bioephemera

We spent most of last night playing a very cool board game, Pandemic. It's sort of like Risk, but instead of fighting opposing players' armies, you're cooperating against a global wave of infections.

In the game scenario, four different diseases break out in different regions of the world (they're given colors, not names, though you can guess at an ID based on the games' illustrations; one is clearly a bacillus, another is a filovirus). The players have to cooperate and pool their resources to treat and control local outbreaks, while searching for cures for all four diseases. The surprising thing about this game is that it seems weighted in the diseases' favor. Last night, 4/5 games were losses! It makes for an extremely frustrating, yet addictive uphill battle.

Obviously, the science and medicine here are simplistic (you "cure" a disease by collecting cards of various colors), but Pandemic does a really nice job of challenging players to effectively distribute resources and minimize losses in an unpredictable milieu. Players end up debating various tactics and strategies several turns in advance: for example, is it better to dispatch your scientist to a relatively remote but heavily infected area to prevent an imminent outbreak, or have her stay close to a research station to effect a cure? It all depends, since the game has mechanisms built in to keep things unpredictable while mimicking how epidemics of infectious disease can rapidly build on themselves and spiral out of control. Just as in real life, you'll lose pretty quickly if you try to treat every single infection - you have to choose your battles and concentrate on long-term damage management. Because of that, I found myself wondering whether the game would work in a high school or college course dealing with public health policy, and decided it might - except it's almost too difficult! (But then, so is public health policy).

Anyway, I highly recommend this game. The manufacturers, z-man games, are out of stock, but you can find Pandemic elsewhere - for example, best dang games will give you a free Giant Microbe when you buy it. W00t!