2024 the best board games for adults review
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(as of Dec 17, 2024 08:16:09 UTC - Details)
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Are you ready for a thrilling cooperative board game that will test your teamwork and strategic skills? In Pandemic, players must work together to stop the spread of four deadly diseases that have broken out around the world. Only through teamwork will you keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics. Your team must work together and plan carefully to stem the tide of infection while working toward finding the cures. Each player takes on the role of a specialist, using their unique strengths to help find cures and prevent outbreaks. For example, the Operation specialist can build research stations, while the Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it. But the diseases are spreading fast and time is running out – the team must work together to stem the tide of infection and find the cures before it's too late. This game is perfect for family game night and is suitable for kids ages 8-12 and adults. It's also great for team-building and strategy lovers. With immersive gameplay and high stakes, this game is sure to be a hit with the whole family. Whether you're a seasoned board game enthusiast or a newcomer, you'll love the exciting challenges and cooperative gameplay of this disease-fighting adventure. So gather your team and get ready to save the world in this thrilling and immersive board game. This easy to learn family and adult board game can be played with 2 to 4 players. The average playtime is 45 minutes. Pandemic is the perfect gift for anyone who loves a bit of problem-solving! A perfect way to bring together friends and family, be sure to check out our full line of Pandemic games.
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STRATEGY GAME: Players must work together playing to their characters' strengths as they plan their strategy of eradicating the diseases before they overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. A truly cooperative game where you win or lose together.
COOPERATIVE BOARD GAME: Only through teamwork will you keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics. Your team must work together and plan carefully to stem the tide of infection while working toward finding the cures.
WORK TOGETHER AND SAVE HUMANITY: Four diseases threaten the world, and your elite team of specialists must find a cure for each of them before it’s too late. Everyone must work together applying their unique character skills to benefit the team—and the world.
GIFT FOR ADULTS AND TEENS: Pandemic is the perfect Christmas or birthday gift for anyone who loves a bit of problem solving. A perfect way to bring together friends and family, be sure to check out our full line of Pandemic games.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS AND AVERAGE PLAYTIME: This easy to learn family and adult board game can be played with 2 to 4 players. The average playtime is 45 minutes.
Updated version of the popular co-operative game
For 2 to 5 players game
Takes about an hour to play
Reviewer: Stancet
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Greatest Cooperative Game Ever
Review: Pandemic is a 2 to 4 player cooperative strategy game about doctors fighting diseases. All around, itâs a downright amazing game whether youâre a casual board gamer or a hard core one. Anyone who believes that the life of a doctor is boring or mundane might find a brand you appreciation for them when they play this game for the first time, but I think Pandemicâs biggest contribution to gaming is the standard it set for the many other cooperative games that came after it.In Pandemic every player is given a special role-card with a nameless character on it who has a special power that will be vital to winning the game. The game board itself is a map of the world with 48 of the most important cities connected to one another by white lines to indicate paths for movement. The four diseases you are struggling to cure are represented by tiny different colored cubes that will inhabit these cities, slowly making the population sicker and sicker.The players have two objectives that are vital to winning. If the entire supply of any one disease has been distributed across the board, the players loose. So part of the gameplay involves traveling to the worldâs many cities to treat the inhabitants and removing disease cubes from those spaces. However, to overcome the diseases and win the game, players have a hand of different colored cards with the names of different cities on them. Players can travel greater distances by surrendering some of these cards, but the real goal is to visit one of the research centers on the board and surrender five cards of the same color to find a cure for one particular disease. Once the cures for all four diseases have been discovered, the players win the game.Much of the gameâs intrigue comes from your hand of cards because in almost every game players will be unsure if they want to use those cards for transportation or save them instead for finding a cure. The majority of player to player interaction involves passing and exchanging these cards around to create optimal hands, but even that will prove a challenge. One of the hardest rules for the players to follow is probably the one that wonât let you exchange a card unless the city printed on that card matches the one youâre currently in. Having one person playing as the Researcher can be the greatest benefit to your team, since they get to ignore that rule.So on top of the playerâs gameplay being very intriguing, the diseases also have an interesting gameplay style. The gameâs difficulty is determined by how many Epidemic cards that you have shuffled into the Player Deck. The diseases themselves get a separate pile of cards called the Infection Deck. Each card from the Infection Deck has the name of a city where you will place one more disease cube at the end of each and every turn. Epidemic cards from the Player Deck are downright diabolical, because they will force you to take the discarded Infection cards and then put them back on top of the deck they came from. That means diseases will start targeting the same cities multiple times and players will be running back and forth trying to keep the diseases under control. Outbreaks are even worse, when there are already too many disease cubes on one city and the game will force you to put a cube on each connecting city instead. The mass mayhem and panic that starts to circulate around the game table is one of the most enjoyable things about Pandemic.The gameplay is a truly flawless experience, in my opinion. Turns tend to happen very quickly and each playerâs unique power will strongly encourage coordination between everyone. Pandemic also balances dumb luck with careful strategic planning, because itâs possible youâll already have the cure for a disease within the first turn of the game. However, if players donât coordination their efforts and manage their resources wisely that is the path to certain doom. But itâs not only the balance and the coordination that makes the gameplay perfect but also the right theme.Playing as doctors and trying to do something as noble as fighting diseases is something that everybody in the world can truly admire. When the world is suffering from a pandemic it doesnât matter what creed or nationality you are since everyone will pool their efforts to save humanity itself, hence the cooperative play. The art direction is also very complimentary of the theme. The game and the cards kind of remind me of a computer monitor thatâs tracking the progress of each person and disease. Itâs all very family friendly too, since there is no artwork portraying any gruesome pain or agony.Now, to nitpick on some of the gameâs very few shortcomings, there are probably a few people who wonât be convinced a tiny colored cube represents a disease very well. Personally, this has never distracted me from an enjoyable game. Also, the spaces that represent each city can also be very small when trying to fit disease cubes, a research station and player pawns all together into a circle half an inch across. But once again, this has never been a problem to me if the game board isnât shaken too much.So altogether, Pandemic is probably the single best cooperative board game that was ever created. Itâs fresh and exciting every time I play it, and I always enjoy upping the difficulty to see how much better I can do against the diseases. Winning and loosing are both very fun if you work well together as a team. But even to this day, Pandemic is an example to other game designers trying to make cooperative board games, and itâs not very hard to see why when you pick it up and play it.
Reviewer: Logan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Extremely fun but challenging game!!!
Review: It seemed like weâd just started the game and the yellow strain had not only been cured but eradicated! We were on the cusp of a cure for the second strain. This one was in the bag. We had weathered two epidemics so far without any egregious problems. Sure there was a pair of cities in Eastern Europe that was in danger, but what were the odds that was going to be a problem? One of us was already there. Then another epidemic hit, the infection rate increased, three cities were drawn and it seemed the cascading outbreaks knew no bounds. I think nearly everyone in Europe died that day, and we â a group of specialized scientists- were served a plate of bitter defeat. Again! Again and again, always defeat. Oh, the humanity!Itâs true, I havenât ever beat this rotten game and yet I keep coming back. Because one day Iâll win; in spite of all the wounds to my pride Iâve had to nurse, one day Iâll â I mean- weâll win. I say weâll because this is a co-operative game where you all work together against those nasty strains of no-doubt-human engineered beasties. Now, I know there are those of you who beat this every time you play, like I beat Shadows over Camelot every time I play, but Iâve invited those sorts to come play with me and they can barely stand the shame of losing with me.To make it even worse, we only play with 4 epidemics. I feel like Iâm at an AA meeting: âHi my name is Kyle.ââHi Kyleâ echoes the crowd.âI⦠I suck at Pandemic.âThis is the part where you put your arm on my shoulder and tell me itâs going to be alright.Game PlayThis board is a handsome map of the world; only instead of country boards you see in Risk there is a red web of interconnected cities. Everyone starts in Atlanta were a research station is and you go from there. Each player plays a scientist that has a special ability: one can move others on their turn, one can give cards to another without the restrictions other players have and so on. The game also begins with 9 random cities around the world with varying degrees of infection (one to three stacked blocks). If a city would have a fourth block put on it (called an outbreak), it actually stays at three and the cities connected by the red web get a block. Isnât that nice? Itâs called a cascading outbreak. Such a pretty name. If you get 9 outbreaks in a game you lose. If you run out of blocks for a certain strain you lose, and if you havenât cured all the strains before your white deck of cards runs out, you lose. I hate to be a negative Nancy, but thereâs a lot of ways to lose this game. If, on the other hand, you are able to find cures for each strain, you win!How do you do that? Well you get someone who has got 5 cards of the same color in their hand to a research station, thatâs how. One of the players only needs four.Every turn each player gets to do four actions. Picking up a cube off a city counts as one, so does moving between cities. You can charter flights with your cards, rather than use them for cures. You can build research stations and fly between those without expending a card, and a few other things. Then you draw cards that you think will help you, but can instead turn out to be epidemics. And you also draw cards for cities that get infected: usually this amounts to adding on square to the cityâs pile. As the game progresses, more cards are drawn at a time to be infected. Oh, and when an epidemic happens, the cards for the cities that were infected get put back on the top of the draw pile. Oh dear.I hate to tell you what to do because what do I know anyway?Those of you who beat this all the time should tell me what to do. I understand that finding the cures is everything- lest you run out of time. Others say, make sure that you never have three on on e city at a time, as to avoid outbreaks.Make sure that the medic is only clearing off stacks of infections, the dispatcher should be moving people so that donât have to move themselves.Again, I never win, so what do I know?ThemeIf it hasnât been obvious, I am completely sucked in by the theme. There are similarities to other co-operative games especially Forbidden Island: Each character has special powers, you make moves for the team and then the board pushed you closer to defeat, that sort of thing. Forbidden Island also shares the shuffle the cards and put them back on top of the draw deck mechanic. I tell you this so that you wonât be surprised if you decide to add them both to your game closet, this is why I havenât added Forbidden Island to mine, though Iâve played the game. While this adds to the evidence that the theme could be stripped out of the game, I donât recall cascading flooding going on in Forbidden Island, or feeling like humanity is hanging in the balance, or being glad I donât live anywhere in Eastern Europe. That is to say, I think the theme sticks.BalanceI read about people who win all the time and needed the expansion to rouse any concern in them. But who can believe everything they read on the internet, I ask you? Just because Iâve never won though doesnât mean that itâs not an enjoyable experience, mind you. Because I keep coming back.InteractionInteraction is very high. Thereâs all sort of collaborative discussion that goes on through this game.Learning CurveLow. It takes all of ten minutes to explain and there are directions on the board and the turn cards.DowntimeNill. You are all in it together! And you even get to move a guy in your turn.Whatâs not to Like?I actually know where some of these cities are on the map are but they all have these lines that go from the pin-pointed location to the circle where you actually place the blocks. That remains a bit annoying even after playing the game 10 times.Collateral EndorsementMy four year old likes âThe one where they get sickâ We run around curing cities till the infection deck runs out. He feels a lot better about himself than the rage I feel playing by the real rules.Actually, as I think about it, the first time I played this game I was at the home of some friends and I think we won. But Iâm certain I have not won with my copy of the game. Iâd say mine is jinxed, but weâve played on another friends copy and lost there too. Also, I should say that a brother of mine lost two in a row and saw the writing on the wall in the third game and left the table, swearing off the game forever. You might consider your own resiliency before buying this game.
Reviewer: Hatnim's
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: By reading the review page about Pandemic - you're probably a newbie at board games like me.Looking through YouTube videos and BoardGameGeek...As a very very noob to boardgames, you'll obviously need to prepare yourself to LEARN new games, but also TEACH new games to others as probably your friends/family are also noobs.I'm a ramping up beginner to boardgames (have now evolved further from Pandemic) - this game was great because it's easy to learn, relatively (I suggest watching a YouTube video if you're not up for reading the instructions, I did both but YT video alone might have been okay). But fresh and interesting to those who only have Monopoly in their board game resume.My personal opinion, I'm not much into competitive board games or card games as I think they are usually played rather silently as people focus too much on their own part/plan, and some times (or most times) you don't get to have fun by losing (albeit, some games (and some groups) can make even losing fun too).I wanted a game that's more chatty (for, again in my opinion, better purpose of "spending time together") - so cooperative games!This is a great, entry level-ish coop game that involves constant group problem-solving. If you're less into competitive games like me, or if you want to have a break between competitive games, this is a great pick.Set up time can take a few minutes, so it might also be a great break time for the less-engaged players in your group/partnership.The game can also be played solo.. if you play multiple roles by yourself, but it's obviously not as fun.I got this on sale, if it is on sale and you're looking to expand (or start) your collection, do get it!Again I'm a noob myself so I also haven't tried any of the expansions yet. 😛
Reviewer: Daniel Dichte
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Super Spiel für Gruppen die ihr Teamwork auf ein neues Level bringen wollen. Sehr gut auch für Paare geeignet.
Reviewer: Surya
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Unlike games like Catan, monopoly where you play individually this game is different. It's a cooperative game. It's a little complicated to get the rules but the game is incredibly enjoyable and I love playing it with the group.
Reviewer: Maciej
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Haven't actually played yet but opened the package. Looks genuine and is in English, perfect 🙂
Reviewer: Faris
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great game, kids love it