Regular readers of the blog will know that we are very lucky to test out a wide range of games from Esdevium Games.  The latest two we have been reviewing have been on two very different sides of the theme disease!  In the first game I have to tell you about, Pandemic, the aim of the game is to save the world from disease and, in the second game, Plague Inc, the aim is to infect the world. 

Pandemic is a game for 2-4 players aged 8+.  It takes around 5-10 minutes to set up and up to an hour to play.

It is another game where the instructions don’t make a huge amount of sense until you start playing the game.  Set up of the board was easy following the instructions given and we were quickly ready to play.

Pandemic is very much a co-operative game as players have to work together to treat diseases and find cures for the four different plagues before they take over the world.  Each player is given a different disease-fighting specialist card with different abilities.  Depending on the specialists each player has been given, the game can vary in difficulty.

Players take it in turns to complete four actions, travelling between cities, treating infected areas, discovering a cure or building a research station.  One thing I really liked about the game was that each player was given a game board which told you which actions you could do on each turn.  This made it much easier for each of us to take our turn without having to constantly refer back to the full instruction booklet.

Throughout the game, when drawing from the deck of cards, Epidemic! Cards will turn up which accelerate the diseases’ activity, making the game harder to win.

It really is a very strategic game and you do have to work together to win.  It was nice not to have the competitive side to a game for a change. 

We did enjoy the game, however, have found it difficult to win even with different characters.  As well as strategic thinking there is definitely luck involved too and we don’t seem to have been very lucky when playing!

It is a game I can see us playing quite regularly.  Little Mr A quickly picked up the rules and enjoyed playing cooperatively with Big Mr A and myself.

The game has an RRP of £36.99 which is in line with other games of this nature.  All of the pieces are good quality and it will stand up to a lot of play.  

Stay tuned tomorrow when I will be telling you about Plague Inc.

Disclosure – We received this game free of charge in return for our honest review.