It’s appropriate that someone deeply immersed in the field of “transcription fidelity in bacteria using genetics”, should present me a board game that involves fighting global outbreaks of deadly diseases! Pandemic from Z-Man Games (Canada), is a 2-4 player, 45 minutes thriller.
We know the drill from Hollywood thrillers: Deadly strains of virus strike ruthlessly. The charming little girl next door dies. Entire cities under quarantine! The army imposes a curfew. Medical crews rush around harried, and always short of life-saving drugs. And a small, dedicated team of experts, comes together against impossible odds, and finally saves the world!
So it is in Pandemic. The world is our stage. Disease spreads across major cities. Players around the board do not compete against each other, instead, they collaborate to save humanity. A win, is fighting back four terrible diseases, before we run out of play counters, or the “outbreak indicator” reaches level eight. With the player who fell ill most recently going first, we begin by drawing “infection cards”, and infecting some cities. Playing assigned roles, action moves, special events, and epidemic cards keep the game on a non-stop maximum alert!
Pandemic involves absorbing complex play instructions: Set up “research stations”, discover cures to killer diseases, strategise a co-ordinated fight back. The play happen at varying levels. You feel a grip of reality, as you find yourself battling outbreaks closer to home, in cities of India.
The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com [1]
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