About a month ago, I was out of town and stopped by a local game shop while I was travelling. Turns out they had Small World and Pandemic, both new and unopened, for 20% off. Needless to say, I picked both of them up. We were travelling out of town for the weekend to see some of my family, and we decided that either of these games would be easier for them to pick up than the Game of Thrones LCG.
Since my wife has more patience for learning cooperative games, we opened up Pandemic first. I played an introductory game myself, using four pawns and playing as all of them myself, to get a feel for the game before teaching it to Katie. I was way too carried away with treating the diseases rather than curing them, and I ran out of cards with one disease left to cure. I also did not have a good grasp on how the pawns/players interacted with each other with their abilities, one of the most important aspects of the game. It was not a whole lot of fun, but of course, the game's not meant to be played that way, and it was just a learning experience for me.
The components are kinda cheap, but I have been pretty spoiled with Days of Wonder products lately. I miss the over-sized boards, as Pandemic's world map feels quite cramped and crowded.
The first game with Katie went quite well. She randomly drew the Dispatcher, and was quite thrilled since she wanted the pink guy anyway. I randomly drew the Medic, conveniently enough, and I figured the two would mesh quite nicely. The initial infection set-up left widespread disease in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and South America, with the worst being centered around Osaka and Seoul. Being the medic, I headed out to cure the build-up of two-three disease cubes in Asia, and Katie headed south to fight diseases in Mexico City. We both started with rather fortunate hands, her picking up three reds/oranges within her first couple of turns and me picking up three blues. Thanks to her dispatch ability, we were able to meet up and trade cards and get the diseases for those two cure quickly.
We set off all four epidemics going through the player draw deck, but were fortunate enough that our single outbreak occurred in Madrid, sending blue cubes from Europe into South America, Africa, and North America. Though this did mix in some blue cubes with the yellow and black, it did not cause a chain reaction and we were able to get the mess cleaned up fairly easily.
We were pretty lucky as far as Special Event card draws go. I had the card that let you rearrange the top six Infection cards, and was able to ensure that no outbreaks would go off after our most precarious Epidemic. I also ended up with the card (Government Grant?) that lets you drop a research center in any city to help set up one of the cures. Other than that, there was a lot of dispatching back and forth.
We were sitting at three cured diseases (one of which was eradicated), no more epidemics left in the deck, and knew the cards were getting low. I had four yellows and needed just one more, but Katie and I had both discarded some yellows earlier in the game to make room in our hand for other cards, so we were worried that they might all be gone. On Katie's turn, she draws Miami while she's sitting in Atlanta, with seven cards left in the draw pile. My turn, treat a few leftover disease hotspots in the Middle East, draw cards, five cards left. Katie's turn again, she drives to Miami, dispatches me to her location, trades me Miami, and draws two cards. On my turn, I drive to Atlanta and cure yellow to win the game, with just three cards left in the draw pile.
We both had a lot of fun. I certainly enjoy Dominion and Memoir '44 more, amongst others. I am not sure if that's because I prefer direct interaction against each other or if I would prefer a different type of cooperative game. As much as Katie loved this cooperative game though, we'll definitely be picking up others in the future, and we'll find out if it's just this game or cooperative games in general that I'm ho-hum about. Katie raved for a little while after our game about how much she enjoyed it, so I think this may be a new favorite for her. Her only complaint the whole night was that the board seemed really small.
Fast forward another week, Pandemic was one of the games that we brought on the trip to see family. We played an introductory game (only four epidemic cards) with four players, and as the fifth player, I sat on the sidelines and took on the role of bad guy by handling all of the infection cards at the end of everyone's turn.
Katie was the Medic, my brother-in-law was the Operations Manager, my sister was the Researcher, and my mom was the Dispatcher. It was really quite interesting to be on the sidelines and watch how everyone interacted throughout the game. At first nobody was communicating, just running around and doing their own thing. A couple of back-to-back outbreaks following the first epidemic set everyone into a panic and got them all talking back and forth. They began planning a turn or two ahead to prevent further outbreaks. At one point, you would have thought they were literally trying to save the world, as tensions ran high with quick tempers. I found it quite entertaining, though I think it was rather stressful for the folks playing the game.
After a slow start, they cured yellow and black, had five red cards in one person's hand and four blues in another person's hand, with a turn and a half left to win the game when the eighth outbreak hit, causing everyone to lose. The final outbreak came courtesy of one of the diseases they had already cured, but not cleaned up after. They would have been within a turn of running out of cards, but nonetheless won had it not been for that outbreak. A very tight and close game.
Pandemic is not a favorite game of mine, but I must admit that it makes for a terrific social experiment. The game was also moving at a snail's pace, each turn was running about 10 minutes long. Probably a necessary evil to be successful in the game with this group of people, and had they started the plodding pace of plotting earlier on, they probably would have won. Still, with such a long game, I don't know if it would have been worth the win. All of my family seemed to agree that, while quite an experience, it was much too stressful and they'll probably pass on playing it in the future.
Two-player games, at least with just Katie and I, run much quicker and Pandemic games in general seem to be easier with fewer player anyway. This will still see some playing time with just the two of us, but I don't think we'll reintroduce it to the casual board gaming crowd any time soon.
