Not Your Parents’ Board Games
By David Means
Cooperative Games
A relatively new category is that of “cooperative” games. Instead of playing against each other, the players are working together to defeat the game itself, and everyone wins or loses as a team.
Some examples are Pandemic (profiled below), Space Alert, Castle Panic, and The Grizzled.
Pandemic
In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world. The players are a team of medical specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of the four plagues before they get out of hand.
Taking a unique role within the team, each player must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. To successfully cure all four diseases requires that all five team members work together; unfortunately only four are allowed in the game, so every move must be carefully planned out.
The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station.
A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are “Epidemic!” cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity.
A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections. But the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery, or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND SERIES: In January 2016, KaCSFFS member (Club Director since April 2017) and notable board game collector David Means gave a presentation to the club about his collection. It was so interesting, I asked for permission to reprint it as a series of posts on this blog. He graciously agreed, and supplied me with his script. I have divided it into several posts and added the illustrations, hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. as seemed appropriate. --Jan S. Gephardt, Communications Officer
IMAGES: Many thanks to all of the following:
For SPACE ALERT: Board Game Geek for the cover art, and Czech Games for the photo of the game's components.
For CASTLE PANIC: Amazon for the box cover photo, and Backyard Game Design's "#GDE Reviews" review of the game, for the photo of the pieces in play.
For THE GRIZZLED: Board Game Brawl's YouTube review of the game, for the cover box photo, and Board Game Geek for the photo of the components laid out at the 2015 Festival international des jeux Cannes.
For PANDEMIC: BoardGameGeek for the photo of the starter-box cover, and Board Game Quest's review of the game, for the photo of the game in play.
By David Means
Cooperative Games
A relatively new category is that of “cooperative” games. Instead of playing against each other, the players are working together to defeat the game itself, and everyone wins or loses as a team.
Some examples are Pandemic (profiled below), Space Alert, Castle Panic, and The Grizzled.
In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world. The players are a team of medical specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of the four plagues before they get out of hand.
Taking a unique role within the team, each player must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. To successfully cure all four diseases requires that all five team members work together; unfortunately only four are allowed in the game, so every move must be carefully planned out.
The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station.
A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are “Epidemic!” cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity.
A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections. But the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery, or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND SERIES: In January 2016, KaCSFFS member (Club Director since April 2017) and notable board game collector David Means gave a presentation to the club about his collection. It was so interesting, I asked for permission to reprint it as a series of posts on this blog. He graciously agreed, and supplied me with his script. I have divided it into several posts and added the illustrations, hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. as seemed appropriate. --Jan S. Gephardt, Communications Officer
IMAGES: Many thanks to all of the following:
For SPACE ALERT: Board Game Geek for the cover art, and Czech Games for the photo of the game's components.
For CASTLE PANIC: Amazon for the box cover photo, and Backyard Game Design's "#GDE Reviews" review of the game, for the photo of the pieces in play.
For THE GRIZZLED: Board Game Brawl's YouTube review of the game, for the cover box photo, and Board Game Geek for the photo of the components laid out at the 2015 Festival international des jeux Cannes.
For PANDEMIC: BoardGameGeek for the photo of the starter-box cover, and Board Game Quest's review of the game, for the photo of the game in play.
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