Pandemic is a cooperative board game where between two to four players take on the challenge to cure the world from infection before it spreads all across the world.
Win condition: Discover all four cures in time.
Lose states (any of these will on its own end the game)
- All cubes of one color are on the game board at the same time
- 8 outbreaks in total
- No more player cards left to draw
Gameplay Basics
In order to win the game, the players have to travel between cities and remove infection cubes to win time to develop all four cures. Once a cure is discovered for a particular color, the cubes of that color will be easier to eradicate and thereby a positive feedback loop is created. The players’ economy is four action points to spend at each turn as well as player cards which they can either use for long distance travel or collecting in order to make a cure.
The players are given unique roles in the beginning of the game in which the player has an edge in a particular action. The scientist for example only needs four player cards of a color in order to develop a cure instead of the default requirement of five cards.
Our group played through about five sessions in total. The first two times we lost by too many outbreaks. We managed to win after that, but with very close margins. The last playthrough we won at the very last player turn possible. After that we would’ve lost due to no player cards left.
The best and worst sides to the game
+ Cooperative play
To cooperate and play against the game together with everyone else lowers the risk of bad feelings and arguments between the players. Of course, there will be a margin of exceptions due to people handling team work differently, so I say this in a generalizing manner comparing to the risk of ill feelings toward each other in comparison to competitive games. Problem solving through group discussion is a common occurrence in the everyday life of many people and Pandemic definitely encourages practicing this skill.
+ Well balanced for a varying number of players
We played through the game both with four and two players to see if we noticed any remarkable difference in how it played out. We quickly realized that the difficulty was close to the same no matter if you were two or four players. The core system of how the infections spread after each players’ turn is unaffected by the number of players and therefor is naturally balanced. We found two elements that could make a two player session easier to win. One of them is having an ideal combination of two roles which can be used to their maximum capacity due to the players having their turn more often. The second factor is based on a social level, as team work is theoretically more easily manageable the less people there are in a team.
– Co-op shortens length of replay value
Competitive games allow for an element of unpredictable events since you play against another human being and not a system. This usually makes the replay value of a game longer. Since Pandemic is not competitive, a limited amount of events can happen and the pattern of the game is quickly learned by the player. This most likely shortens the length of how long the game will feel fresh and interesting. At around play session four, the group agreed that it started to feel a bit repetitive.
– Freedom of action causes confusion
From one viewpoint, one could say that the amount of freedom the player gets is one of the most interesting features in the game. Although, I noticed how the group could not go through a whole round of turns without someone struggling with what kind of move they should make. The possibilities were so wide and the feedback from the game was so discrete that players often struggled with knowing what to do next and having a fixed goal to strive towards all the time. If the infection level was low there was just no other clear goal to strive towards except doing anything to let the game progress. If an experienced group played with a thoroughly planned strategy this wouldn’t be a problem, but due to the short replay value of the game not many players feel like taking it that far. The lack of clear indications in what one should do next brings the game to a halt and takes down the level of enthusiasm and in other words; the level of fun.
The Core Game System: Infection Cube Spreading Pattern
The infection increases after each player’s turn and is the main challenge that they are fighting against in order to discover the cures in time. It’s defined by a system of how infection stacks and spreads across the map. This system is an abstraction of an opponent and once the players have discovered an effective way to tackle the system, they basically have learned how to beat the game.
Infection Cubes
Properties: The cubes are divided into four different colors. The placement of these cubes – both in the game world and outside of it – indicates how the game is going.
Behavior: The cubes can stack to up to three of the same color per location and after that spread around the location.
Relationships: The cubes have close relationships to the Cities, the City Connectors and the Infection cards. The Infection Cards direct where cubes will be added after each players’ turn. If no more cubes can be added to the specific location, an outbreak is triggered. If an outbreak should happen, the cubes follow the City Connectors to all the Cities adjacent to the outbreaking City. The Outbreak event behaves in a way that feels similar to how disease can spread in the real world and therefor feels organic.
Outbreak Marker
Properties: The Outbreak Marker has a unique type of look and placement in the game world.
Relationship: It moves one step forward at every outbreak and if it reaches the end of its scale the game is lost.
Infection Rate Marker
Properties: The Infection Rate Marker has a unique look and placement in the game world to communicate the Infection Rate to the players.
Relationship: The marker tells how many infection cards should be drawn after each players turn. The marker moves forward one step if an Epidemic Card is drawn.
Infection Cards
Properties: The Infection Cards are attributed with one of the four colors, a city and a placement in the game world. The cards can either be in the draw pile, yet to be drawn by the players, or discarded if they have been used.
Cities
Properties: Each City is given a color, a unique name and a placement in the game world.
Relationship: The Cities work as containers for Infection Cubes and are connected by City Connector for the Infection to spread.
City Connections
Properties: Red lines which are located in the game world to make connections between Cities.
Epidemic Card
Properties: These cards have a unique look and are evenly located in the Player Card pile.
Behavior: Triggers an Epidemic and is immediately discarded.
Relationship: When an Epidemic is triggered, three cubes are added to a City. The Infection Card on the bottom of the draw pile directs which City that is. The Infection Rate Marker moves forward one step.
A basic excel sheet over the relationships of the objects involved in the core system.
The most interesting system:: The “Dispatcher” Player Role
The Dispatcher is one of the unique roles that a player can have and its special ability is that it can move other player pawns as if they were his/her own. It can also move the pawns to the same City as the Dispatcher’s pawn. This gives a much wider amount of different actions that the Dispatcher can spend its points on, both for good and bad. I’d say that this role is more complicated than the others to understand and master. It takes to play through a few games with the role in order to learn how to apply winning strategies to it.
Target Group Interpretation
The game is targeted for players aged ten years and up and I’d like to say that I agree that it’s a suitable age range. Personally I’d like to see a lot of ten year olds play the game with their friends and families in order to practice their skills in problem solving through team work. The earlier one can start practicing those skills the better. However, I feel like some aspects of the game – mostly referring to the Dispatcher role – are a bit too complicated for the casual form of playing that the ordinary family would be having. It takes more effort that one gets back in positive feedback in my opinion and might risk falling short for some players that aren’t patient enough.
Summation
Pandemic has a solid core system in how the infection spreads on the game world unaffected by the number of players. Its gameplay encourages discussion between the players and develops ones team work and problem solving skills. And if the game is beaten, everyone is a winner. In today’s society where digital competitive games are all the rage and people often individually sit in front of their screens, this might be a very useful and refreshing game for players to try playing.
The game has its weak spots in the design which can cause complications and confusion for some, such as the wide freedom of action – especially if playing with a Dispatcher. It might be the developer’s way in trying to create a deeper gameplay to make the replay value longer. Since the core system quickly risks becoming predictable and repetitive, I don’t think deepening other aspects make it much better.
Ida Lahti Student Log 
This was a good and interesting analysis, the flow was good and you kept it fresh. Everything felt relevant and I noticed that you had put a lot of time into this analysis. The conclusions you have come to are well motivated and it does really seem to be your sincere thoughts about your game that are written down here.
The strength and weaknesses from my perspective
I do strongly agree with the social part, and also with the problems that the cooperation introduce. Another problem I’ve also reflected around is the chance that one of the players will take a more commanding role, thus forcing the other players to do actions without taking their opinions in mind.
I also agree with the fact that the game is well balanced for a varied amount of players, but I didn’t agree with it being one of the strongest sides of the game. What I would rather see here is the cure/eradication system. That system gives the game a lot of its depth with the several states that a disease can be in.
The reasoning behind this is that even if the balancing is great, the cure/eradication system is a much more prevalent feature that’ll be noticed in every playthrough instead of just in the playthroughs where you vary the amount of players.
The weaknesses of the game that you picked is something that i don’t agree with. The points you make about cooperation are valid, but from my point of view that’s not the case. The cooperation rather makes the gameplay more interesting and vibrant and makes sure that no session will be the same. The points you make about unpredictability that competitive games is also what cooperative gameplay gives as well. This might not be true in the lowest difficulty where you may show your hand to the other players, but in the higher difficulties the hands are not shown and therefore you’ll not know in what position the other players are in. Even if verbal communication is allowed in the game, as a player it’ll still be hard to keep track of the others hands and the strategies formed will be less solid, giving the game a greater possibility of throwing you out of track.
The freedom of action that you have is for me one of the greater strengths of the game. It provides the players, together with the cooperation, a very strategic gameplay where the players really are in control of what’s going on. The arguments about how the freedom causes confusion is valid in one way, but not really important in this application. The freedom is as i said before the mayor feature that gives the game it’s strategical strength and rewards players for creating plans and changing them to follow the pace of the game. When the team is confused the focus should be about how you could prepare for the next severe outbreak, and when you are overtaxed the focus should be on how to minimise the damage. With this in mind, the planned strategies are not the important ones, rather the groups capability of creating new ones on the fly.
Core game system
Here you are rather spot on. The core game system is properly identified and the relationships are described in the correct extent. I would also say that the same system is the core one, so my here everything is as I’d done it. Also extra points for the nice little excel graph!
The most interesting system
The dispatcher is surely the most interesting system in the game, and as you said, it provides great possibilities for the players. It’s actually rather beautiful how this role can make sure that everyone really is in the spot they need to be in and shape the strategies after where the plagues are, and not after where the players are. It’s also interesting how it synergises with the medic role in a way where you can use your turn to eradicate already cured diseases via moving the medic around while you just stand still.
To go back to what I wrote earlier, this also proves that the cooperation provides great means for new experiences every playthrough. When you have players who can move others around, they might start moving the teammates around with a plan that isn’t communicated properly, thus throwing the current plan out of the bin and forcing a new one to take place.
Target Audience
I don’t think that that 10 and the ages around that is the appropriate age group. This game might be rather to understand in its basics and provide them in a way that it’s eligible for 10 year olds to play it, but with the mechanics in mind, the game seems to be focus to players who are around 15+ and have a rather good sense of problem solving and adaptation.
As the game focuses on the ability to communicate and that the group together can solve the problems without showing everyone everything that they have access to, the game is best played when you are little more mature than ten year olds.
This game is rather broad in what kind of people would like to play it. The casual players will be attracted to the rapidly changing gameplay and the constant uncertainty of the final outcome, while more hardcore players will be interested in the strategic depth that the game provides to the players.
Summary
This was a really good analysis where a lot of different points were made and augmented for. I didn’t agree with all of them, but that’s more subjective than objective and in the end the experience changes between everyone who plays it.
The points that you provided was also backed up by solid argument that made it hard to argue against them. Dependant if this was seen as an objective or subjective analysis this might have been a little too much subjective and too much about how you played the game, rather than how it could be played.