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Alex Gregorie

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3/12/2011

The game Pandemic is a co-operative board game for 2-4 players in which players assume the role of 

specialists working to stop the spread of four deadly diseases before they destroy the world. The game

was designed by Matt Leacock designer of Roll through the Ages: The Bronze Age and Forbidden Island  

and was published by Z-Man games in 2008. It The Graphic Design and Illustrations for the game were

done by Joshua Cappel. The game places the characters in the role of specialists fighting the spread of 

four deadly diseases. The players must work together to share information in the form of cards, to

contain outbreaks, and to find cures that will eventually lead to the end of the pandemic. The game play

is incredibly random which adds to the challenge of the game as well as the feeling that the diseases are

growing and spreading out of control.

The game also contains an expansion called Pandemic: On the Brink . This expansion was co-designed by

Tom Lehman who also worked on games such as Time Agent, Throneworld and The Brink of War. The

expansion adds more specialists to the game, special rule modifications that allow for a fifth player, a

fifth disease called Mutation, more ways that the epidemics can wreak havoc as well as a new mechanic

in the form of the Bio-Terrorist. The Bio-Terrorist acts as an antagonist that works against the other

players spreading outbreaks and diseases to various cities.

The game went through a number of iterations and Leacock began developing it in 2004. The original

game interface(fig.1) consisted of a simple game board, which looked like a not so distant cousin of 

Shoots-and-Ladders, Cubes and a normal deck of cards. Matt says of the game,

After I ³discovered´ the rule where players shuffle up discards to place back on to the disease

draw pile, I knew I was on to something. Other rules that survived from the very first

prototype included the need for 5 cards of the same suit to discover a cure and the ability to

use a card as a plane ticket to the pictured city.

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Alex Gregorie

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In Leacock¶s second prototype (fig. 2) he created a board that was similar to the board that is used

today. He also began the idea of the separating of the ³Infection Deck´ and the ³Player Deck´ to act as

a type of ³deck-as -clock´ mechanic and to also introduce the special action cards.

In prototype four (fig.3) Matt began to consider some of the aesthetic choices of the interface. One

that he mentions is that he changed the green colored disease for a black one for the sake of the

color-blind. He switched back to having only one deck for the Infection and the Players.

During the sixth prototype (fig.4) Leacock finally split the Infection and the Player decks. Also he

experimented with various routes though he admits that they weren¶t necessarily for the better. He

also implements the idea of Actions-per-Turn instead of the ³supply cubes´ that he was using before.

Matt, on his eighth version (fig. 5) of the game began to consider the game finished. He introduced

the Special Action cards in this version as well as changed the orientation of the Infection cards to

landscape so as not to be confused with the players draw pile. The last iterations done to this

prototype were aesthetic choices of illustrations and typography by the illustrator Joshua Cappel.

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Alex Gregorie

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fig.1

fig.2

fig.3

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Alex Gregorie

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fig. 4

fig. 5