Game Like a Mother

Quick Take: Cooperative, strategic, and intense, I love everything about Pandemic except the amount of time it takes to play a game. So I was really excited when some friends brought over a 20 minute version of the game. This version still has you battling a contagion raging out of control on all corners of the globe, but places your team on a plane. I like speed games, but 20 minutes of a speed game is intense. Especially if you're playing 2 player, then you're pretty much "on" for the entire time. I do absolutely love how much game they pack into 20 minutes here. This is a great option if you enjoy hardcore strategy games but prefer a quicker playing time.  

How to Play: Your goal is to deliver specific supplies to cities experiencing a disaster. Each player selects a role with special abilities that can be used during game play - like extra rolls of the dice on your turn or being able to move the airplane two spots instead of just one for every airplane that comes up on a die you roll. Rapid dice rolling is the key aspect of this game. You roll dice at various stations to create supplies needed according to the city cards currently on the board. Once you have the requisite items, you travel to the city in need and deliver them to defeat the outbreak. A timer is running throughout game play and you earn extra timer tokens for every city you successfully deliver items to. You also have to take into account waste from the creation of the supplies and the amount of space available in your cargo bay. The game ends if you run out of time or you have too much waste on your ship. But deliver all the supplies to the correct cities in time and you beat the pandemic and are a hero!

Variations: They have various difficulty levels marked out for you in the game instructions with varying numbers of cards you can put in play for a game. They also have crisis cards you can include, which up the difficulty of the game as well. Different player roles have varying special abilities that you get to use during the game, some are more helpful than others. 

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Similar Games To Check Out: 5 Minute Dungeon, Codenames Duet, Eight-Minute Empire, Coup

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