PANDEMIC

Pandemic is a critically acclaimed cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and first published in 2008. Unlike most board games where players compete against each other, in Pandemic, players work together against the game itself. The game simulates a global outbreak of four deadly diseases, and the players are members of a disease control team tasked with finding cures and preventing outbreaks.

The game board represents a world map showing major cities connected by routes. Each turn, a player can perform up to four actions, such as moving between cities, treating infected populations, building research stations, or sharing knowledge (city cards) with other players. After a player takes their actions, infection cards are drawn, which can cause disease cubes to appear in cities. If a city accumulates too many cubes of the same color, an outbreak occurs, spreading disease to adjacent cities and increasing the game's severity. Epidemic cards, shuffled into the player deck, accelerate the infection rate and draw from a separate, discarded pile, potentially causing cities to become reinfected.

Players win by successfully discovering cures for all four diseases before any of the losing conditions are met (too many outbreaks, running out of disease cubes of one color, or running out of player cards). The game's tension and challenge stem from constantly reacting to new infections while trying to strategically position players and gather the cards needed for cures. Pandemic's simple rules, combined with challenging gameplay and high replayability due to random setup and card draws, have made it a benchmark for cooperative board games and spawned numerous expansions and spin-offs.