Bunker Project Log

We had a group of five, but VitaminZ was stranded at work, so we busted out the 4-Player max Pandemic. No offense Z, but we are lucky we started with this game, because it was truly awesome.

The first thing to know is, this is a strictly coop game. The players must work together to defeat four different diseases rampaging across the globe. At the same time, each player is forced to carry out the spread of infection at the end of each turn.

Each player is given a different role at the beginning of the game, which grants him/her special powers against the spreading doom.

Each player’s turn is composed of up to four actions. These actions are mundane, like moving around the map, or special, like discovering a cure for one of the four diseases.

The currency of the game is information in the form of player cards. Which are acquired two at a time after all four actions have been used.

These can be used to travel around the map, or to discover cures. Gathering five of the same colored card allows you to cure that disease. The player with the Scientist role only needs four.

The infection phase is the last part of each player’s turn. At this point, infection cards must be drawn, equal to the number specified on the infection rate chart.

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For each card drawn, an infection cube must be placed on the respective city. This is where the fun begins!

If a city already has three cubes, and you must add another, an outbreak occurs. This causes every connected city to gain a cube. If one of those cities has three cubes, a chain reaction occurs, causing that to outbreak.

In the example below, New York is just begging for a blue outbreak, and Bangkok is ready for a red one.

Every time an outbreak occurs, the outbreak track is increased. At eight outbreaks, the game is lost!

To make matters worse, epidemics are mixed in with the player cards, and are resolved as soon as the player draws one.

These are major setbacks. The first effect is to increase the infection rate track. The second is to pile three disease cubes on a city pulled from the bottom of the infection deck. The third, and most devastating, is the intensify step. Every infection card in the discard pile is shuffled, and then put back on the top of the infection deck, ensuring that already infected cities pop up again and again.

The long and short of it is, the odds are against you, and each move is precious. A calm situation can very rapidly spiral out of control.

What is great about the game is the type of teamwork it inspires. Because every player has a unique role, they must be used appropriately. Red5 was the scientist and could discover cures at a lower cost, so we constantly traded cards with him, often brokered by Markus, who was the Researcher. Mrs. G was the medic, who tirelessly traveled around cleaning up cities on the verge of outbreak. I was the Operations Expert, and honestly… didn’t have much to do. My power was to build research stations without requiring a card for the corresponding city.

Since the map isn’t that big, we didn’t seem to need it that much.

My real role, as unluckiest player on the planet, was to ensure that we got epidemic’d and outbroken nearly every turn. (Everyone needs a core competency!)

And yes, we lost… horribly… on easy.

Anyway, Pandemic is damned good, and if you want to play a team game with tough odds and a pertinent real-world theme, this is for you!