[-empyre-] Pandemic, the board games

[Alenda Chang]

Thanks Derek, Tim, Brent, and Aaron for keeping our discussion rolling
despite the disruptions we're all facing. With all the cancellations
produced by COVID-19 response, I'm grateful that we have this month,
and this online space, to chat.

...

Is it too soon to mention that global pandemic has existed in board
game form since 2007? (I'm sure there are earlier antecedents, but
almost every tabletop gamer I know owns this game or has played it.)
https://www.zmangames.com/en/games/pandemic/

I've seen some recent reflection about how, say, watching Steven
Soderbergh's Contagion again at this time "was fun, until it wasn't"
(Wesley Morris for the NYT), and I'm patiently waiting for this
connection to be made. Is this too close to real life? Should we be
sending Pandemic: Rapid Response to the White House? I'm at least
heartened, in this time of toilet paper hoarding and anti-Asian
racism, that the game "is a cooperative board game in which players
work as a team to treat infections around the world while gathering
resources for cures."

//

And just to add to Brent and Aaron's riff on analog game footprints,
we might consider Nintendo Labo and its fusion of analog and digital
play:
https://labo.nintendo.com/
I myself have shelled out for the Variety Pack and had a good time
building these with my family, but grumbling all the while about it
being the most expensive cardboard ever....

Alenda