Let’s Play… with Matt Leacock! Part 1

Welcome to the first in a series of articles recounting our noble battles with the nefarious mind of Matt Leacock, cooperative game designer extraordinaire. According to rumour, Matt is immune to all known diseases.

Note that Matt Leacock was not involved in the production of this article, nor does he endorse it or those who wrote it. In fact, I think he’s hunting us…

 

It was a sunny day in Atlanta when the new Operations Expert… well, Operations Enthusiastic Amateur, Thom arrived at the CDC for his first day on the job. Hmmm… that definitely bodes well.

Marc: It’s Thom right? Welcome to the CDC! I’m the dispatcher here, so you’ll soon be dancing around the world to my tune.

Thom: Umm Thanks, Marc. But we play board games every week, I know who you are…

Marc: You’ve arrived at a good time! Its been very quiet on the disease front recently!

Thom: Oh good. So what is it I’m doing around here?

Marc: You mean no ones told you? You’ll be our Operations Expert! You can build new research stations in any city you are in. Don’t worry, it doesn’t really need much specialist knowledge. We’ve got some pretty neat automated systems in here, let me show you.

Marc sweeps his key card against a scanner and neatly taps his keycode in. The heavy door slides open to reveal a gleaming control room. A large world map is pinned across one wall.

Thom: I thought everything was swish and computerised here?

Marc: Oh you mean the map? That’s in the second edition! We’re in the first edition control room. I like the rustic feel.

There’s a crash at the far end of the room, the sound of breaking glass.

Thom: What was that?!

Marc: Oh that’s just Chris. He’s our Researcher. We try not to ask what he gets up to in there, but he’s very good at sending research to the right places.

Matt: (No not the designer. The author. Sorry if you got excited) Emergency! Emergency! We’re getting reports of disease outbreaks across the world! Tehran, Bogota, even Washington!

Marc: Washington! What is it?

Matt: We don’t know! We’ve never seen them before! Code name: Blue, Yellow and Black. Still, no sign of any Red, which is kind of surprising…

Marc: My God! I picked one hell of a day to stop drinking! Anyone else for a whiskey?

Thom: So what do we do?

Chris: Here! Everyone! Take this random selection of research!

Marc: Don’t worry Thom! You’ll learn on the job. OK people, lets get this Pandemic under control!

Thom: You capitalised Pandemic. While talking! Almost like its some kind of game…

Pandemic – Legendary Difficulty

This was an interesting opening. The two level 3 infections in Washington and Bogata were close enough together to be quickly handled. The lack of any red was surprising, but encouraging. We should be able to ignore that region of that map for a while. However, someone would need to get out to Tehran as quickly as possible to stop it outbreaking.

Marc: Someone needs to get out to Tehran as quickly as possible to stop it outbreaking.

Told you.

Chris: Well, I can fly out there straight away and get healing. I have Tehran’s card.

Thom: Tehran’s card?

Marc: Awesome. Get to it!

Chris: To the airport!

Chris runs out the room.

Matt: Your research cards are super useful. Get 5 of the same colour, and you’ll have enough information to find a cure for that disease. You can also spend them to fly to the city pictured on the card, amongst other things.

Marc: The only issue is giving information to others. You can give or take a card if the two of you are in the same city pictured on the card. This makes trading multiple cards a real pig. Hopefully one person will get close to a set and then we can try and arrange trading the final card.

Matt: If only we had a Scientist somewhere in the CDC.

Marc: Damn budget cuts.

Thom: So we need to find cures to all of these diseases.

Marc: Precisely. And before the situation gets out of control and people start panicking.

Chris comes back in the room.

Chris: So, that was the broom cupboard. I’ll be on my way now.

Matt: Oh God! We’ve got word of another epidemic breaking out!

Marc: What!? Already!? It’s only the first turn!

Thom: This doesn’t sound good.

Matt: Kolkata’s been hit. Level 3 infection.

Chris’ voice comes in over the radio.

Chris: Well I can get there on my next turn. Hopefully we won’t need to be there too soon.

Matt: We’re going to have to handle the American situation first. Marc, if you move me to Washington I’ll have enough actions to clear both Washington and Bogata with my super Medic skillz.

Marc: I like it! Ok, I’m dispatching you to Washington!

Matt: Yeah!

Marc: Right, I will head to Europe and try and keep that area under control. Madrid is heading rapidly towards an outbreak. Thom, just remember you’re training and you’ll be ok.

Thom: You mean the rules explanation…?

Thom: … guys?

Thom looks round the empty office, his gaze briefly resting on Marc’s collection of novelty meeples. Shivering, he nervously shuffles out the door.

Matt: Medic! Cure, cure, cure! That’s Washington and Bogata cleaned up.

Chris: Do you always say what you’re doing like that?

Matt: … doesn’t everyone?

Thom: Right, well I guess I will go clear Los Angeles?

Chris: It’s the next biggest threat, good plan.

Marc: There you go! You’re getting the idea.

Matt: How are people looking for research cards? I’ve got a few reds.

Thom: You racist!

Matt: Red cards, Thom! Red cards!

Marc: Me too.

Chris: I’ve got a load of black cards.

Thom: Blues and yellows? Not really a set of anything.

Matt: Sounds like Marc and I should try and get together.

Marc: Oh yeah!

Chris: Well, in the mean time I’ll clean up Kolkata.

Marc: I’ll sort out Essen and hope for good cards… I got a Resilient Population card. Shall we play it now?

Chris: Maybe wait for the next epidemic?

Matt: Ah, there’s really not much I can do from here. I guess we need to get together in Asia to swap cards Marc. I’ll head over there. Ooo! I got another red card. I just need one more!

Thom: So where should I go now. You want to cure red next turn right?

Marc: Yes! So we’ll need a research station out there.

Thom: Right! And I’m great at building research stations. Ok cool. Somewhere near Matt and Chris I guess. How’s Hong Kong this time of year?

Matt: I hear its lovely.

Thom: Well building work is progressing nicely. Never would have thought you could put one together so quickly! I mean these things normally take months to finish. I’m feeling very good right now…

Thom: Oh. I got an epidemic card.

Marc: Oh no…

Matt: It’s Atlanta! Did someone leave the quarantine room door open again?

Chris: Its ok, I can get back there thanks to Thom’s new research station.

Thom: Just putting the finishing touches to the runway…

Chris: Ooo lovely.

Matt: Marc, come meet me in Manilla!

Marc: Oh, have you something in mind?

Matt: I think you have something you want to give me.

Marc: Oh yeah… it will change everything.

Matt: Everything.

Marc: Its big and red…

Chris: Just give it to him already!

Marc: Here you go.

A totally innocent exchange of cards occurs.

Thom: And draw your new cards…

Marc: Another epidemic!? Crap. I should play this Resilient Population card so we can stop one of the cities from outbreaking, but which?

Chris: One of the yellow cities.

Thom: Racist!

Chris: One of the yellow disease cities!

Matt: Lagos, Kinshasha and Buenos Aires are all in a bad way. I feel like we should get over there asap. In which case let’s protect Buenos Aires, its more out of the way and it’s the only threat in that region.

Marc: Ok, Buenos Aires is protected. Lets see where the infections spread.

Thom: I don’t want to watch.

Matt: Oops. Outbreaks in London, Kinshasha and Lagos… At least a city can only outbreak once per round, hey guys?

Chris: That’s a lot of cubes. I mean, disease! That’s a lot of disease!

Matt: Well, I can cure red. At least that will do some good!

Bing bing bing! Level up!

Matt: Oh yeah! Now I have only have to move into a city and everyone is cured! Watch me do it with Shanghai! Swoosh!

Chris: Swoosh?

Matt: That’s my new curing sound! Do you like it??

Thom: That’s a crazy good ability!

Marc: But it only works on red. Which in this game is about as threatening as the common cold.

Matt: We have cured the common cold!

Marc: You know, next turn we could eradicate red…

Chris: But we need to solve the yellow problem first!

Thom: Racist!

Matt: At least the blacks are under control.

Marc: My God, this game!

Chris: Does anyone have any cards to cities in that area?

Thom: I have Kinshasha?

Matt: Yes! That’s perfect. You can get there and build a research station. Then the rest of us can join you for support!

Thom: Ok. Done, and I’ll take some cubes from Kinshasha while I’m there.

Chris: This is getting tight! Blue and yellow are both on the brink of killing us. I can get to London or Madrid?

Marc: I’ve got a Madrid card we can use to fly there, so go London.

Chris: Right, one cube off London. I’ve got a handful of black cards but still need one more.

Marc: Ok well, I can move Matt using my Dispatcher powers, then he can Medic everywhere. Do we send him to Africa or Europe?

Matt: I can do more good in Africa.

Marc: Right. Oh! I can move you to Seoul first to eradicate red!

Thom: Is it worth it?

Chris: Never mind eradicating red, we need someone to help with the disease in west Africa!

Marc: Is it inappropriate that, in my head, I’ve been thinking of that as Ebola?

Awkward Silence

Other three: YES!

Marc: Right. Gotcha.

Matt: It’s generally a good call to eradicate a disease, if you can. If any red cards come up now we can just ignore them.

Marc: Yeah lets do it. Then we’ll use the research station to fly you to Lagos ready to cure the not-ebola. I’ll fly to Madrid and protect us there. Just need to hold out one more turn.

Thom: What did you draw!?

Marc: …

Chris: … Marc?

Marc: It’s another epidemic!

Matt: Oh no… we just needed one more turn!

Marc: Karachi. Not too bad? We can get there pretty quickly?

He shuffles the infection deck discards and gingerly places it back on top of the deck.

Marc: And we are infecting… Karachi!?

Collective groaning…

Chris: Two more outbreaks…

Marc: And Lagos!! Which hits Khartoum… and we’re out.

At the post game press conference

Journalist: What do you mean you’re giving up!?

Marc: Well as you all know, its CDC policy to stop all operations after the 8th outbreak.

Thom: We totally tried our best.

Matt: Lets be honest, we got a bit unlucky with the epidemics breaking out just as we were about to get Africa under control.

Chris: And we wiped out the red disease.

Journalist: That was a minor case of the flu!

Matt: And we eradicated that flu. Like a boss.

Journalist: You spent all our resources on red while Africa and Europe were being decimated!!

Marc: Well its very easy to point fingers after the fact! Besides, I think we can all agree that it was Thom’s fault.

Thom: Wait, what!? Why me!?

Journalist: My children are in Los Angeles! Why aren’t you out there fighting for our lives!?

The room descends into angry shouting. Someone throws a microphone in our direction.

Chris: These guys are looking kind of angry.

Matt: Yeah, maybe we should find somewhere to hide…

Thom: They’re passed the security barrier! Quick! Run!

Will our heroes escape the angry mob alive? Where will they turn in a world ravaged by disease? Find out in… Part 2!!