Board game guide
Pandemic
Four specialists. One shared result.
Pandemic makes the table solve one escalating problem together. Distinct roles create strong combinations, but every turn must balance immediate outbreaks against the longer race to discover four cures.
- Players
- 2–4
- Time
- 45–60 min
- Experience
- Cooperative strategy
- Track
- Team result
How to play
Give the table a clear rhythm.
Use this as a quick first-game guide, then keep the official rules close for edge cases and exact details.
Prepare the world
Place disease cubes from the opening infection cards, assign each player a role and pawn, then seed the player deck with epidemic cards.
Take up to four actions
Move, treat disease, build a research station, share knowledge or discover a cure. Use role abilities whenever their conditions are met.
Draw two player cards
After the action phase, draw two cards. Resolve any epidemic immediately before continuing to the infection phase.
Infect new cities
Draw infection cards equal to the current infection rate. Add one matching cube unless the placement would trigger an outbreak.
Find every cure before the losses
The team wins after discovering all four cures. It loses after eight outbreaks, an empty player deck or an unavailable disease cube.
Before the first turn
Set up for a smooth start.
- Give each player one role card, matching pawn and reference card.
- Set the infection rate and outbreak markers, then infect the opening nine cities.
- Choose an epidemic-card count that matches the group’s experience.
- Prepare all cubes, cure markers, player cards and infection cards beside the board.
Make it a season
Make every shared decision part of the record.
Track wins and losses together, then record difficulty, outbreaks and remaining player cards. A season can reward improvement without turning a cooperative game into an individual contest.
Create your season- Result
- Team win or loss
- Difficulty
- Epidemic-card count
- Progress
- Cures + outbreaks
- Season goal
- Raise the difficulty