Pandemic

Our little group got together and we played a game called Pandemic. This game has been around for a long time now, must be a few years but I've never played it.  I have made and played a Print n' Play game called Pandemic-Express which closely simulates Pandemic but uses dice instead of cards.

I was looking forwards to playing the game and was not disappointed. There were three of us playing and I got the role of ... er ... the guy who can build research stations. 

There are many roles in the game and everyone gets to choose one role, each of which has an ability that breaks the basic game rules. I like that there are more roles than players, that'll give the game some replayability.

As to the components, I was pretty impressed. The board was very nice, a good heavy weight and richly coloured. the cards were very nice too. Clear text etc, but I was a little a little colour problem with blue/purple. the cards and board colours didn't match too well.

The disease cubes were semi transparent plastic, and I believe that they were painted wooden cubes in a previous version. I'm glad to have played with the plastic ones, I prefer them to wooden cubes.

I glanced through the rulebook and it looked pretty good too. I actually downloaded and read a quick-play guide from the interwebs so I didn't have to refer to the manual for actual use.  the chap who owned the game was playing for the first time too and he didn't feel the need to constantly refer to it, and that suggests that it is well written.

I loved the game, the fact that we lost had no impact on that! the interaction and planning steps were great fun, and the tease of having just lost and then working out that we might have won, if only we'd dome something slightly different was great.  It appears to be a game where you must work together, you must interact if you want a chance of winning. Playing on your own, trying to collect cards and keep on top of the outbreaks is just impossible.

Lots of consideration on your turn and other peoples turns keeps you involved in the game all of the time. Great!

This is a game I'm looking forward to playing again sometime soon!

Settlers of Catan - review of sorrts

On Thursday I played Settlers of Catan for the very first time. I've known about the game for years, but never bought a copy for myself.  Whenever the opportunity came up, I would look around and there was always some other game that looked more exciting or more like it would appeal to my family. Always some other priority.

On Thursday I actually got to play someone else's copy of the game. I was very happy with the look and feel of the game. the components were perfectly suitable. Everything was colourful, the rules were clear and the bits and cards felt good to handle.

I liked the look of the board, although I do have one very minor complaint. I wish that the hexes that make up the main board had symbols on them to match with the resource cards themselves. It's just a very minor niggle.

I liked the way it played, a turn could be very quick. Roll the dice, grab the resources, a quick trade perhaps, then play the resources that you worked out you were going spend while everyone else was taking their turns. Very simple, very straight forward.

But what did I think? I liked it. I didn't love it. I will happily play it anytime, there is enough social and game interaction to make this a game I will always play if someone offers it up. But the theme is not one to inspire me to pick it myself when I have so many other games to play.