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

My wife and I had been looking for board games for a while to play as a family (we have a 13 year old daughter). My wife is extremely competitive and me, well, Im definitely not a competitive person. I purchased this one as a means to keep the rage at bay for when a loser doesnt like losing or to enhance the enjoyment for those who care not if they win or lose and someone is taking the game too seriously. A cooperative game didnt make much sense to me at first, but once we opened up the game, figured out how to start our first game, and then take on widespread diseases all across the world we realized there was no turning back. Since we played our first game of Pandemic, we havent played competitive games since with very rare exceptions. This isnt just because cooperative game play leads to a happier marriage. No, no. The largest portion of what makes this game so good is that it the game play requires so much strategy and is surprisingly simple to learn as soon as you start playing. It offers a very dynamic challenge while also offering great rewards when your strategies work out. It also offers different difficulty settings very easily by adding or taking away a single type of card (6 total, adding all 6 of the infection cards means the game is painfully difficult. Going down to 4 of them makes for a far easier experience). If anyone enjoys board games then this is by far the one Id recommend more than any other when it comes to cooperative game play.

Saw this got reviewed highly from boardgamegeek.com. It plays very well with three people. My wife isnt much of a gamer of any kind. But we really enjoyed playing this for the first time with her best friend. Now her friend wants to buy the game too. There were a few things that we were unsure of which were cities with research centers can be infected. You do not have to clear the entire board of diseases to win. Just need to find cures. And third the medic can automatically wipe out a city of a disease without an action if the disease has been cured. First co-op game loved it and so does my wife.

Awesome game, timely topic aside, not the easiest to learn and definitely not easy to beat but very much rewarding. The best part is that the game is cooperative, so you get to collaborate instead of trying to wipe out your friends/family members like is usually the case in board games..

This is a great game! I really enjoy that it’s played as a team win or lose, instead of player against player. I don’t find it to be very cumbersome to get the just of it, like I do with some other strategy games out there. Easy setup and only takes about 1-2 hours to play.

My wife and I have gradually gotten more into board games, because were old and lame and thats ok. Shes a bit ... competitive, however, so even playing a game like Settlers can put me on the edge of the seat a little bit if Im winning. Some of you know what Im talking about. Board games kept popping up in my Amazon recommendations, and I kept seeing this one (nice work, Amazon ad algorythms). Cooperative? Sounds good! There went that Sunday. I even stopped watching football, BECAUSE CHILDREN ARE DYING IN ISTANBUL OR CONSTANTINOPLE. We played several games. We lost our first few, then kept winning. Our kids were annoying us with petty stuff like, Daddy, Im hungry and Mommy, my toe fell off but sometimes you just have to tell your kids that now isnt a good time, because Daddy is building a research center and then has to fly to meet Mommy in Milan, and there is leftover ham in the refrigerator. I do question whether the game will keep its challenge. Weve won our only two games on the hardest difficulty, but it felt suspenseful and like we could have lost, so I think itll still be fun to play. Regardless, weve already gotten our moneys worth out of this game. I think my daughter (six) will be able to learn it now or shortly as well, which will be cool and we can monitor her toe situation better.

This was my first time playing a cooperative game and it was very fun! We lost on the easiest level the first time we played but won the second time, and since it can also be made more or less challenging, I think the difficulty is just right. The game is very suspenseful especially if you randomly mix all the epidemic cards into the stack and you never know when an epidemic might appear and possibly cause an outbreak (or two!) we were definitely on the edge of our seats during some parts of the game! There are a few different ways to lose, having too many outbreaks, running out of disease cubes, or running out of cards. We seem to have the most trouble with running out of cards and it seems to go better when we focus on cures and less on treating/eradicating disease. Each player gets a special role during the game, these roles are super helpful so playing with more people can be easier. I was expecting it to go into real diseases, but there are just disease cubes so no medical knowledge is needed. The board and all the pieces are made well and look nice. I also love ticket to ride and settlers of catan and have enjoyed trying to figure out the strategies in this game too! Highly recommended!

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.

For those who are tired of competitive, relationship-ending board games this game is for you. It is well thought out and fun to play. Up to four players can take on the task of attempting to cure four different diseases before you run out of resources. There are varying levels of difficulty to get you into the game and it is very replayable. At the easiest setting, players can get a feel for the mechanics of the game while still confronting a strong challenge and at the most difficult setting you might want to remove all of the breakable objects near you as you will be tempted to throw things and flip tables but you will do so cooperatively so you wont be alone in your efforts. Be warned, you will lose... a lot, but the fun mechanics of the game and the cooperative play is enough to keep you coming back to save the worlds population against the four deadly diseases that cause outbreak after outbreak.

This is a fun game, but its tough to play it right out of the box because the rules are complex. Weve played it probably four times and were still finding things we are doing wrong. However, it is a fun game, and its one that adults will enjoy as well as mature or older children. My 11 year old son likes it a lot. My fiance likes it more than, say, Settlers of Catan and 7 Wonders (talk about complex rules!!!) And I like it a lot, partly because Im a health sciences person, but also because its collaborative rather than competative. Everyone wins or loses together, and so every time its your turn, youre talking with the other players to decide what to do. I love that. This is a great game and its fun enough that I think youll play it enough times to make it worth buying, and even when youre playing it wrong, the same is true. In fact, now Id like to rope the family into playing again soon...

If you want to get together a group of friends on a Friday night for the purpose of stressing everyone out and giving everyone anxiety attacks over drawing each cards... Then this is the game for you! I was super excited to buy and try this game, given the universal high reviews. And... well, I was greatly underwhelmed. I dont have much good to say about it. Problems: 1. Its really complicated rule wise. Like, not impossible, but you do have to read the game rules for about an hour before you can play, which is longer than 95% of other games out there. And then you have to spend an hour explaining it to everyone else. And then you have to spend an hour doing an example run through so people can figure out the gameplay dynamics. And then everyones exhausted so they call it a night. You try it again a week later, but you have to read the rules again because of how complicated they are, and then you have 2 new people in your group so you have to explain it all over to them, and before you know it youve invested about 24 hours into this game before you have a group of people with enough experience to actually play it. 2. Once everyone does start playing... its just not fun. High energy? Yes. Stressful? Yes. Anxiety-inducing? Yes. Frustrating? Yes. Fun? No. This is the board game equivalent of getting a group of friends to stand on the side of the freeway and counting all the cars that dont hit you. Sure, it can foster team unity. But at what cost? You live in constant fear of the card deck, and what its going to do to you, and if it will undermine all the work you just put in to defeating the viruses. Its just not a good time. 3. Theres no joy when the game ends. Eradicated all the viruses? Youre treated with the emotional equivalent of Thank goodness thats over. Get wiped out by a new super bug? Well that sucks. Theres no sense of victory either way, just... survival, or failure. Ive played this game about 10 times now, with varying groups of people. And ultimately, I just gave up. Its not fun, its not worth it. Finding something else better.