the Troubled Life of Billy Kerr looks at palliative care.
Whether we play them as families and roommates, via video conferencing, or tabletop simulators, board games can help us distract ourselves from the isolation of lockdowns and social distancing, but they also have potential to make us think about the challenges our world is facing.
As for Pandemic creator Matt Leacock, he’s working on a possible game about the climate crisis. Stay tuned.