Pandemic Game Online

Victor Lopez, executive director of Learners Chess Academy, ponders his next move. Learners Chess Academy moved from in-person chess games and matches to a virtual program during the pandemic. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)

The first Pandemic game was published in 2008 and was at the crest of the wave of new board games for adults. It is a game for 2–4 players and can be completed within an hour. CAN YOU SAVE HUMANITY? Pandemic is a co-op strategy game adapted from the award winning board game. Humanity is on the brink of extinction. As members of an elite disease control team, you’re the only thing standing in the way of the four deadly diseases spreading across the world. You must travel the globe protecting cities, containing infections from spreading, and discovering the cure for.

Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal

A game that’s been around for over a millennia is seeing an uptick in popularity as more people pursue hobbies online during the COVID-19 pandemic and due to renewed attention the game has received in pop culture, most notably with the Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit.”

The show was released in October during the COVID-19 pandemic and was viewed by a record 62 million households in its first month alone. Sales of chess sets in the United States jumped 87% during that time, while chess book sales shot up more than 600%, according to the NPD Group, a marketing research company.

Another indicator came from Chess.com, which in October measured a 66% increase in players on its website compared to before the pandemic.

Yet, chess play looks different now versus how it was depicted in the show.

Instead of two opponents squaring off over the checkered chess board, most people have taken to playing chess online as part of the safety measures associated with the virus.

“It’s such an intimate game,” Victor Lopez, executive director and founder of Learners Chess Academy, said. “But, in chess, you’re sitting over a board and breathing the same airspace. I think it’s OK with masks, but better safe than sorry.”

During the pandemic, Lopez said the academy in Albuquerque switched from in-person chess games and matches to a virtual program.

In person, players get the tactile feeling of pushing a piece across the board and capturing the opponent’s pieces, Lopez said. Online, it’s just a different experience because it’s a mouse, or a touchscreen, and the game is more instantaneous.

“If you appreciate the beauty and the logic of the game, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

It was this beauty and logic that captivated chess player Willow LeTard, who first began playing chess when she was about 8 years old. She said the game was something she could give her entire focus to, and it was easy not to get distracted.

Chess left LeTard feeling fulfilled after each match and like there was room to grow with the game. This led her to found the Diamondback Chess organization and start hosting tournaments.

She said she’s definitely seen a rise in interest in the game since “The Queen’s Gambit” aired, particularly among younger kids whose parents watched the show and want to get them involved with it.

LeTard watched the show herself and felt it was an accurate representation of chess. She said very high-level chess players, such as the main character, Beth, tend to have other issues going on in their life. She brought up real-life chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer, who also struggled with mental health issues.

Chess is a game that takes up a lot of your brain, a lot of your skill and a lot of your focus, LeTard said, which was accurately depicted in the show.

Another aspect that stood out to her was Beth’s experiences as a female chess player. She said it was cool to see those issues depicted on the screen because those are issues she also experienced as a female chess player.

“I do think (the show) helps a lot, especially showing girls being smart at a young age,” she said. ‘I think that’s a really important thing.”

But even LeTard had to adjust how she and her club plays chess during COVID-19. LeTard said she’s had to cancel several of her club’s tournaments due to the pandemic. Instead, she has relied on virtual chess games to keep her going.

This is also something Jim Johnston, organizer for the Santa Fe Rooks chess club, said he’s had to do.

Johnston said he’s unsure if “The Queen’s Gambit” is going to create more chess players, but he said a lot of chess players watched the show. He recalled reading the books on which the show is based and said he enjoyed how the show brought the chess games to life.

He also said the show has brought added popularity to online chess and chess streamers, but he said he hopes those new online players will stick with it. Lopez also mentioned the movie “Queen of Katwe,” which is based on the real-life story of chess master Phiona Mutesi from Uganda.

He said the movie depicted how Mutesi learned chess in the slums of Uganda and reached international fame in the chess world for her accomplishments. He said shows such as “The Queen’s Gambit” and movies such as the “Queen of Katwe” help inspire his students.

“I think chess is important because of the intellectual and educational value it has on a developing child’s mind,” Lopez said. “I don’t really care if any of my students ever become grandmasters, but if a movie or a show like ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ inspires my students to get involved and learn the game, then great.”

Before we lived with the reality of a global disease outbreak, Pandemic was just the title of a popular series of board games. In the time leading up to the lockdown, game stores noted interest in the Pandemic games had increased.

Games in the series have been regular fixtures in the Amazon board games top ten lists for a decade and Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is second on the BoardGameGeek user rankings. Australian sales have reportedly surged since isolation began.

Why have players turned towards a game about the very thing they are seeking to avoid in real life? Pandemic is providing more than entertainment – helping players think through problems creatively, focus, adapt and reflect on serious issues.

Since ancient times

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote the earliest games were created to help people cope with long term woes.

In the reign of Atys the son of Manes their king there came to be a grievous dearth over the whole of Lydia; and the Lydians for a time continued to endure it, but afterwards, as it did not cease, they sought for remedies; and one devised one thing and another of them devised another thing. And then were discovered, they say, the ways of playing with the dice and the knucklebones and the ball … These games they invented as a resource against the famine … on one of the days they would play games all the time in order that they might not feel the want of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and had food: and thus they went on for 18 years.

We invoke this history when we take the benefits of board games seriously and understand the skills they can cultivate.

These benefits can include coping and well-being skills developed from games’ social problem solving experiences. The Victorian government is even interested in looking at how “gamification” can provide specific health gains, for example, using consoles to motivate physical rehabilitation exercises or using games to test kids’ hearing.

Much of the research has focussed on video games such as Minecraft, but the recent rise in popularity of board games means these too deserve closer attention.

Games such as Pandemic have led a resurgence in board gaming as an adult pastime, bolstered by a desire for authentic social experiences, disenchantment with online gaming (and trolls) and the proliferation of board game cafes.

Game Of Pandemic Online

Playing Pandemic

Pandemic was created by Matt Leacock, a former Chicago graphic designer who developed the idea after the SARS epidemic of 2003. The first Pandemic game was published in 2008 and was at the crest of the wave of new board games for adults. It is a game for 2–4 players and can be completed within an hour.

The game creator has said part of the game’s appeal is the way it “offers escalating moments of hope and fear that really draw you and your team in”.

There are no dice involved although there is a randomised deck of cards that models the spread of the viruses across a global map. Significantly it is a cooperative game where the players must work together against the game, to collectively make hard decisions about strategy. Each turn requires an allocation of limited resources – to stop outbreaks, create research centres, research a cure or focus on global mobility.

Though there are no official rules for doing so, some discussion boards outline ways to play Pandemic solo – making it ideal for isolation.

Back in the official version, players take on the roles of different specialists, including the scientist, the medic, the dispatcher and others. Each of these roles provides a specific power that allows them to break the rules of the game in an interesting way, giving each member of the team a distinctive niche, encouraging plenty of replay in order to find out how they all work.

While not the first cooperative game, it led the demand for new non-adversarial games. The popularity also came from the contemporary theme that appeals to a broader audience outside of fandom communities; there are no wizards or spaceships on the box art. Pandemic has been used in training settings and can be a useful way to introduce epidemiology in the classroom and challenge conventional ideas about globalised systems.

Expansion sets (additional cards and components bought separately) add more complexity, new roles and tougher viruses. There are standalone variants that use the game’s escalation models to challenge barbarian hordes attacking ancient Rome, battle rising floodwaters of industrial age Holland and even counter the sinister rise of Cthulhu cultists.

Pandemic Game Online Reddit

The most significant variant is the Pandemic Legacy games, which takes place in two “seasons” like television drama. Each Legacy season is made up of a series of games where events and consequences carry over to the next. Legacy games involve permanent changes to the board, introduction of new game elements and even asking the players to tear up certain cards.

Why now?

So why, when confronted with the reality of a pandemic would we be reassured by a game that eerily foreshadowed COVID-19? It’s not like the game trivialises the problem. Pandemic presents problems as complex, requiring changing strategies but ultimately presents a solution via cooperation and clever planning.

Playing the game at home might provide a chance at creating order out of a crisis. We can feel reassured wicked problems require evolving strategies, setbacks may be temporary and provide routes to more creative solutions. Games provide a safe environment in which to manage complex systems and deal with ill-defined problems.

The popularity of games such as Pandemic have led to the creation of new games with serious themes and spaces for creative problem solving. The King’s Dilemma explores complex ramifications of political dealmongering. Holding On: the Troubled Life of Billy Kerr looks at palliative care.

Whether we play them as families and roommates, via video conferencing, or tabletop simulators, board games can help us distract ourselves from the isolation of lockdowns and social distancing, but they also have potential to make us think about the challenges our world is facing.

As for Pandemic creator Matt Leacock, he’s working on a possible game about the climate crisis. Stay tuned.