#oneaday Day 710: On the Brink

I got a copy of Pandemic and its expansion On The Brink for Christmas. I’ve played Pandemic a few times with my semi-regular board game buddies, but I’ve never owned my own copy until now. (Obviously. Otherwise it’d be a fairly poor choice of gift.) As such, I’ve been taking advantage of actually owning it by playing it a good few times. We had a three player game on Christmas Day, I tried a solo game (me controlling two characters) last night, and Andie and I played (and won!) a two player game this evening.

“But whoa there, hold up, soldier,” I hear you say. “What the hell is this game and why should I care?”

Well, I believe I’ve mentioned it before on this very blog, but I don’t expect you to go digging back through over 700 posts to find it, so allow me to explain. Those of you who already know the game, shush for a minute.

Pandemic is a cooperative game based on, as you may have gathered from the title, attempting to cure a series of particularly nasty diseases which are attacking the world. (The game never gives the diseases names beyond “blue”, “red”, “black” and “yellow” but players inevitably come up with their own interpretation of what each colour represents.) There are four diseases which players must cure in the base game, and the expansion adds a couple of optional scenarios which can introduce a fifth “purple” disease into the mix via various means.

Players win if they cure all four (or five) diseases. This is achieved by collecting cards — the base mechanic is that collecting five cards of the same colour and using them at a research centre allows you to discover a cure of that colour. Cards are acquired either by trading with other players — a somewhat difficult process due to the requirement for both traders to be in the city depicted on the card which is being traded — or drawn at the end of each turn.

Simple enough so far. A twist is added by the fact that each player has a “role” which gives them some form of special ability. The Scientist player, for example, only has to collect four cards of a colour to discover a cure, while the Researcher is able to give any card to a player they share a space with, not just the card depicting the city they’re in.

Alongside this, each turn the diseases spread. The board starts with nine different cities being infected to varying degrees, represented by coloured cubes. Each turn, a number of different cards, also depicting cities, are drawn, and a cube is added to each pictured location. Should a location “overflow” by adding a cube beyond the maximum of three, an “Outbreak” occurs, spreading the disease to all surrounding cities, adding a cube to all of these as well. This can cause chain reactions if players are not careful, so an important part of the game’s strategy is knowing when to focus on getting cards to whoever is working on the cures, and when to travel around the globe treating the most pestilent areas. When players are drawing cards to take into their hands, there’s also the possibility of an Epidemic occurring, meaning one city immediately gets blasted with three cubes’ worth of infection (potentially causing an Outbreak if it’s already infected) as well as reshuffling all of the previously-used Infection cards back together and placing them on top of the unused cards — meaning that previously-infected areas will see the disease spreading again, rapidly spiralling out of control if steps aren’t taken to contain the contagion.

The Outbreaks are an important factor to consider, since if eight of them occur in a game, everyone immediately loses. Everyone also immediately loses if there aren’t enough cubes of a particular colour left in the supply to put on the board (representing the fact that the disease is so out of control it will never be cured) or if the “draw deck”, from which players pull two cards each turn, runs out of cards (representing the team taking too long over their objective). Conversely, the only way to win is to discover all four (or five) cures, though it’s not also necessary to wipe the board clean of cubes. That said, curing then wiping out (or “eradicating”) a disease has a big benefit for players — an eradicated disease never comes back, not even in an Epidemic. (There’s a variant in the On The Brink expansion which allows a disease to come back after being eradicated if it’s been selected as the Virulent Strain, but I haven’t tried this yet.)

If all this sounds complicated, don’t fear. The people I’ve played this with to date have all picked up the mechanics very quickly. It’s actually very straightforward to play and features a nice blend of theme, strategy and luck. There are times when the deck is stacked against you, leading to seemingly unwinnable situations, but the lovely thing about the game is that everything can turn at a moment’s notice. Victory can be snatched from the jaws of defeat — and vice versa. And because everyone’s in it together — this is a cooperative game — it’s a wonderful moment when victory finally comes.

In short, then, if you’re getting in to the world of board games beyond Monopoly, Pandemic is one you should definitely check out. From what I’ve seen so far, the expansion adds a significant amount of good content to the game — the base game can simply be enhanced by the addition of a number of new roles if you’re not feeling confident enough to take on the Virulent Strain, Mutation or Bio-Terrorist challenges — but the basic package will provide you with many hours of fun, whether you’re playing with friends or solo. (Don’t be fooled by that “2-4 players” on the box — you most certainly can play with one or five people, especially with the expansion, but be warned; adding more players to the mix actually makes the game somewhat more difficult.)

Want to know more? The ever-helpful BoardGameGeek has more information than you could ever want.