Trash or Treasure? #3: Pandemic

Up until, say, the early 1990s, if you grew up in the United States, Canada, (maybe) Britain, and (possibly) Australia, you grew up with the popular board games, like Monopoly, Clue (or Cluedo), Scrabble, Stratego, Risk, Life, and so on. Indeed, the board game producers Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley seemed to monopolize (pun intended) our childhood board game culture. Interestingly, though, there was a surprising lack of cooperative strategic games. Sure, games like Pictionary and Taboo were cooperative party games, but there was little strategy involved, per se (note: I'm not going to argue about the tactics of Taboo, which involve knowing your teammates so that you can provide the best clues).

Pandemic was not the first cooperative strategy game; to my knowledge, Shadows over Camelot pre-dated it by three years, and dungeon crawl games existed long before that. Yet, Pandemic was certainly the most impactful in the golden age of Eurogames. Released in 2008, Pandemic is a 2-5 player game (though you could play 2-5 roles by yourself) in which each player assumes a role that grants them a unique ability. During each turn, the active player can perform up to four actions, such as moving from one city to another, or performing one or more special actions, such as removing one disease cube from an infected city per action. However, each role has abilities that bend these rules; for instance, the ever-useful Medic role can remove all of one type of disease cubes in a city with only one action.  

After the four actions are completed, the player draws two cards. Then, the player draws three City cards; the first City card drawn requires the players to put three disease cubes on the indicated city; the second City gets two cubes; and the third city gets one cube. Each city were infected with a specific disease cube depending on the region (e.g. Asia generally gets the red disease cubes). In this way, each player plays his turn, and then plays as the game's artificial intelligence (AI), so to speak. I would guess that playing as the game AI was not a novel concept, but that combined with cooperative play created a feeling that everyone was somehow creating their own problems despite themselves.

Gameplay ends when all four diseases are "cured," which results in victory for the players. If the players fail to do that before all of one particular disease's cubes (25 of them) have been deployed, the draw pile is completed depleted, or before there have been eight Outbreaks (when a city exceeds three of one disease's [color] cubes, which cases excess cubes to spread to neighboring cities), they lose. Everyone loses -- not one player... Everyone. Of course, I'm excluding several details because I want to avoid a rules explanation; the basic idea is that you win as a team, and you lose as a team, which was not a common concept, especially among the Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley games.

With an accessible theme, a one-hour play time, a low price point of around $30 USD in 2008, and a smaller box than a lot of the connoisseur games out at the time, Pandemic ascended to the throne of quintessential gateway co-op board game. The first release featured wooden cubes (which seemed just so en vogue at the time), sleek and simple art, and (later on) an expansion that added a "Bio-Terrorist" role and a purple-colored disease. The ascension of Pandemic was such that stores like Target and Barnes & Noble prominently displayed it in their game aisles. My first exposure to it was in 2010 when a few friends at work invited me to play with them during the lunch break. Instantly, I realized the family potential of it; even my young sons could play and enjoy it. When I purchased it and brought it home, my boys appreciated it, though my wife found the theme (and the rapid spread of disease cubes) disconcerting and unenjoyable. Nonetheless, I comprehended the impact of Pandemic in hobby gaming.

As of 2022, there are numerous co-op offerings, such as Gloomhaven, Battlestar Galactica, Robinson Crusoe, Saboteur, Forbidden Island/Desert, and the aforementioned Shadows over Camelot; there are team versus team co-op games like Captain Sonar and Specter Ops; and there are versions of Pandemic that involve making permanent changes to the cards and game board, such as Pandemic Legacy.

Should I trash or treasure Pandemic?

At a Game Weight of 2.47 on Board Game Geek, Pandemic is challenging enough for seasoned gamers to enjoy, yet easy enough to learn to attract casual gamers. It can be played in an hour, which may be a great transition game between two more complex games or the primer game before the multi-hour game starts. Whatever the case, Pandemic is often a suitable choice for any game night.

If I am really hankering to play a cooperative game, though, I prefer the deeper Robinson Crusoe, which has so much going for it: superlative art, lots of mechanics at work, and a weird sense of foreboding that reminds me of the television show Lost (minus the Smoke Monster). An amusing semi-cooperative game I also favor is Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, which compels you to cooperate with your neighbors, but not TOO much.

Because my copies of Pandemic and the expansion are vintage, first-edition versions, I will not be selling them. That iteration of Pandemic is a work of art and fun to unpack and set up. Occasionally, I bring it out to teach Gen Xers and Millennials how co-op games work. There is no shame in keeping this classic, and the box (even with the expansion) is still slimmer than many of my other games, so it doesn't take up much space.

Should you trash or treasure Pandemic?

For the first two games I discussed in this Trash or Treasure series, I could not convince myself to recommend trashing them... and I still cannot suggest trashing Pandemic. It is the archetypal cooperative game that serves as a fine gateway into a world of tying your success or failure with other players. There are some wonderful gateway games you could acquire, such as Forbidden Island or Forbidden Desert, which just so happen to be designed by Matt Leacock, who designed Pandemic. Either one of those games boast more whimsical themes, adorable miniatures, and sweet tin boxes instead of cardboard boxes. Yet, I ended up selling my copy of Forbidden Desert because, well, I own Pandemic. Thus, I have little choice but to advise you to treasure it.

Despite that, if you own Pandemic, I would venture a guess and say that you may not miss it if you gave it away or donated it. There are many other cooperative games that are good gateway games, fine complex games, or even more cutthroat team versus team games. I am tempted to argue that Pandemic is a bit vanilla, but a game that revolves around disease is just a bit too topical nowadays. In any case, there are enough choices out there to find a co-op game that appeals to you thematically.

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One more thing: due to the ubiquity of Pandemic, you would be hard-pressed to sell it for profit. Most people can purchase it locally at a big-box store, so paying shipping to buy a used copy may not make economic sense. Consider donating it at a thrift store to spread the hobby to others. You may have a friend who is new to the hobby; you could teach Pandemic to that friend and give him the copy. Regard Pandemic as a powerful way to open people up to hobby board gaming, so it would be worthwhile to give it away.

Is Chess Really the Best Board Game Ever?

(Note: in this article, I capitalized Chess, Go, and Shogi, even though they are not often capitalized in writing, to not only pay homage to these games, but also to have their names stylistically resemble the names of modern games.)
In the United States, as many of you know, most people who do not play board games as a passionate hobby have heard of such games as Monopoly, Sorry, Clue, Risk, Connect Four, Stratego, Candy Land, Chutes (or Snakes) and Ladders, Checkers, Backgammon, and, of course, Chess. Some of them are fine games even now, but some are outmoded and/or involve no sense of agency or decision-making whatsoever (I'm looking at you, Chutes and Ladders), yet Chess seems to retain that mystique as being a "classic" game. To be sure, Chess is so widely played and has such longevity that it has been venerated to "best game of all time" status by many folks, at least as far as I can tell. You could probably ask any person on the street about the best board game of all time, and I would not be surprised that Chess is mentioned more than once.

The funny thing about Chess, though, is that for all of its history and (clearly) international recognition as a game for really smart people who make a profession out of studying and playing it, finding people who really ENJOY Chess can be a very challenging task. Indeed, there are grandmasters, wannabe grandmasters, local tournament winners, and even faux-protegies who fancy Chess. These same folks plunge headfirst into study, memorizing openings and closings, dissecting past matches, and learning so much about the vagaries of the game that they come to see in-game patterns of play that are only visible to a true Chess enthusiast. I believe that it is because of this level of erudition and perceived difficulty that people somewhat begrudgingly acknowledge Chess as the best game of all time; some people even use Chess as a determiner of how intelligent or strategic a person is, which is incredible for a game to be vaunted to that status.

It is these same folks that underscore the greatest challenge presented to the would-be player of Chess: to be good at it, you have to study and study and practice and study. This may be true of many pastimes and even other board games, but Chess elevates this requirement to a very high level such that only staunch enthusiasts really enjoy Chess. I suppose that a degree of mastery of anything both dictates if one enjoys that thing and how much he or she enjoys that thing with other people. If you know how to play some tennis, you will enjoy tennis with people of similar skill level, practice habits, determination to improve, and play experience. However, if you are a casual weekend warrior who plays against a former Division I college tennis star, both you and the almost-pro would not have a fun time (unless the would-be pro is sadistic and relishes trouncing sad-sack casuals). In any case, practice and study (and even, dare I say, natural ability) are key to enjoying tennis, Chess, or whatever, but some pastimes require it more than others (such as Chess).

This leads me back to the question posed in the title of this post: is Chess the best board game of all time? Well, let's splay out its credentials: simple rules for movement and attack, elegant board and piece design, wide-ranging global availability and recognition, centuries of tried-and-true competitive play, and the accessibility of volumes of scholarly study of which any student of the game can avail himself or herself. Add to that the myriad of rebadged sets (Lord of the Rings Chess, Civil War Chess, Mario Chess, and so on!), levels of competition, and variations (Shogi!) and you have a venerable game that is appreciated and adored the world over... Yet I contend something that a few others have suggested...

Chess is outdated, abstract, inaccessible to the casual UNLESS he or she plays against another casual player, limited in gameplay, and so exclusive that you must commit serious study (or possess immense, natural, genius-level skill) to be remotely competitive.

So... let me unpack that recognizably controversial statement. First of all, Chess is a centuries-old game, which is fine except that, especially in the last, say, 30 years, there has been a wealth of deep, rich board games and card games that have been developed and published that are replete with theme and fluff (i.e. little theme nuggets that work within the rules to reinforce game play) that enliven such games. To find out more, simply navigate to www.boardgamegeek.com and browse the top 200 strategy games.

Secondly, as I pointed out earlier, you have to dedicate time and focus to compete in Chess, which makes it less out-of-the-box playable against semi-skilled players than a game like Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne. Sure, both of these games have randomness, and Chess does not, but I contend that it's only enough randomness to give the inexperienced player a little boost. Some have decried randomness as a "crutch" that can punish expert play, but there is a skill to mitigating randomness. For example, in the X-Wing Miniatures Game, your attack and defense dice rolls may stymy your good flying and firing-arc aiming, but you can improve your chances with well-chosen upgrades that allow for re-rolls or by selecting the right action to perform, such as getting that Focus token that increases your hit percentage per die from 50% to 75%. Dealing with randomness is a skill set that is necessary in life, and it is something absent in Chess (which is NOT an ironclad argument against Chess, per se, but it does reinforce my point that Chess does not really support the inexperienced player).

Thirdly, even though computers have calculated the millions of possible moves in Chess, in practice, as the game state progresses, your options are very limited. For instance, after six moves, the board is in a state in which there are more horrible moves that can lead to capture than excellent moves (or even harmless moves) that allow you to advance your pieces. Though some may contend that this is a GOOD thing which compels people to find the true value of any piece and weigh its sacrifice against better future position or (even better) baiting an opponent to expose a strong piece for capture, that feeling of agency is illusory. To me, Chess has always felt like it's "on rails," which is an inexorable path; eventually, there is going to be a bloodbath that manifests itself in a rapid cascade of sacrifices until one player ends up with more materiel. Funnily enough, this substantiates my point because, ultimately, there is only ONE victory condition in Chess: the capture of the king, which is in and of itself quite limiting.

Lastly, let's discuss the exclusive nature of Chess with more depth. Once again, if you do not study and practice, you are nothing more than a casual player who knows the rules, but little else. There's nothing wrong with that... until you encounter a friend or co-worker who is looking for an opponent and is found wanting when she realizes that she can utterly defeat you every time. Even worse than that, though, is the almost-fact that unless you are somewhat equal to your opponent, the game is not really fun for either of you. Now, some may point at competitive Chess and say that Magnus Carlsen must not be having fun when he's defeating other "lesser" grandmasters, but the difference between him and those players is (and this is my somewhat unresearched contention) miniscule. We're talking about minute differences in skill level; on a "bad day," Carlsen could lose to any of those players. That's why games between grandmasters involve multiple matches; on any given day, one grandmaster, at least in theory, can beat another one. Anyway, unless you're competing at a grandmaster level, any appreciable skill level difference can render Chess un-fun for the lesser player (unless the lesser player is learning actively through defeat). That, primarily, is why Chess is exclusive, but I can also point out that it always plays as a two-player game unless you have a wonky four-player version of Chess (which is super-fun, actually).

Now that I've stated all of this, I will venture to guess that you, the reader, are mentally shooting down each argument with these thoughts:

• Just because Chess is old doesn't mean that it's outdated or awful.
• I hate many games because of the randomness; card draws, dice rolls, and other randomizers have ruined game sessions for me.
• Randomness is indeed a crutch and you're a sad individual who needs crutches to beat better players.
• Of course you have to study and practice! Every sport and worthwhile game is like that!
• I don't play competitive Chess anyway. I just enjoy it.
• Chess is eminently accessible. It's played all over the world and is much cheaper than most of your fancy board games (particularly X-Wing!).

Here's my controversial response to all of these statements: you're absolutely right! I cannot refute any of these statements, which makes me think that much of what I've proffered is a personal position and NOT a statement of fact, so let me try this statement:

There are so many beautiful, strategically-deep, slightly random games out there that allow people to exercise creativity and guile without the "on rails" feeling of Chess and WON'T break your budget.

One example of this is Agricola. For $45 USD, you get a worker-placement game that is only as random as the stage cards that are revealed (if you play the Family Edition with no Occupation or Minor Improvement cards) and has a few paths to victory, though you ultimately win with a diverse farm. It also plays up to four players out of the box.

How about Great Western Trail? For about $40 USD (depending on the time of day), you can play a wonderfully-illustrated game that can have a different starting board state each game and a random set of cows in hand, but provides that feeling of agency as you build buildings along a path to help you and disrupt your opponent.

There is even a Chess variant that lets you deploy one of your opponent's captured pieces as your own piece during the next turn: Shogi. The pieces move somewhat similarly to Chess, except nothing beats the thrill of dropping your Gold attacking piece in a position that is very close to the opponent's king. In Japan, the pieces and the board were roughly $15 to $20 USD, and I cannot imagine they would be much more expensive elsewhere.

There may even be folks out there that prefer Go to Chess because of the fluid nature of the game and the even higher numbers of possible moves than Chess. I've never played Go, but I can state this: it took much longer for developers to create a computer program to beat top Go players than it did to create programs to beat top Chess players.

Let's return to the question: is Chess the best board game ever? Unequivocally, I'd say "No," not necessarily because of the panoply of arguments I've put there as the wide recognition that almost-equally-venerable Go is better than Chess as a game of creativity and organic play. Even if you don't agree with THAT statement, I would wager that I've cast a lot of doubt on the assertion that Chess could even be considered the best board game ever, which is what I feel I have achieved with this post. Of course, this is not to state that Chess is awful or a "bad game." Actually, it IS one of the best for all of the reasons I've mentioned (even in my arguments against it), and it is a fine representative of abstract games in the hobby, but I feel we have come a long way in the board gaming hobby to where you can be a farmer, a cattle rancher, a vegetable trader, a trader in the Mediterranean, a car builder, or even a Space Lion AND have meaningful in-game decisions. Chess is no longer the best, but one of the best of the abstract games.

As I conclude, let me posit a somewhat tangential argument. The Beatles are publicly regarded as arguably the best rock band of all time with their blend of musicianship, songwriting, Top Ten hits, marketability, good looks (generally), and four decent-to-great lead singers who each had successful solo careers (Ringo did have the first solo hit song, by the way). One would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise because of the breadth of evidence. However, I put forth that The Police had three superior musicians, one superlative songwriter and singer (though I must admit that John Lennon's writing was as superlative as Sting's when it comes to depth and introspection) and were also marketable with good looks. In my mind, The Police were the better band, but they also benefited from the groundwork laid by The Beatles, whose diverse genre-bending catalog of songs expanded the rock landscape. Chess is similar: modern board games owe their existence to Chess. In this way, we should always elevate Chess, but also keep in mind that better creations were devised on its shoulders.

Why Families Need Board Games, Part II: Reinforcing Personal Contact

My wife told me an intriguing story. During her visit to the dentist, she overheard a young girl asking her father if she could play a game on his cellular phone. My wife described the girl as being "whiny," which seems to be the chosen tone of many children. At the same time, my youngest son devoured 11 chapters of a book. Upon first hearing this story, one may not find anything that intriguing, but to me this story reinforces the importance of disconnecting from the digital and connecting to others and with concrete objects in the "real." Indeed, personal contact is one way in which board games will save the world, but the strongest impediment might be games of another kind...

The most salient trend in gaming is how games become more and more intricate and engrossing for the player: games are now more complex, more visually appealing, and more portable than ever. Games look sharper and crisper, and set the challenge bar high enough with less cheese than in the past; with games like Plague or Bad Piggies, players benefit from engaging graphics, top-notch sound effects, and enough detail and complication to occupy even the most jaded gamer. Also, gone are the days of needing a Game Gear or Game Boy or even having to pay money for cartridges; just get a smartphone or a tablet, download a free game app, and one can play most games anywhere and only have to tolerate the periodic advertisement. People can play everything from first-person shooters to virtual board games; one of my gaming buddies even played Ticket to Ride for the first time... on an iPad! No longer do you need game realia (such as game pieces or dice), console, cartridges, or even opponents; the computer can provide an opponent or opponents anytime, anywhere.

Considering the convenience of computer games now, plugging into the digital world is somewhat more appealing than whipping out a game board or game books, and finding "experienced" players is easier now that computer intelligence and game programming can frustrate veteran players without the skulduggery inherent to old video games, such as spotty hit detection. However, people are now, more than ever, tempted to disconnect from others. Many video game and computer game players may now be less apt to challenge live opponents, let alone engage a human being in conversation. Sure, people that play online RPGs can connect with players through a chat window or by audiovisual communication, but it all happens in a world disjointed from reality. 

We are becoming more isolated and separated, but this is one trend that board games can restrict. By taking out a board, some pieces, and some cards, one is required to find human opponents. Once one finds human opponents, one has to communicate with these opponents, whether it be friendly conversation or playful, competitive banter. One has to move pieces, read rules, and manipulate realia to make the game happen. People's brains take back the role computers have stolen from our unsuspecting grasps; their brains make the "graphics" move, our eyes ingest and admire the game pieces, and our hands carry these items from game table to game table. Board games anchor people in reality, while stimulating conversations, compelling players to match wits with organic foes, and even driving us to go out and find those foes.

As the "world" pulls us farther and further apart, seducing us with a hyper-reality of bright colors and endless opponents whom we would never have to befriend, it creates the illusion of interconnection with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and deceives us into believing in our self-reliance. We buy into the idea that we don't need other people; we just need a computer. Yet, people are alone in their offices, chatting with each other through screens. It all seems so (William) Gibsonesque a la Neuromancer, but we need to touch each other; we need to touch this world. So, next time, instead of playing Ticket to Ride on a tablet, or asking Daddy for his smartphone, take the board game with you. Play Yahtzee in the doctor's office or Fluxx on the train. Invite your friends or even ask friendly passengers around you to play. We need personal contact; the "world" cannot overwhelm us if we (dare I say) stick together.

Stratego: 1HN Childhood Dream Fulfilled

As my legions of fans know (okay, I DON'T have legions of fans, but that phrase sounds pleasantly grandiose), I was, and still am, an only child. I say this because I grew up with few playmates. Not so surprisingly, this had its advantages: I always knew where my stuff was, I tended to keep all the weapons to my GI Joes and Transformers and not have them lost by a younger sibling, and I only had myself to blame if a game or toy was damaged or wrecked. Sadly, though, being an only child had its downsides, namely the aforementioned lack of playmates or opponent for games. This was especially tragic because I loved, and still love, board games. I used to collect all the classics, like Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Advance to Boardwalk, Doorways to Adventure (a VCR game!), Chess, and Stratego. Now, you might be asking yourself, "What about your mom and dad? Didn't they play board games?" To be fair, I may not have asked them to play, but as I got older they didn't seem to enjoy playing games. Anyway, because I was an only child, I had few opponents except for friends. The other tragic thing about me was that I despised losing, and one has to be accustomed to losing at board games because results often do not favor oneself. That's another story.

One game that I collected that I mentioned earlier is Stratego. It's a game that involves two armies on a map with grid lines. Both players place the soldiers, bombs, and flag of their armies on squares in the back four rows of their sides of the board. Soldiers occupy many ranks from number 9 (which is a Scout) to number 1 (which is the field marshal). Pieces are deployed with their backs facing their opponent, so one never finds out what his opponent's pieces are until one of his pieces engages one of his opponent's pieces. That's how the game works essentially; two pieces engage in combat and the lower-numbered (or higher-ranking) piece wins. The object of the game is simple: capture the opponent's flag whilst avoiding bombs (which can only be defused and removed by the Miner, which is number 8) and higher-ranked pieces. A pleasing twist is the Spy, which cannot eliminate any other piece but the opponent's field marshal; the Spy can play a key end-game role, especially if the opponent favors an attack spearheaded by good ol' Number 1.

The wonderful aspects of Stratego are the placement of one's pieces and the various strategies one can employ to seek the opponent's flag. By this, flag placement is most crucial; does one place the flag in a back corner and surround it with bombs (even though this is directly out of the Stratego 101 textbook), or does one place the flag away from a cluster of bombs to fool the opponent into going for the cluster of bombs (which may also be a basic approach)? Does one lead a wedge attack with the field marshal, or does one use Scouts to feel out the opponent's front line and then send stronger troops in pairs or groups? Does one use the field marshal to defend the flag?

I'm certain there are numerous tactics one can apply and various websites that explain each tactic, but I won't delve into those here because, frankly, I'm not well-versed in all the strategies. Instead, the focus of this article is on the fulfillment of a childhood dream. Now that I am a father with two boys, I not only have the opportunity to watch them play Stratego with the same board and pieces that I collected as a youngster, but I also have opponents against whom I can play; and, I must say that my sons are the best opponents because I like to watch them beat me and I also enjoy winning against them in hard-fought matches. Stratego, along with many of the board games I still own from my childhood days, embodies what it means to live retro: to appreciate the utility and  fun of the old stuff. If you are in your teens or twenties now, save your board games, card games, and video games; though they may not have much collector value, they will have replay value with your descendants. Moreover, if you are in your thirties or older, do not be afraid to dust off the old games for your young ones. For me, dusting off those old games and playing with my sons fulfilled that childhood dream of having ready opponents that I would be as happy to lose against as I would be to win against.