The Pandemic Party, or "More Things to Kill You"

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

Saturday's Pandemic Party went quite well. We had 14 people (including myself). Most came right away (aside from a straggler). It started with 3 games going simultaneously, all trying to deal with a special scenario suggested on the Pandemic Parties website. Two groups broke up early as some people had to run away for various reasons.

Our goal was to enjoy games but also to pool resources together to donate funds to help Doctors without Borders deal with the Ebola epidemic.

One of them was well on its way to winning (having cured "blue" in the very firs round!). They had a weird thing happen where somehow after shuffling the cards, all players got blue cards for their beginning hands. They also received Government Grant quickly (allowing them to build a second research station anywhere in the world). I always like getting that one early on!

I went and got one drink for every disease (even the purple one from the expansion).

The third group won pretty easily. Things swapped around and I got to join in for a 3 player game (which we won). A couple more people left and we then started a new game using "On the Brink" (the first expansion). We used the Virulent Disease option for a 4 player game which means one disease gets really nasty. Unfortunately, we were only able to get the cure for that disease and then after we sun-downed it, a Virulent Epidemic Card brought it back. Oy! My buddy Nathan Marchand deemed this expansion "More Things to Kill You." Yes, we lost that one as we ran out of cards and we had at least 6 outbreaks. We then used the "In the Lab" Expansion for a 5 player game. It was a nice change in pace. With this expansion you have to move into micro-managing. Instead of turning in the four cards to find a cure, you need to make a series of actions at the research stations that lead to a cure being found. This is a very interesting expansion that makes you think a little more about the work being done in real life and the scientific methods used by researchers. No, your researching is probably not very realistic and it is not hugely confusing, but it does make you think a little more.

Then, we decided to change gears and play some Sentinels of the Multiverse while eating pizza.

Over all, we managed to pool together our resources and raise a donation of 150 dollars. That averages out to a little more than 10 dollars per person donated at a free event.