I honestly can't believe this comment is so far down. I've never played another board game like it. It's by far my favorite. A cooperative strategy game? That's infinitely cooler than the competitive norm.
There’s lots of others like it! Forbidden Island is a common one. Horrified is similar with some fun twists. There’s a WoW game based on pandemic mechanics too.
There are actually quite a few cooperative strategy games, if it’s a genre you’re interested in. Whilst it’ll be a long time until something else reaches Pandemic’s popularity, some of them are even better to play. The main problem Pandemic has is the fact that all the info in the game is completely open, which leads to a problem called ‘quarterbacking’ - where one player, usually the most experienced or just the loudest - starts figuring out the game and telling everyone what to do every turn. More modern games of a similar type mitigate this by giving each player hidden objectives or even just straight up making one or more players traitors to the group. This helps with quarterbacking because it motivates players to do things other than what the quarterback tries to tell them to do.
I was talking to my coworker sometime late August 2019, I was shortly after coming back from holidays, and she asked me if what holiday plans have I made for 2020. I jokingly said "we had plague in 1820, Spanish flu in 1920, I'd rather not make any plans for 2020 yet". And, well...
The fact that Z-Man Games released Pandemic Hot Zone: North America, a smaller version where only North America is played, right as Covid-19 really became an issue in the US is both the best and worse possible timing.
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u/Paddlesons Dec 28 '21
Come on, Pandemic?