Space Alert, Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict

In our last article we took our first step back into the world of regular reviewing, by taking a look at the box contents for Vlaada Chvatil's Space Alert, published by Rio Grande Games.  Space Alert is a co-operative game for 1-5 players (side note: we'd love to know how a competitive game for 1 player would work... answers on a postcard), in which the players take on the roles of expendable crew members on a short-range interstellar vessel.  Here we'll be taking a look at how the game plays, and giving it our coveted* final score (*Games & Tea final score may not actually be coveted).

Before the game can begin, players must first of all squabble amongst themselves over their roles in the crew.  As mentioned in the box contents article, the pace of the action is dictated by the ship's computer - relayed either via the accompanying CD or the smartphone app.  This means that one crew member must be designated as the communications officer.  Whilst all hell is breaking loose on board the ship, robots are malfunctioning, and aliens are attacking, it's the duty of the communications officer to closely listen to the ship's computer and ensure that no updates are missed.  Obviously all crew members can hear these updates, but the comms officer is the expendable man or woman responsible for none of them slipping through.

The other role to be assigned is that of the ship's captain.  Space Alert is a co-operative game, but it's also a real-time one, which means that there is rarely enough time to sit around and discuss various options to a newly revealed threat.  The ship's captain serves two purposes: firstly, to have the final say on any conflicting courses of action from the other crew members, and the other we'll come to shortly.

"Captain's log, stardate Tuesday... point two."

Once the crew roles are have handed out, it's time to set up the board.

As the first part of this review showed, there are a fair few components to Space Alert.  In spite of this, however, the setup process of the game is actually very quick and straightforward.  Threat Vectors are randomly drawn and assigned to the four sections of the ship previously mentioned (left, right, center, and internal), the jelly cubes representing the power to the ship's systems are assigned to their starting points, the threat decks are shuffled (internal and external still kept separate), the combat robots sent to their charging stations, and the crew members placed on the bridge.  If all has been done properly, you'll be left staring at something like this...

Then it's time to hand out the Action Cards and start the game!  You may have noticed in Part 1 of the review that the Action Boards are split into three sections, containing the numbers 1-3, 4-7, and then 8-12 respectively...

These are the three mission sections, and the individual numbers represent the turns of the game (we know, we said this was a real-time game, but all will make sense as you read on!).  Before the game starts, each player is dealt 5 Action Cards for each section of the board, which are placed on those sections face-down.  The computer will call out the beginning and end of each mission section - during the active section, each player may assign Action Cards to any turns they wish, and rearrange them as many times as necessary to adapt to changing circumstances.  Once the mission section is over, however, and the next section begins, those Action Cards are then locked in place and cannot be changed.

Each room of the ship has contains three different buttons; A, B and C (easy to remember!).  Button A fires the weapons system in whichever room the player is standing at the time, button B is used for raising the shields or charging the reactor, depending on location, and button C is a bit more specialist, being used to fire missiles, maintain the computer, launch fighters, activate robots, or just look out the window (no, we're not even joking about that final one!). Each Action Card includes a movement arrow and one of those three actions, so players can choose to use them to either move around the ship or activate one of the ship's systems.

The trick in Space Alert is to make sure that the crew are accounting for all of the ship's systems.  Firing the lasers and charging the shields both draw energy from the ship's reactor, and that reactor must be periodically refilled.

Now pay attention, crew, for this is where the second role of the captain comes into effect!

Actions are resolved in order, starting from the captain and working clockwise around the board, so it's important for players to keep this in mind when planning their moves.  It's great to charge the reactor in preparation for a full-on laser bombardment, but if the person charging the reactor is taking their turn after those firing the weapons, then all you'll be left with is a crew member hammering on an innefective 'fire' button whilst a colossal alien warship descends upon you!

Let's have a look at an example below...

In this scenario, the blue player has locked their choices in for the first two mission sections, but the third has not yet begun.  When deciding whether to move or activate a system, the top half of the Action Card is the one to go by.  In this run here the player fired the ship's lasers (A), moved to the room on the left, charged the shields (B), took the elevator down, refilled the reactor (B), went back up in the elevator, and then fired the lasers (A).

Obviously players may not always have the cards in their hands for the actions they'd like to take, and this is where it becomes important to organise amongst eachother.  It's not all doom and gloom though, as the computer will occasionally call out "incoming data" or "data transfer", which allow players to draw new cards or exchange between eachother respectively.

The most important thing which the computer will call out are threats.  Only one threat can appear during each turn, so if the computer calls out "Time T-1, threat blue", it means that a threat will start approaching in turn 1 on the right hand section of the ship (the blue section)...

Here a sneaky Stealth Fighter has just appeared.  It begins at the top of the Threat Vector and advances each turn.  Every time it passes a letter on the Vector, it carries out the action marked on the card - for example, the Stealth Fighter cannot be attacked until it hits the X.  Once it hits the Y it deals 2 damage to the ship, and then another 2 when it hits Z, so it's in the best interests of the crew to blow it out of the stars before that can happen.

The mission continues for 12 minutes, as the crew tries to keep everything in working order and the ship in one piece, up until the computer mercifully calls out "hyperspace jump in 3, 2, 1... *whoosh*", and you all live to fight another day.

...or do you?

At the end of the box contents article there was a board we skipped over, so this comes into effect now.  It turns out that during the 12 minutes of real-time action the players are basically just planning out which actions they're going to take in each of the 12 turns.  This card is effectively the black box recording for the crew's (probably) ill-fated mission, and only once the CD/app track has finished do the players finally play through the actions and see how everything actually panned out.

This part of the game can prove absolutely hilarious, and it's fun for the players to now imagine themselves as a board of directors, face-palming their way through a 12-minute recording of the most inept crew in existence.

Indeed, in one of the USS Games & Tea's first outings, our illustrious communications officer was convinced he'd saved the day against that pesky Stealth Fighter.  In reality, he hadn't realised the targeting restriction on it, spent two turns firing the laser at empty space until the reactor was empty, and then watched in absent-minded glory as the Stealth Fighter proceeded to tear the ship to pieces.  We can only imagine the letter which must have been handed over to his next of kin.  

Now it might seem fairly straightforward from this description, but it's the little things which make Space Alert special.  For example, as the "How to..." manual states, there is no video link between the rooms on the ship, only audio, so players must place their Action Cards face-down on the Action Boards.  This means that all players MUST communicate with eachother, as they can't simply sneak a peek over at their shipmates' boards to see what they're up to.  One of the problems with this is that there will occasionally be a communications malfunction replacing the CD track with static, during which period the crew must continue without speaking to eachother until it's resolved.

Other little touches can involve tripping over, being delayed in the elevators, running into bulkheads... if an incompetent crew of space-wannabes can do it, it's probably in Space Alert somewhere (one of our captains still tells heroic tales of the time he spent 3 turns staring out of the window as the ship disintegrated around him).

In terms of mechanics, there's not much more to tell really.  We've skimmed over some of the finer points, but those are for you discover on your own!  What did we think of it as a game though?

In a nutshell, this might be the finest co-operative game we've ever played.  It's intensive for those 12 real-time minutes, but that's a short-enough time to be fun rather than stressful.  Once the real-time section ends and the turn-based resolution begins, then it just becomes a very light hearted and humour-based game, and is terrific fun to have with friends.

One of the greatest things about Space Alert is that each player still very much feels like they're part of the game.  A big problem with many co-op games (Pandemic being a perfect example), is that the turns often devolve into 'turns by committee'.  Rather than each player taking their own actions, their turns end up being weighed up and discussed based on the actions of the preceeding and following players, and so individuality becomes lost entirely.  The fact that Space Alert is a real-time game eliminates this entirely, as there is simply not time to weigh up every option.  Players call out their planned actions, and have to work around eachother as they go, but their decisions and actions still feel very much their own, and this is an unbelievably rare thing in co-op games.

There are a lot of random elements to the game, especially with the addition of the smartphone app - the encounters are randomised, threats are randomised, Action Cards are randomised, damage to the shop is randomised... basically, there's enough to make sure that you'll never play the same game of Space Alert twice.

The short play time is also a massive bonus.  It's difficult to get bored when you're playing a game which only takes around half an hour, and is keeping you on your toes for every minute!  Whilst it's possible to customise the app with various difficulty settings, the default setting for Space Alert is incredibly challenging, and so it's very easy to fall into the "one more round" mentality, in an attempt to finally beat the game.  It's worth noting that here at Games & Tea we've never managed to win a game on the default setting yet, but the fact we'll still shout the game's praises from the rooftops shows that we consider it an enjoyable challenge, rather than a frustrating one.

As we've mentioned in previous reviews though, no game is perfect.  Space Alert comes pretty darn close, but we strongly doubt we'll ever see the unicorn that is the perfect game.  We stated above that there are a lot of random elements, and one criticism of the game is that there are perhaps too many.  The real-time section of the game is all about planning out your course of action, so when virtually every facet of the game is unpredictable, this can be a monumental challenge.  The counter argument to this would be that it makes for a more authentic gaming experience, but this is perhaps one of those times were authenticity and playability should perhaps be weighed against eachother.

The next downside is the learning curve.  The 'training program' is an inspired decision, and is a fool-proof way of teaching the complexities of Space Alert to new players.  The problem with this is that every time another new player joins the group, the experienced players have to sit through the comparatively slow-paced training missions again until everyone's up to speed.  In fact the first few weeks with the game at our FLGS seemed to be mired in training missions, as there was always someone new who wanted to try it out, taking us all back to square one.

The other negative point to Space Alert is that it doens't work quite as well with fewer players.  It's impossible to play the game with fewer than four crew members, so if there are three players or less then the extra crew members are controlled by everyone, and each player received extra Action Cards in each section to make up for this.  While this is probably the best way to resolve the issue of fewer players, it still doesn't work particularly well, and a single-player game of Space Alert is pretty much unplayable.

The Good Points

• Space Alert is the first truly co-operative game we've played, as opposed to a 'turn by committee' game.
• 4 and 5 players are accommodated nicely, making it a good game for slightly larger groups.
• The real-time element makes it a fun and frantic game, and the 'black box' resolution card brings the game to a very entertaining conclusion.
• There are enough random elements to make every single playthrough different.
• Excellent tutorial mode.
• Extremely challenging.
• The computer soundtrack makes the game very immersive.

The Bad Points

• Perhaps too many random elements, leaving little room for planning.
• The game fails to deliver with only 1 or 2 players.
• Constantly repeating the training missions for new players can be frustrating.

Recommended Number of Players: 4-5

As mentioned above, Space Alert doesn't really work with 1 or 2 players.  3 should be considered the minimum for a decent game, but it plays best with 4 or 5, as this eliminates the need for a collectively-controlled extra crew member.

Average Game Time: 30 minutues

The playthrough time on Space Alert is pretty standard.  The real-time section is always around 12 minutes (once the training missions have been passed), and the resolution stage usually takes a little longer, so a single sitting clocks in around the half-hour mark.

Replay Value: Very High

With a relatively short play time, high number of randomly-generated elements, and challenging gameplay, Space Alert has all of the right ingredients for a highly replayable game.  With expansions available to enhance the game further, this is one which we can't imagine gathering dust for a very long time.

The Future: Lost to the Depths of Space...

Space Alert is a fantastic game, and the The New Frontier expansion adds even more to this, but as far as we can tell this is the extend of the Space Alert story.

Price: £40

Space Alert will set you back £40, meaning it's not one of the cheapest games out there, but not one of the most expensive either.  We'd certainly say that we've got our money's worth out of it.  In terms of availability, we rarely see it on the shelves in gaming stores, but being from a large manufacturer it should be easy enough to order in.

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10

Tea consumed during this review: Twinings English Afternoon, 3 minutes brew time, 2 sweeteners, dash of milk. Brew rating: 10/10

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Space Alert, Part 1: Box Contents

Well at this point we certainly can't be accused of keeping on top of our game reviews!  For many and varied reasons we've dropped off the face of the gaming earth for the last several months, but just because we haven't been reviewing doesn't mean we haven't been playing!  Obviously the downside is that our readership numbers have dropped off, and we can't blame anyone for that, but on the plus side it now means we have a bunch of games which we have well and truly played to death, which we're ready to approach with a reviewers mindset now!

So to end our reviewing drought, we're going to be taking a look at Space Alert by Vlaada Chvatil, from Rio Grande Games.

Space Alert is a co-operative board game for 1-5 players, set on a short-range interstellar exploration vessel which is apparently entirely crewed by people dressed like Cyclops from X-Men.  The role of the ship is a simple one: execute a hyperspace jump to a nearby sector of space, spend 12 minutes scanning the area, and then hyperspace jump back to Earth to report the findings.  The ship is pre-programmed to carry out its mission.  The ship knows what it's doing.  The ship is valuable.

The crew are not.

That's right, Nostromo-wannabes, you're expendable (not to be confused with The Expendables, although if you're the captain I suppose you can order everyone else to call you 'Stallone').  The job of the crew on this noble voyage is to make sure that the ship stays in one piece for long enough to make that return jump, although with giant space jellyfish, malfunctioning robots, saboteurs and nuclear warheads, that's not going to be an easy task!

But we'll be getting into the real gritty details of the gameplay in the second part of the review.  For now, as always, we're going to be taking a look at the box contents so you know what to expect when you... well... examine the contents of the box.

Now just to be a bit different we're not going to start with the board, but with the rulebook.  Or, more accurately, the rulebooks.  As any self-respecting game should do, it comes with an in-depth (though, mercifully, not lengthy) rulebook with all of the gameplay mechanics clearly explained.  It also includes a second rulebook, entitled "How to be a Space Explorer in Seven Lessons".

Seeing as Space Alert is quite a complex game, it has a fantastic method of teaching new players how to play.  The "How to..." book is laid out and annotated like a training manual for space cadets, and slowly introduces players to the rules over a series of short training missions, by the end of which they'll have absorbed the full set of rules and are ready to play the game in full.  In fact the "How to..." book encourages new players to put the full rulebook to one side and start with just the guide, and everyone at Games & Tea has found it to explain the game perfectly, and trained us all up into fully expendable space explorers in no time.

Next up: the board.  The board in Space Alert gives an overview of the ship's layout, with the various ships systems, access doors/elevators, and so forth.  We were unsure earlier about whether to class Space Alert as a board game, as typically a gaming board features some kind of goal or endgame.  Here, the board is basically there just to keep a visual track on the chaos, as your crew desperately fights to keep the precious company property in spaceworthy condition.

We then come to the Threat Vectors.  Whenever an obstacle appears to threaten the ship, from within or without, its progress is tracked on an appropriate Threat Vector.  The threat vectors determine how quickly the threat reaches a catastrophic state, and how many times it deals slightly less catastrophic damage to the ship in the process.  One is assigned to the left-hand (red) side of the ship, one to the center (white), one to the right (blue), and one to the ship's interior.  There are seven of these in the game, but only a maximum of four are ever used, which allows for an element of randomisation.

If you're going to have Threat Vectors then you'd better damn well have some threats!  There are two Threat Decks in Space Alert, which are shuffled to add further randomisation.  The green deck consists of internal threats, so you'll find things like boarding parties, robot malfunctions, hacked shields and so on within this deck.  The purple deck consists of external threats, so this is where you'll be faced with stealth fighters, juggernauts, meteors, and the previously-mentioned giant space jellyfish.  The threats have various strengths and weaknesses, so it's up to the crew to work together to combat these before they tear the precious ship apart, and the bill for damages gets sent on to their next of kin.

So if you're going to combat these threats then I guess you're going to need to be able to move around the ship?  And push buttons?  And generally just do space-ship-type things?  Throughout the mission, each player can take 12 actions - these are determined using the Action Cards, and are planned out using each player's Action Track.

Generally it's a good idea to physically represent the players on the board.  Space Alert features 5 colourful crew tokens, which correspond to the colours of the Action Tracks.  Those grey-looking fellows at the back are the ship's combat robots, and can be led around the ship to fight off invaders... at least until they malfunction and start killing the crew.  Swings and roundabouts, eh?

No board game is complete without tokens, it seems, and Space Alert has them in spades.  The various tokens are used to keep track of internal threats as they move throughout the ship, the progress of external threats, and the damage dealt to the ship itself - that's right, the ship takes damage!  So if you don't work hard to keep it up and running, then that mega-laser you were counting on to save your skin at the last minute might not actually work so well.

And there are some assorted jelly cubes.  Okay, we were a little disappointed to discover they weren't actually jelly cubes.  These translucent plastic cubes and cylinders are used for various purposes in the game, but usually for keeping track of the ship's energy, which can be transferred between reactors, and assigned to weapons and shields.

We were thinking of leaving this out of Part 1 of the review, but seeing as this is a box contents article and this was in the box, we feel we should include it, but feel free to ignore it for now.  This overly-complicated-looking track is effectively the ship's black box recording, and all will make sense in Part 2!

At this point you may be thinking "Okay, you're keeping the ship in-tact, things are attacking you, I get that... but how do you know when/where the threats come from?"  This is one of our favourite parts of the game, and one that makes it quite immersive...

The CD!  Now we've played games with CD soundtracks before (most notably Last Night on Earth), and the soundtrack has done little to enhance the gameplay - in fact, if anything, it's detracted from the experience.  With Space Alert, however, things are different.  This is not a CD of cheesy music, but the audio track of the ship's computer.  Once you've selected a track and pressed play, the designated communications officer has to listen closely to know when and where the threats are approaching from, when players are allowed to exchange or draw new Action Cards, or can even cause a communications blackout, wherein players have to continue without communicating until the blackout resolves.

This makes Space Alert a real-time game, as opposed to turn-based, which adds to the chaos and tension of fending off attacks from all sides!  The CD only contains around 10 tracks, not including the training mission, but a free Mission Generator app can be downloaded for smartphones, which randomly generates missions and is a highly recommended addition to the game.

Well, that's quite a lot of content, isn't it?  Come back shortly to see how the gameplay breaks down and find out our final score on the game!  Until then, drink up, and game on!

Pandemic, Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict

In our previous entry we looked at the box contents of Z-Man Games' 2-4 player co-operative board game, Pandemic.  Now we're going to look at how the game plays, and then give the run down on Games & Tea's opinion of the experience.

 

 

The players are dealt their opening hands and randomly assigned their characters, being given their character cards and matching pawns, which are then placed in Atlanta along with one of the Research Stations.  Atlanta is the home of the Centre for Disease Control, so this is certainly a nice little touch by the creators of Pandemic.

 

 

Now the pawns are ready to go, the top cards in the Infection Draw Pile are flipped to see which cities start off infected, and then it's time for the players to wade in and deal with the situation!

 

In their turn the player may take four actions.  These actions include moving, removing a Disease Cube from their city, building a Research Station, giving/receiving a card from another player, or curing a disease.  In order to cure a disease a player must have 5 Player Cards of the same colour in their hand, and then discard them in a city with a Research Station.  Seeing as the only way to win the game is to cure all four diseases it may seem logical to rush out collecting cards and try to cure everything as quick as possible, but this may not be the best option.  The key to Pandemic is to work as a team and use each character's special ability to the full.  The Scientist only requires 4 Player Cards to cure a disease, whereas the Medic only requires a single action to remove all Disease Cubes from a city.  So it may be in your best interests to have the Scientist finding the cures whilst the Medic plays at damage control.  After all there's only one way to win at Pandemic, but there are plenty of ways to lose...

 

 

Each city can only have a maximum of three cubes of each colour on its space.  If a fourth cube were to be placed then an Outbreak occurs (see below), and one cube of that colour is instead placed on each connected city.  For example, in the above picture Milan is already infect with three blue Disease Cubes.  Instead of receiving another, Essen, Paris and Istanbul would each receive a blue cube instead.  If Paris were already infected with three cubes then the knock-on effect would result in London, Madrid and Algiers also receiving a cube, and Essen receiving another.  It's easy to see how the game can quickly spiral out of control if no one is mopping up the infections.  If at any point a player needs to place a Disease Cube on a city and there are no cubes left of the required colour then it's game over - your team has lost control of the disease and it's curtains for humanity.

 

 

Each time an Outbreak occurs, the Outbreak Marker is moved one place down the indicator track.  If the marker ever reaches the skull and crossed-bones at the bottom of the track then (you've guessed it!) it's game over.  Your team has failed to contain the outbreaks, and humanity is lost.

 

The final phase of each player's turn is to draw two cards from the Player Draw pile, and then infect more cities from the Infection Draw pile.  If ever the Player Draw pile is depleted then, once more, the game is over.  This event is very unlikely, however, and this rule seems more to be there to answer the question of "What happens if we run out of Player Cards?"

 

So that's Pandemic in a nutshell.  A slow trek across the globe, attempting to gather the resources needed to cure these four mystery diseases before they wipe out our entire way of life.  Time to see what we thought of it...

 

The Good Points

• Many of these specialist games are based on a 'winner takes all' mentality.  As such it's nice to play a co-operative game where everyone must work towards a group victory.
• The random assignment of the characters prevents regular players from becoming complacent with one character's special abilities, keeping the game feeling fresh across multiple playthroughs.
• The 'difficulty setting' option provided by the Epidemic Cards allows even seasoned players to give themselves a challenge.  And though it's not in the instructions, struggling players can reduce the Epidemic Card count to 3 whilst they try to get their bearings.

The Bad Points

• The Infection Cards are printed on textured card, and will start to get dog-eared very quickly.  An investment in card sleeves would be recommended, or else some very careful shuffling.
• The difficulty of the game is heavily influenced by the number of players (see below).

Recommended Number of Players: 3 (4 if you're a team of masochists)

Although advertised as a 2-4 player game, Pandemic suffers from a design oversight in terms of player numbers.  Whilst many games have special tweaks to their rules for more or less players, Pandemic plays with the same rules regardless.  As a result, 2 player games of Pandemic are incredibly easy, and will almost always result in a victory for the players.  4 player games, on the other hand, are fiendishly difficult, even on the easiest 'setting'.  In the dozen 4 player games we've played at Games & Tea, we've never cured more than one of the four diseases.  As a result, the game seems to be pretty much designed for exactly 3 players.

 

Average Game Time: 60 minutes

An average game of Pandemic seems to be around an hour, regardless of player numbers.  The pace of the game is dictated by the Infection Cards, and as these are flipped after each individual player's turn they set a fairly standard game time.

 

Replay Value: High

As mentioned, the randomised characters keeps the game fresh for repeat visits.  With 3 player it's enough of  a challenge to keep you on your toes, and even in its near-impossible 4 player state you'll still find yourself drawn back to try and beat it once and for all!

 

The Future: Bright

Pandemic already has two available expansions; On The Brink and In The Lab.  On The Brink introduces new rules, new character types, new diseases, and a bioterrorist option which allows one player to compete against the others.  In The Lab adds a new dimension to the game by taking you inside the labs to take samples, test cures and sequence diseases.  We hope to be able to review both of these expansions at Games & Tea in the future.

 

Price: £30

Pandemic will burn a hole roughly the size of £30 in your pocket.  This is average fare for a specialist board game, and you certainly don't feel like you've been cheated.  Due to its popularity it's very easy to track down in specialist game shops, but does tend to sell out around holidays and Christmas.  Although the internet is once again an option, bear in mind the shipping costs a decent-sized board game will come with.

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 4/5

 

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Pandemic, Part 1: Box Contents

This week Games & Tea are going to be looking at Z-Man Games' Pandemic, a co-operative board game for 2-4 players.  In you must work together to find the cures for four deadly diseases which have broken out worldwide, the game ending when either all diseases are cured or the human race is lost!
 

Pandemic was released in 2008, and since then a newer 2013 edition has been released, featuring new box art and extra character types.  In our review we'll be looking at the 2008 original.

We established in our previous post that part 1 of any board game review would cover the contents of the box and what those pieces represent, so let's take a look at what you'll find when you open up your copy of Pandemic.

 

 

The Pandemic board is a map of the world, with 48 major cities highlighted.  The cities are split into four different colours to represent the four diseases.  At the top of the board are the Infection Draw/Discard Piles and the Infection Rate Track - these dictate the spread and severity of the outbreaks throughout the game.  In the bottom-left corner is the Outbreak Indicator, which keeps track of how well the players are keeping these diseases under control.  In the centre of the lower board you'll find the Cures Discovered Area, which shows which diseases have been cured, eradicated, or not yet dealt with.  To the right of here you'll find the Player Draw/Discard Pile, from which the players take cards at the end of their turns.  In the very lower-right corner you'll find an Order Of Play summary, just in case you ever need a reminder of the turn order.

The 48 cities are connected by red lines.  These lines are the paths the players may take to move from one city to the next, but when a disease reaches it's maximum level in any city these red lines are also the paths upon which they move on to infect other cities.

 

 

Whilst Pandemic is for 2-4 players, there are 5 different characters, and these are assigned randomly at the beginning of the game.  The extra character allows a certain random element, so that 4 player games aren't always the same.  The characters in the game are the Operations Expert, the Dispatcher, the Medic, the Researcher, and the Scientist, and each is represented by a wooden pawn in the colour of their card.  During each turn in Pandemic the players have a selection of actions they may take, and each character has their own special abilities which must be used effectively if your team is going to succeed in their mission.

  

 

The four diseases in the game are simply represented by small wooden cubes of the appropriate colour.  There are 24 of each, and when a disease hits a city 1-3 blocks will be places on that city's space.

 

 

In order to cure the diseases the players must get their characters to a Research Station.  These are represented by 6 Monopoly-style wooden buildings, and can be placed in any city around the world in the right circumstances.  As well as providing a cure location, these can also be used as fast-travel points, to help the characters hop across the globe more effectively.

 

 

 

The Infection Cards determine the spread of the diseases.  This deck consists of 48 cards, so there is one card for each city, and every time the top card(s) are revealed from the deck, those cities gain an extra Disease Cube of their appropriate colour.

 

 

The Player Cards are used to form each player's hand.  Like the Infection Cards, there is one for each city on the board, but these serve multiple purposes.  The Player Cards can be used to fast-travel between cities, build Research Stations, and most importantly to cure the diseases.  As well as the 48 cities, the Player Card deck includes 5 Special Event Cards, which will be invaluable throughout the course of the game.  These include actions such as building a Research Station in any city the player chooses, or removing a city from the Infection Deck.  There is one more type of card which resides in the Player Deck...

 

...the Epidemic Cards.  Whenever an Epidemic Card is revealed from the Player Deck the Infection Rate increases, a random city is infected, and the discarded Infection Cards are placed back on top of the Infection Deck.  This means that the same cities are constantly being infected, and the game can quickly spiral out of control once an Epidemic Card rears its ugly head.

There are 6 Epidemic Cards in the box, and the players can choose to begin with 4-6 of them in the Player Deck, depending on the challenge they wish to set for themselves.

 

Now we've seen the contents of Pandemic, it's time to see how the game plays and to give it the all-important Games & Tea final score!  Come back for Part 2 to find out what we thought!