Gaming by Myself: Pandemic

Pandemic by Matt Leacock

There are times when I get the urge to play a game and there's no one around to play. These are the times I'm glad to have Pandemic designed by Matt Leaock.

Pandemic falls into a category of game known as the cooperative games. Basically, instead of trying to conquer, outbid or ruin each other, everyone playing is one the same team. In the case of Pandemic the players take the role of researchers, scientists and medics who try desperately to stop four diseases (represented by colored cubes, hence the post title) from running rampant across the globe.

One of the nice things about cooperative games is that they're easy to play solo. Since there's no conflict between players, I can just take a couple roles and play normally. Which is what I've been doing a lot of lately.

The only problem is that I keep losing.

About a week or two ago I picked a couple random roles (Researcher and Operations Expert) and got it. It was a horrible defeat, with mutiple losing conditions triggering at once. Since then I've resolved to keep trying that same setup until I win.

I'm 0-4 at the moment. Sure there's things I could to to make it easier on me. I could ramp down the difficulty or picks new roles that sync together better. But I love the challenge. And when that day finally comes when I save the world from total destruction, it will be a glorious day indeed.