The Pandemic Effect

Pandemic - a people-panicking tale as old as time, and a classic in the board game world! From Matt Leacock, this co-operative game of disaster and disease is a Rules of Play best-seller, year in, year out. Never heard of it before? Read on at your peril - Pandemic is not for the faint-hearted...

As a phenomenal global best-seller at only 8 years old, the multi-award-winning Pandemic has well and truly outshone your children. It's a co-operative gem, well-loved as a family board game and as a great way to spend a couples' night in. With 2-4 players (adding up to 5 players for the expansions), players must work together to save the world from a rapidly-spreading virus - a bit like how Gangnam Style took over everything. Hey, remember that?!

In Pandemic, each player takes on an individual role, like medic, researcher, or doctor. Each role has their own special ability, so you can truly make your mark on saving the world! Jumping from city to city, you'll carry out your strategy in a bid to remove those dreaded virus cubes. 

Build research stations, work at developing a cure, treat parts of the infected population - do what has to be done to win, but remember, this is a team effort. Working together to form a plan is all part of the Pandemic fun! 

But wait - Pandemic doesn't care about your strategies! Pandemic wants to kill you all. During the game, you'll turn over outbreak cards that will add heat and intensity to the game. As the time runs out to save humanity, you'll be forced to increase the infection and its strength whenever you draw this card. The best laid plans of mice and men, right?! Yeah, this game's evil.

At the game's end, if one or more of the viruses has spread beyond recovery or if too much time has elapsed, everyone loses. Boo! However, if all 4 diseases are cured, everyone wins! Yay! Simple? Straightforward? Sadly not. Pandemic is a board game notorious for being fiendishly difficult. I've heard of one group losing in the set-up! THE SET-UP!

However, it's not the winning that counts (pfft). If you haven't played a co-operative board game before, you'd be surprised at how warm and fuzzy you feel, even when you lose! It must be a winning formula for games, as Pandemic has spawned a huge range of expansions and standalone spin-offs, like In the Lab, On the Brink, State of Emergency, The Cure, Contagion and the brand new Pandemic Legacy!

Each brutal and vicious in their own unique ways, these variations prove that the board game Pandemic is a real people-pleaser! To buy a copy of the game from Rules of Play, click here. To see it played (and failed) on TableTop, watch the video below!

Alternatively, you can read a Shut Up & Sit Down review on Pandemic, where it's declared as 'the perfect game for couples, with you, your loved one, a cheap bottle of wine and a simulated apocalypse - bliss!'