Pandemic: Contagion

Players take the role of competing pathogens racing to annihilate humanity. Each player manages a disease card with three mutation tracks—Incubation, Transmission and Resistance—and spends turns drawing contagion cards, advancing mutations by discarding cards, or spreading disease cubes to cities. Cities have population values; when the number of disease cubes on a city reaches its population, the city is wiped out and the player who placed the final cube scores that population value (with secondary scoring for second- and third-most contributors). Event and WHO cards affect all players each round, while mid-game skull triggers and new city introductions alter scoring and board state. The game ends when the event deck depletes or only two cities remain, followed by final scoring to determine the deadliest disease.

Players: 2–5 best 4
Playing time: 30 min
Age: 14+
Complexity: 1.9 / 5

3.1 on Ludoya from $43.65MedicalHand ManagementTagsArea Majority / Influence

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About the game

Design: Carey Grayson
Art: Marie-Eve Joly
Olivier Lamontagne
Marie-Elaine Bérubé
Josh Cappel
Chris Quilliams
Philippe Guérin
Publisher: Z-Man Games

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Full stats in Ludoya

43
Plays logged: 37
Players: 36m 54s
Average play: 25
In collections: 1
On wishlists

3.1/10

from 7 Ludoya reviews

Benjamín Amorín3.0
Hand Management Pandemic Game. It's not a cooperative game, then I think it really doesn't have much sense to call it a Pandemic. No mechanics in common, only the name. In this case we are the virus, but I felt the game pretty simple and unattractive.
Evan1.6
This is a quick area control game where you play different viruses that are trying to destroy cities. Honestly, the theme here doesn't really fit the mechanics, because it's really just a VP race. It seems like the best strategy is to spend the first few turns bumping stats so you can draw at least 3 cards and place 4 cubes and then kill cities in a single turn here and there when you can. There is also a deck of disaster effects that you are supposed to mitigate against by buffing a resistance stat that you then lose when you use it. It seems like a waste of time and cards to mitigate it, but it's situational. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ☆ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ☆ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ☆☆☆☆☆ Raw enjoyment
Mitchell C3.5
An ok experience but not much to get excited about