Tag Archives: pandemic

Co-op Case Study: Pandemic Legacy — Season Two

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Pandemic Legacy was innovative enough that it’s worth talking about twice, so here’s a look at the second entry in the trilogy. And, whereas we played just a few games of Season 1, we played through the entire Season 2 campaign, with a win-loss pattern that resulted in 21 total games(!). Definitely a top co-op (and we’re looking forward to Season 3).

This article originally appeared on the Meeples Together blog.

Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 by Rob Daviau & Matt Leacock

Publisher: Z-Man Games (2017)
Cooperative Style: True Co-Op
Play Style: Action Point, Card Management, Exploration, Legacy, Set Collection

Overview

The players take on the role of various specialists who are trying to salvage a post-apocalyptic world that ended 71 years ago. As in Pandemic (2008), they’re fighting disease, and as in Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (2015), that’s part of an ongoing campaign, but there’s also a lot more story and a lot more hard choices in this sequel. Continue reading →

Co-op Case Study: Pandemic Legacy — Season One

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Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 was an amazing innovation when it was released in 2015, and it continues to be one of the newest foundational games in the co-op hobby. What made it so great? It’s not just that it broke new ground with its Legacy-campaign play, but also that it integrated that fully into its existing simulation.

This article originally appeared on Meeples Together.

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 by Rob Daviau & Matt Leacock

Publisher: Z-Man Games (2015)
Cooperative Style: True Co-Op
Play Style: Action Point, Card Management, Legacy, Set Collection

Overview

The players take on the role of various specialists who are trying to cure four pandemic diseases that are ravaging the world. As in Pandemic (2008) they must balance removing disease cubes (to avoid losing the game) and collecting sets of cards (to win the game). However, there’s a twist: the game repeats over 12-24 sessions, with characters, the gameboard, and the rules all evolving over time. Continue reading →

Co-op Case Study: Forbidden Sky

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Forbidden Sky was the game that we really wanted to include in Meeples Together, but it came out too late in the year for it to meet our schedule. So, consider this a true addendum to Chapter 4, where we offered case studies of Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Forbidden Desert.

This article was originally published in the Meeples Together blog.

Forbidden Sky by Matt Leacock

Publisher: Gamewright (2018)
Cooperative Style: True Co-Op
Play Style: Action Point, Tile Laying

Overview

The players take on the roles of space archaeologists exploring a secret power platform. They must build an electrical circuit to power a rocket ship. But, a storm has overtaken the platform, and it may electrocute the explorers or blow them off the platform, sending them plunging to their death. Continue reading →

Co-op Case Study: Pandemic — Reign of Cthulhu

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By this point, there have been a shocking number of Pandemic games. Some slightly vary the original formula, while others move increasingly far away. We expect to look at most of them over time, because variations to an an existing system are one of the most intriguing ways to examine the evolution of a game design.

This article originally appeared on the Meeples Together blog.

Pandemic — Reign of Cthulhu by Chuck D. Yager

Publisher: Z-Man Games (2016)
Cooperative Style: True Co-Op
Play Style: Action Point, Card Management, Set Collection

Overview

The players take on the role of various investigators who are trying to close four gates that are destroying the world. As in Pandemic (2008) they must balance removing  cultists and shoggoths (to avoid losing the game) and collecting sets of cards (to ensure winning the game). However, this is more than just a retheme, as Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu features a few new threats, such as Old Ones and a sanity die. Continue reading →

New to Me: Winter 2019 — Knizia, Breese, Cards & More

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This post got delayed a bit because of April 1st and 15th falling on Mondays, allowing me to post a few special articles. And then I got sick. (Sigh.) But this is still my “New to Me” post for the first three months of the year. As usual, these are games that I played for the first time (no matter how new or old they are) with a rating of how much I liked them (as a medium-weight eurogamer).

The Great (“I Would Buy This”)

Key Flow (2018). Take Keyflower (2012), a game that I found most brilliant for its interrelation of auction and worker placement. Keep the worker-placement and resource-management elements of the original game, but replace the auction mechanic with a different sort of action selection: card drafting. Voila! You have Key Flow.

Though I think that Key Flow cuts out some of the best parts of Keyflower, the card drafting is a perfectly acceptable alternative, and the result is a game that’s a bit shorter and more approachable. Even though I love Keyflower and will continue to play it, I think Key Flow is pretty good too, just in a slightly different category.

This one is also a bit more solitaire and really, really intensive in its end-game scoring. (There really should have been a score sheet.) Continue reading →

New to Me: Summer 2018

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As usual, my New to Me reviews cover games that I’ve never played before, whether they’re new to the world or not. (They mostly were this time around.) And, as usual, they’re rated by how I personally like them, as a midweight eurogamer.

The Very Good (“I Would Keep This”)

Terraforming Mars: Expansions. I’ve now played through all the Terraforming Mars expansions, and I’d generally recommend them, with some qualms about one of them.

Hellas & Elysium (2017). This is a double-sided map that provides two different playing surfaces for the game: the south pole and the other side of Mars. Changing what the terrain looks like provides very valuable variety, but is of limited interest. However, Fryxelius took the next step and also included different milestones and awards on each map. This makes a huge difference, because it changes what you’re competing for in each game, and makes this supplement highly recommended. Continue reading →

A Legion of Legacies, Part One: Legacy Play

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Six years ago, Rob Daviau come up with an interesting new idea that would form the basis of RIsk Legacy (2011). Imagine a game that can be played multiple times, forming a campaign; but also imagine that game changing over time, with secrets being revealed from game to game, while the game itself is irrevocably changing. Cards are destroyed and stickers are applied to various components; the board, the cards, and the player roles all mutate, both improving and degenerating over multiple plays. It turns out that this second element, of dramatically changing game elements, bolsters the first element, of multiple plays, creating a real gaming innovation.

Risk Legacy was immediately a hit, but it took several years (and a few more outings) for the “Legacy” idea to catch on more broadly. It’s only recently that it’s blossomed, with multiple Legacy games coming out in 2017-2018. Continue reading →

New to Me: Fall 2016 — A Key Quarter

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Personally, Fall 2016 was the quarter when I started actively seeking out Richard Breese’s Key games, because of how much I liked Keyflower (2012). You’ll see a few of them on this list. More generally, it was a pretty OK quarter. Nothing stuck out as Great, though The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire (2016) was close, but there was also a lot of stuff that was Very Good. And, nothing was absolutely horrible.

As usual this is a list of games that are new to me, and and as usual this listing ranks them by how much I personally like them, as a medium-weight eurogamer.

The Very Good

The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire (2016). One of my playing group asked me if we’d hit peak worker placement and my knee-jerk response was, “yes”. But honestly I’m not sure. We’re a long way out from Caylus (2005), but worker placement has become an almost defining element of eurogaming. I’d swear there were more eurgames with worker placement than not; if so, we may not have hit the peak yet.

Anywho, Energy Empire is a worker-placement game of energy production and resource management. It’s got several elements that set it aside as a unique design. First, you can use a global action space that someone else is occupying, you just have to spend extra energy to do so. Second, after you use a global action space, you can also use personal action spaces (which is the biggest similarity to the original Manhattan Project), as long as their categories match. Third, everyone refreshes their workers at different times (another similarity to the original game); now, it creates even more interesting dynamics for the global spaces, since you’re constantly stacking up more energy than what’s there already.

Continue reading →

New to Me: Fall 2015 — A Really Great Season

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It was a really great season for board games. I played perhaps a few less games that were new-to-me than usual, but the recurring theme was that they were all good or better. OK, I played Exploding Kittens near the end-of-the-year because Christmas family gatherings … but not even that could bring down what was a season of fine games!

The Great

Pandemic Legacy ThumbnailPandemic Legacy — Season 1 (2015). Any discussion of the new Pandemic variant should begin with my belief that Pandemic itself is a great game. I count it as one of the three most influential and important co-op games. Arkham Horror (1987) mostly invented the genre and Lord of the Rings (2000) reinvented it for the modern day. However, it was Pandemic (2007) that made the genre accessible. It’s also a near pitch-perfect design with huge piles of difficulty and chaos, and its great replayability.

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Brawl of Cthulhu — A Lovecraftian Gamopedia

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Some time ago, I wrote an article discussing many of the Cthulhu games on the market. Six years later, I’ve decided to return to the topic by looking at some of the major Cthulhu games that have appeared since. However, rather than just creating a partial list of new games, I’ve also reprinted (and revised) all my previous mini-reviews, to make this a comprehensive look at Cthulhoid games.

The one limitation is that these are just the games I’m familiar with. Most I’ve played, but for the one where I just read the rules, I’ve noted that. There are still a few notables missing, such as The Hills Rise Wild, and Munchkin Cthulhu. I may add them to this article with a quiet edit some time in the future. (And, if you’ve got a Cthulhu game that you’d like me to play and add to this list, drop me a line in the comments.)

Continue reading →