Pandemic Board Game (Base Game) | Family Board Game | Board Game for Adults and Family | Cooperative Board Game | Ages 8+ | 2 to 4 players | Average Playtime 45 minutes | Made by Z-Man Games

I love this game because you win or lose together. It is very fitting for the times now that we are living in a pandemic. one of the best things about this game is you can play it by yourself by playing 4 different people cooperating to save the world.

I love this game and have gotten several of the expansions for it. It’s different every time you play and you can make it as easy or challenging as you like. I love that you play as a team and not against everyone else.

Our family Christmas gift theme was strategic board games. We purchased several of the highest rated games and this is easily our favorite. Incredible game! We cant recommend it enough. Your role and the epidemic location change with each game, so its like youre playing a new game every time you set it up. Again, we cant recommend it enough. Its our go-to game.

My boyfriend and I just cant play competitive games against each other. They always end with one of us gloating and the other glowering, muttering profanities under their breath. So, we decided that wed try to find a good cooperative game. Unfortunately, good two-player coop games are tough to come by. Thats why were so happy to have found Pandemic. Its you against the board WITH your partner (up to four people). The game is really easy to catch on to; after playing through the first few moves, we both got the hang of it. You definitely dont need to be a hugely experienced boardgame player to enjoy it. There are tons of small parts and nuances to each game, so I do recommend limiting the game to 10 years old and up. Expect your first game to last 90 minutes with the learning curve, but that time will quickly reduce to an hour or so after you understand how to play the game. Set up takes five minutes. Overall, the game is replayable and thoroughly enjoyable. My boyfriend and I are both not super great at it (yet), but I would much rather be conquering this game WITH him than tearfully conceding another game TO him. At least, now, I have a chance.

Such a fun game! The variety of roles and difficulty levels allows every game to be different! So far weve played it with 2 and with 4 people and its been a blast! Its fun to have a game where you have to strategize as a team to beat the board, rather than beating each other. Played this with my in-laws over Christmas and it was a hoot! Definitely a new favorite! 5 stars!!! Highly reccomend!

We love this game. We will get into a groove of playing it several nights in a row. Its so much fun to play a collaborative game. This games mechanic is perfect--it seems like every time we play it comes down to the wire for us, whether we win or the game wins. Because you can be different characters and the starting board changes, its never the same game twice. I like that you can adjust the difficulty. Some nights I just want to save the world, so we adjust the difficulty to make it easier. This is just an super fun, intense, well-designed game that is easy to learn and addictive.

I was originally introduced to this game by a student of mine, who had been working with me on disease modeling. After reading some of the great reviews of the game, my wife and I decided to purchase it last year. We cant say enough how much we enjoy playing this game; it makes you think, and, more importantly, you have to work together! My wife and I love playing board games, but some of our board games can get fairly competitive and, in some cases, can leave bad feelings afterward (we dont play trivia games anymore because of this!). If youve had these feelings, then Pandemic is the game for you: You dont compete against each other, but against the game board. This means, you can talk, you can share information, and you can strategize together openly. And, if you win, its a strong sense of accomplishment; if you lose, you can always try again! To the game itself: We love the quality of the pieces (sturdy plastic for the disease cubes and game pawns, well-made cards that have withstood numerous plays and shuffles, and a very sleek game board and box!), but we especially love that its a different game every time. Each of you randomly selects your role, giving each of you a special ability that can help your team. You then randomly place disease cubes on the board, and then start trying to find cures. Sometimes, you get lucky, and you can discover cures quickly, but, other times, epidemic cards come up so quickly that you dont know what hit your team! Admittedly, the first few plays are slow, because there are a lot of rules to keep track of. But, after a few plays, you really get the hang of it, and, since you are working together, you can help each other learn the game. Weve found that a typical game takes around 30-45 minutes, which is a good length of time. Finally, Ill say that one other thing we really like about this game is you can adjust the difficulty: make it easier by putting in less epidemic cards or laying your hands on the table so everyone can see, or make it harder by adding in more epidemic cards and/or playing with expansion packs. Some other rule changes to make the game more challenging are included in the main rules. The few complaints we have had about the game are that the game is only for 2-4 players (more requires an expansion pack), so, if your family or board game group is large, keep this in mind. Also, although the game is cooperative, it is hard! Were currently on a streak where we havent won a game in weeks, but Im hoping well save humanity soon enough! Anyway, if youve been growing sick (he he he) of the standard board games, give this one a try. It was our first venture outside of standard board games, and Pandemic is why we now own Ticket to Ride and Forbidden Island, and are looking at Settlers of Catan. This coming from people who started out with Monopoly, Clue, and Life!

I purchased this as a Christmas gift for my fiancées family, who enjoy playing board games together. So we played for the first time yesterday. If you firmly believe that every game should have defined winners and losers, and if youre driven in your board game playing to be better than the other players, this game is not for you. Once you get past this concept of winners and losers, you have a game where everyone works together, there are no secrets between players or cards you have to keep hidden from everyone else; you save the world together, or die trying. Pandemics instructions are excellent. They provide clear step-by-step instructions for setup. When the game starts, Z-Man even includes four identical cards, simply as a reference, listing the various actions a person can take on his/her turn. Those cards were a godsend, and tells me that Z-Man gets it when it comes to board games. The fact that those questions of the first round or two of What can I do? could simply be answered by saying Look at your card surely saved a fair amount of explanation time. At first glance the game looks complicated. And the game does go slow at first, as the game mechanics take a couple turns to grasp. A couple turns later you begin to feel out how each individual person can help the players win, using the advantages of each persons player card (e.g.: Medics are better at treating cities, Scientists can find cures quicker, etc.). Everyone works together, makes decisions together, learns from their mistakes as they go. For a family its a great bonding game, and for anyone else its an excellent team-building game. We lost that first game, unfortunately. And naturally, since everyone lost, everyone was able to think about what could have been done differently. In fact I was elated to hear that my fiancées father and brother woke up bright and early this morning, determined to have their revenge on the game. They successfully beat the easy version. For a family that has never played a cooperative game before, where everyone wins or everyone loses, it was clearly enjoyed by everyone. The app version of this game is available on iPad as well, for those whod rather pay $6.99 instead of shelling out 5 times more money for the board game. In fact, the app is excellent and captures the game perfectly, EXCEPT for the experience. The experience of the whole family or group of friends huddled around a gameboard, trying to plan the next series of moves to cure this disease or prevent this outbreak CANNOT be duplicated.

Got this and the family loves it! It’s a great game for working together and strategizing solutions to situations that are constantly evolving and surprising you. Great for teaching critical thinking to young teens!

What a fun game to play that puts all the players on the same team. It’s hard to win too, which is super cool. It”s even better playing Pandemic durring a pandemic So hurry and buy one before the pandemic is over.