Pandemic on the Brink Board Game EXPANSION - Face New Challenges and Save Humanity! Cooperative Strategy Game for Kids and Adults, Ages 8+, 2-5 Players, 45 Minute Playtime, Made by Z-Man Games

Okay, to start out, I love love LOVE Pandemic! I admit it, I'm a bit competitive. I hate losing games. I'm generally fine with competitive games where the best strategist (or luckiest) wins, but I really dislike games (like Settlers of Catan) where some players can gang up on others. You pretty much don't have a chance when every other player is specifically playing against YOU. Pandemic is fantastic because you cooperative with the other players and you all win or lose together. I just absolutely love sitting at the table talking about all our options and strategizing together.My son introduced me to Pandemic several months ago, and I was hooked. We've spent several afternoons/evenings playing again--and again--and again. On many occasions when I am home alone, I play all by myself (playing two roles), and we've also played four players on several occasions.With two players and four epidemics, we win every time. With five epidemics, we win about 70% of the time. We've tried six epidemics a couple times, but have not been able to beat that game yet. Still trying! Ugh! As you increase the number of players, the game gets more difficult. With four players we've only played with four epidemics, and we win probably a little over half the time. I honestly think it would be impossible with four players and six epidemics, but someone has probably proven me wrong.We've even discovered another way to lose the game, which is not listed in the rule book! It says you can lose by having too many outbreaks, running out of disease cubes, or running out of player cards. We've lost in all those lovely ways. However, a couple of times, we've had only a few outbreaks, had plenty of cubes of each color left, and plenty of player cards. Three diseases cured, with only one to go. One of those times, we'd even gotten through all the epidemics, so there were none left in the infection deck! We've got it made, right? Uh, no. Turns out we discarded too many of the same color city cards, and there were only four left total, including in our hands and in the player deck. Neither of us was the Scientist, so that was an automatic loss. This is a danger when you get dealt a nice hand at the beginning, say two or even three of the same color. You decide to collect those, so when you discard, you are discarding the other colors. If you happen to keep drawing you "discard" color and it takes too long to collect the color(s) you want, you've now discarded too many of the other color and you don't have enough left at the end to cure the disease. Beware.We have also managed to lose the game on the very first turn. We were very unlucky drawing the infection cards when setting up the game: three on Karachi and Delhi, and two on Kolkata. Our first player did not have any way to get to that location to do even a little treating, and the first card drawn from the player deck was an epidemic. After resolving the epidemic, the first card drawn was Delhi, which caused a double outbreak (Delhi/Karachi) and put the third cube on Kolkata. The second card drawn was Kolkata, which was a triple outbreak (Kolkata/Delhi/Karachi) and lost us the game as there weren't enough disease cubes. Yep, lost on the very first player card drawn and there was not a single thing we could do about it.One slight change we sometimes make in the game is to draw 10 cards at the beginning instead of 9. The first nine infect the cities, and the tenth is where we place our player pawns and the first research station. It adds a level of difficulty to the game to not always start in Atlanta. We were noticing before that we always seemed to get in trouble with black and red, and we believe it was because all our players started so close to blue and yellow so those cities were easy to get to and treat. Now that we can start anywhere on the board, blue and yellow have become equal opportunity killers.There are a few things it is easy to get wrong. When the infection rate moves up, it's easy to forget to start drawing three cards (or four) since you're so accustomed to the lower number. It's also easy to forget to discard, not noticing that you have more than 7 cards in your hand. One scenario we've encountered a few times involves having 8 cards for literally a second. You meet another player on top of a research station, and share knowledge by pulling that city card from her. You now have 8 cards in your hand, but 5 of one color. Your very next action is going to be curing a disease, which will leave you with only 3 cards. But, before you cure that disease, you have 8 cards, so we think you have to discard one even though literally on your next action you will be discarding 5 cards. This is a little frustrating, but the rules specifically say that if you EVER (my emphasis) have more than 7 cards in your hand, you must discard (or play an event card).We were also a little confused by the role of the Researcher the first time we played. To be clear, when the Researcher shares knowledge, she and the other player must be on the same city, and the card can only go FROM the Researcher TO the other player (on either player's turn, as an action). She cannot take a card from the other player (and they cannot give one to her), unless it matches the city they are sitting on.It is also extremely easy to forget to infect cities after resolving an epidemic. You've spent a bunch of time resolving, then strategizing based on where the board stands now, and you completely forget that you still have to infect before going to the next player.Lastly, you are not supposed to choose your roles. We played with one person who had played before, and he said they always choose which roles they want. I suppose you can play that way if you want, but the game would be far less interesting because people would probably tend to choose the same roles every time. The instructions say to shuffle the role cards and deal them to each player -- that means they're supposed to be random. It's far more interesting and challenging when the roles change every time. A good part of the strategy is figuring out how to maximize the advantages that each role gives you in any given game.Pandemic is basically figuring out exactly how much effort you have to spend in each game sharing knowledge in order to cure diseases versus preventing outbreaks, all while maximizing the strategic use of whatever role you are playing. Spend too much time on one, and the other will get you. Sometimes you just have to say "oh well" and let an outbreak happen, even when you could have prevented it. It may just be more important to get to that one city in order to share knowledge than to get to the city where the outbreak is about to happen in order to prevent it. However we do try hard to prevent double outbreaks because things can get very bad very quickly when that happens.Okay I've rambled enough. If you're on the edge, buy this game! It's awesome. Every game is different and it never gets boring. It is equally fun with two or more players, although the more players, the more challenging it is. You can control the difficulty level by player with fewer or more epidemic cards. A+

This game is SO fun. We enjoy it so much as a family, that we'll play it over and over several times. Its versatile enough that you can play it again and again, and each time is different. Its very easy to pick up once you get the hang of it, and you really do feel like, "You're saving the world" Its easy to get immersed in it, and quickly lose track of time. We also purchased Contagion and Rapid Response. IMO. the board game ones are the way to go. IMO, this is the best one in the series. (We do plan to purchase the expansions to this one in the future) because we have enjoyed it so much. Definitely a new favorite type of game (being a cooperative game) and being such a fun game to play on repeat. If you're looking for a good cooperative game to introduce to the family, this is it.

This review may contain MINOR spoilers. I will not spoil any part of the story, though I may touch upon the upgrade system a bit, not going into too much detail so that an element of surprise may remain.I can't really say a TON about the game without spoiling it...but if you like Pandemic, you'll love this! This is Pandemic with more of a story, ever-changing threats to deal with (though still well within the vein of Pandemic - they aren't COMPLETELY changing the game on you), and the need to consider future repercussions as well as immediate needs.A few things I'd like to get out of the way first:1. For anyone wondering, this is NOT an expansion to another game. This is a stand-alone game. This game cannot be combined with regular Pandemic.2. If you haven't played the original Pandemic game, I'd recommend considering that game and its expansions first. It's a great game...and this game isn't easy to jump into if you haven't played Pandemic before.3. This is a game that changes as you play it. You will write on things. You will apply stickers. You will rip things up. You will open upgrade packages. If this bothers you, play regular Pandemic. This game would be nearly impossible to play in such a way that you can "reset" it. That said, it will last you a good long while and it's worth just playing it properly.If you played normal Pandemic with the expansions, it will take a bit of adjustment, no longer making use of things like the lab (one of my personal favorite expansions)...but Pandemic Legacy easily makes up for that with many of its unique features and ever-changing story.At least at first, Pandemic Legacy plays very similarly to the original game with few noticable changes. This WILL change with every game session. Some of the differences you'll note:- The game has a maximum of four players.- Pandemic Legacy may be played an unlimited number of times, but the STORY of the game takes place over 12-24 game sessions (depending on how well you do). It seems that the game taking only 12 game sessions would be nearly impossible unless you cheat. The game scales in difficulty as you win and lose.- The game starts with only four characters - the medic (improved disease removal), dispatcher (move other players), generalist (more actions and upgrade slots), and researcher (create cures for diseases more easily). That said, new roles will be unlocked occasionally throughout the game.- After every game session, win or lose, you get to choose two upgrades. These upgrades may grant your characters more abilities (like Pilot - when you use a card to fly to another city, do not discard the card), starting the game with additional research stations, making diseases easier to cure, etc.- If you play carelessly, your characters may gain downgrades that complicate their lives for the rest of the game. Collect too many downgrades on a character and they're removed from the game. From then on, you must pick a different character or use a generic character with no special traits whatsoever. These downgrades can USUALLY be avoided if you play carefully. My group made it through the first half of the game without getting a single downgrade.- When a city outbreaks, that city will gain increasing levels of unrest. Eventually, the city will become more difficult to traverse. This means that allowing outbreaks to happen will eventually make the overall game more difficult. It may be better to lose an early game if you can avoid getting too many outbreaks.- The more you win the game, the harder it gets. The more you lose the game, the easier it gets. The game is designed to scale to the skill level of your group. You are almost certain to have a mix of wins and losses. There are two mechanisms that control this. The first is your "funding" level. You have a floating number of event cards thay may be placed in the player deck. The more you have, the easier the game becomes. For each game you win, you have two fewer event cards to play with. For each game you lose, you gain two more. The second mechanism is replay. When you lose one of the 12 missions or "months", you get a second chance. Since you get 2 upgrades at the end of every game you play, you'll end up with more upgrades, the more you lose.- You always have to be mindful of the future if you want to do well. It's better to lose gracefully than to win at a heavy cost. The penalties that you accumulate will sick with you through the rest of the game. If you can lose a mission without accumulating any downgrades, you will only be better for it. This fundamentally changes how you play each game.- As you play, the game introduces new complications and may change the goals needed to win. There are hidden rules. Hidden game pieces. Hidden character cards. Many things will change as you play the game...but that's why you buy Pandemic Legacy over normal Pandemic.If you've never played Pandemic before, I'd honestly recommend considering getting that before this game. The games do not tie together, but Pandemic Legacy is less forgiving to players unfamiliar with the game system. If you already have and love Pandemic, BUY THIS GAME.