Over the past few weeks I’ve gained valuable insights into what it takes to survive and cure a major pandemic. I will share some of my experiences in the hope they will help you, dear reader, when disaster strikes.
- Find close friends
Don’t expect to survive the initial onslaught on your own. Moreover, you will need the combined intellect of people that you trust if you want to find a cure to diseases that affect millions of people. - Specialize
You’re not good at everything. Sure, you’ve got the smarts to think of fancy ways to find that viral vaccine, but do you have any clue how to plunge a syringe into an arm and actually vaccinate people with that vaccine? No? Thought so. Leave that kind of stuff to your MD friend. - Plan ahead
The world’s a big place. If diseases start breaking out all over Australia, the Americas and Africa, you need to make sure you’re prepared to travel around quickly and efficiently. - Be prepared
Whether it is the breakout of another epidemic or a virus acquiring a new and deadly mutation, unforeseen and unwanted things will happen. You’d better prepare for them! - Embrace serendipity
There will be a moment where everything will fall into place, when suddenly everything is clear and you know exactly what to do. Embrace that moment and rid this world of plague and pestilence.
While this advice might not be useful in the case of an actual pandemic, I’ve found these tips are key to win the board game Pandemic!
Cover art of the board game 'Pandemic'. Lots of fun and stressful moments included.
I’ve been having a blast playing this game with friends and family. Even the non-gamers enjoy it! It’s a hectic game, where you’re working together with other players to cure four diseases that simultaneously broke out in different parts of the world. Have no doubts: these diseases will spread all over the place. You’ll be frantically travelling everywhere to try to contain the spread of disease, as new outbreaks pop up in the most inconvenient places.
The cooperative nature of this game is really refreshing, I’ve never played any game quite like it. Normally, I’m a very competitive person whose tactics and determination annoy the heck out of normal people that try to enjoy a leisurely game of Risk. But in this game, everyone wins or loses at the same time! Suddenly my competitiveness complement the strategies of other players. Since everyone has different roles (MD, researcher, scientist etc.) and insights, expect some nice discussions on the best course of action!
Me and friends, trying to grasp the intricacies of logistics and global epidemics.
And when the world gets overrun by disease and everyone has lost, there’s this great communal and nagging feeling: ‘If we’d just done this differently, maybe… Let’s try this one more time!’.
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Ah, see, for a moment I thought you were talking about this: http://www.addictinggames.com/pandemic2.html – only of course that’s kinda the other way round… This Pandemic sounds like fun, though!
Funny that you mention that game, I wrote a blog post on it in the early days of this blog (a bit embarrassed by linking to it)! As you see, my morals are a bit ambiguous when it comes to pandemic gaming: sometimes playing the curing saint, at other times the disease spreading sinner ;).