Game Review: Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 by Z-Man Games

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 designed by Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games

OVERVIEW:

Building upon the success of two previous games, Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock have crafted a sprawling co-operative board game experience in Pandemic Legacy: Season 1. 

Leacock made the original Pandemic in 2008. It is a co-operative game where players crisscross the globe fighting the spread of four diseases while trying to discover cures for those diseases. Each player is a different character who has a special action only that character can do (like the Dispatcher moving other characters' pieces on the Dispatcher's turn (with permission)). The game requires a careful balancing of collecting and using resources (cards from a player deck). The diseases pop up in various cities and will cause problems when too many people get infected (causing "outbreaks" that spread to neighboring cities). The game is wildly popular for its co-operative nature, the difficulty in winning (it is not an easy game but it is not too difficult), and the heroic theme.

Daviau made Risk Legacy in 2011. Players competed militarily to control the world. The twist from classic Risk is that the players control different factions (not just different colors) that have the ability to take actions that other players can't. Even more, the player has two options of an ability and must choose one, destroying the other, i.e. it can never be used. The rules say to tear up the card or component and throw it away. Also, at the end of the game, players (usually the victor) will make permanent changes to the playing board. Subsequent games play a little differently, and more differently as more games are played. A campaign is introduced that changes the game and makes it more exciting as it goes on. The game is wildly popular for its innovations, the permanent changes made, and "something new" with each subsequent play.

Leacock and Daviau combined the Legacy concept and mechanics with the Pandemic co-operative experience. The result is a game that starts with an initial typical game of Pandemic that has a sudden change half-way through the first play. One of the diseases morphs, creating new rules and objectives for the game. Components are destroyed and stickers go on the board, changing how the game is played. As players win or lose each game, resources and rules are added or taken away. 

The campaign is played over an in-game year, starting with January and going to December. Each month, players have two chances to win. That is, if they fail the very first game, they get to play January again, though if they fail a second time, the game moves on to February. Ultimately, the players have twelve to twenty-four games. A victory brings bonuses but also penalties. The player deck includes "Special Event" cards that players can use to remove diseases, perform extra actions, or other special abilities. The number of these cards fluctuates--if the players lose, their budget is increased and they can add extra event cards; if they win, their budget is decreased and they need to be selective about which cards to include since fewer card will be added. As the game challenges shift, different cards seem more valuable than others.

The board also changes. When an outbreak happens, the overrun city starts rioting and panicking. If things get too bad, it becomes hard to move through the cities. Players can also add permanent stations (as in the base game) to help them move around the board and solve problems. Also, stickers become available to add to the player cards so they have more than the regular use of traveling around the board, building stations, or finding cures. Choosing which cards get stickers and when to use the abilities is a fun and interesting twist.

Game board from publisher's website with spoilers removed

Player characters get modifications, beyond just adding names to the characters (we had a Quarantine Specialist whom we called "Isa Lationist"). They can get special relationships with other characters, enabling them to trade cards, use extra actions, or other abilities. Individual abilities can also be added. If a character is caught in a city that has an outbreak, a scar sticker is added that causes a disability (like not being able to find cures). Too many scars means the character dies, i.e. permanently removed from the game. The character development is an interesting part of the game.

At the end of each play, players can make modifications to their characters or to the board, hopefully making things easier for the next game. Sometimes new components are added, creating new challenges. The initial objective of finding cures for diseases quickly changes with new, different objectives that are more or less easy. Often, players have the option of solving just three of a multitude of objectives. I don't think we ever had more than five objectives. When some objectives are solved, a reward is given and that objective is trashed. These expiring objectives often move the story forward.

The overall story is interesting and exciting, though obviously discussing it here would contain many spoilers. We enjoyed the storyline a lot, which leads to...

OUR EXPERIENCE

We played with an initial set of characters that remained consistent for the first few months. We lost the very first game, which meant our resources increased and we had a leg-up on the subsequent plays. The game is challenging but my wife and son had been playing plenty of Pandemic over the past year. They had a good sense of what was possible and how to set up future moves or avoid potential obstacles (like drawing a card that causes an outbreak). We had a mixture of successes and failures through the games, which kept things exciting for us. We were happy every time we got back to the game. 

Since our playgroup was limited to family members, we were able to play through the game relatively quickly, in less than two months. Having the Christmas holiday and some snow days helped too (along with no traveling over Christmas). The excitement had us returning, sometimes the very next day, to make more progress with the new things we just discovered. 

The legacy aspect is fun, though some of us have a hard time tearing up cards or destroying components. Losing characters, which only happened a few times, was not so traumatic. The game comes with a variety of characters and new ones are added that help with the new objectives. Adding stickers to the board and to the rulebook (with explanations of new rules) was not a problem. The growing complexity never got too far out of hand, though we did miss a key rule in the first few games (adding the rioting stickers to outbreak cities) that probably made things easier than it should have been. The final state of the game is not playable but is a satisfying conclusion to the story. Assuming you achieve the final objectives.

Players can calculate a score at the end based on the state of the world and what they accomplished over the twelve to twenty-four games. We had an average score. That was a bit anticlimactic but we played for the fun experience, not the score.

Even though we ended with a board game we can't play any more, we thought we got our money's worth, considering the quality of the story and the game. Also, the number of plays is good, we have a bunch of games that we've only played two to five times. Getting twenty plays out of one game is satisfying.

Recommended, though you need a play-group that is dedicated to playing through the whole game.

SPOILER FINAL PICTURES OF OUR GAME!

The final state of our world!

The history of our campaign!

Game Review: Unlock! Game Adventures by Space Cowboys

Unlock! Game Adventures by Space Cowboys

In the equivalent of a Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover like the Avengers films, the Unlock! escape room series has a set that features three scenarios based on other board games! In an interesting twist, the games are not all published by Space Cowboys, so it's like Marvel crossed over with DC and Dark Horse. Here's the game-by-game rundown...

Ticket To Ride--players are in a story derived from the Ticket to Ride base game (set in the USA). Several family members (not the players but characters in the story) own various routes and are trying to combine to get a transcontinental railroad. Some mysterious shenanigans are going on, with sabotage and backroom dealings aplenty. Players are reporters from a New York newspaper trying to get the scoop on what the family is doing. The game includes elements from the Ticket to Ride game beyond the art. The interesting storyline leads to the ultimate solution that is satisfactory and not too hard to get to. 

I enjoyed this as an imaginative use of the franchise, especially the turn-of-twentieth-century railroad life setting. We did fairly well even with a few wrong guesses on combining cards.

Mysterium--Players are a group of psychic investigators who visit an early twentieth-century estate where a death has happened. The house is haunted by the ghost but luckily the players are just the sort to get information from the spirit to find out if the death was murder, how it was committed, and who was the culprit. So, yeah, it was a murder, no surprise there.

This game does a good job bringing in elements of the original game. The mystery is slowly solved using visions and some deduction to solve the riddles and get to the details of what happened. The flow is natural and uses the app in interesting ways. One puzzle didn't work for us even after getting the hint though the problem was a physical mechanical issue. We did take a couple of hints at points just to make sure we were on the right track. The ending is satisfying and made me nostalgic for the original game.

Pandemic--Like the board game, players are specialists hunting down cures for a variety of diseases that have broken out across the globe. Unlike, the board game, players are also hunting down "patient zero" who is the source of at least one of the diseases. It's a race both against the clock and all over the world. 

While using the basic scenario of Pandemic, the execution is terrible. A lot of the puzzles are inexplicably hard. We missed the very first thing we were supposed to do (an action that does not make sense in the Pandemic system), which threw off the puzzle we were working on. The slow start led off to a lot of other hard-to-guess puzzles. When we checked the walk-through provided with the game, we did not have the "ahh, that's what we were supposed to do" moments, we had the "did they really expect people to think that way?!?" moments. The experience was very frustrating and our nine-year old walked out halfway through. Mom and I muscled our way to the end just for the sense of completion. We did not get a sense of satisfaction. This is the worst Unlock game we have ever played! Even worse than that stupid island one.

Of the three games, Msyterium was our favorite. It had the spirit (!) of the original and great execution, blending the Unlock! system nicely with the Mysterium gameplay and narrative. Overall, we'd recommend this set, but have a lot of patience and willingness to get help with the Pandemic module.

Recommended.

Cute Kid Pix October 2023

More pictures that did not make their own post...

My youngest finally had his first baseball game after two weeks of rain outs. He had a good time, getting on base with a hit and scoring the first run for his team. His age-level is the first kid-pitch level, so a bunch of players made it on base from walks. The game ended in a 3-3 tie, which may have been appropriate since it was Nationals versus Cardinals and all the players had the same color jerseys. Everyone had fun on a sunny Sunday.

They get to steal too, so here he is on second

And on third

My son finished off a "building bricks" set that is not Legos. He made George Washington's Mount Vernon, a place we visited some time ago. 

Not the happiest builder in the country

With scouts, we did some outdoor cooking, including foil packet dinners on the grill. The boys loved it!

Yummy self-made dinner!

My eldest had another debate at which I was a judge. I wound up being a proctor for the Extemperaneous Speaking competition, which meant I handed out the topics to the participants thirty minutes before they talked about it. The time was for them to research the topic and prepare seven minutes of remarks.

I had a couple of breaks and wandered around the campus of Calvert Hall College High School, named after a Catholic colonial leader and led by Salesian Brothers, so the statue on campus is of Cecil Calvert and Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. 

Teamwork!

Another patron--Our Lady of the Library!

My youngest had his final game at the end of the month, which they won 12-13 against the Orioles. Fall ball has a very short season and no playoffs!

On third

He's also had fun playing board games, including the popular Pandemic. 

Victory!

Our dance studio, That's Dancing, had a Halloween party. We dressed up in cowboy outfits. One couple came as Barbie and Ken, so I took a turn in the Ken box as "Cowboy Ken Doll." Our niece came to the dance too!

Dressed up for dancing

Dancing

Ready to be bought

My wife danced herself to the bone!

The cub scouts had a pack meeting where kids dressed up. My youngest reused his baseball uniform as a Halloween costume.

Discussing ring toss strategy

Going for a hat trick

As for actual Halloween, we never took a picture of our youngest in his outfit (the Link outfit from a birthday party earlier in the year), but we did get a shot of his candy collection in a bar chart.

Do they learn this in school?