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If any of you are full-time writers, however, then you should once again be in the "not surprised" category; for those of you who are not writers, I'll note that writers typically try to find some way to cover an expected topic from an unexpected angle. Multiple stories from January 2015 of how the Green Bay Packers are obsessed with Catan are one example of this phenomenon. The Packers were headed into the divisional finals against the Arizona Cardinals, and this was a new angle from which to cover a team that seemed to be headed for the Super Bowl.
This same approach is why we now have multiple articles about the Pandemic board game. On Feb. 16, 2020, Rick Noack and Stefano Pitrelli of The Washington Post covered both the Plague Inc. video game (but not its board game adaptation) and Pandemic, with Leacock being quoted a few times in the article. An excerpt:
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Plague Inc. and Pandemic may have a certain morbid appeal in the time of the coronavirus. But they have more than that to offer, many experts and players agree.
"I can certainly understand the hesitation around this — no one wants to trivialize the very real human suffering that this coronavirus has brought with it," said Leacock, Pandemic's creator. "But the reality is that playing helps us process the world around us, and people may be turning to these games now for that reason."
On Experience, Glenn McDonald writes about playing Pandemic for that very reason:"I can certainly understand the hesitation around this — no one wants to trivialize the very real human suffering that this coronavirus has brought with it," said Leacock, Pandemic's creator. "But the reality is that playing helps us process the world around us, and people may be turning to these games now for that reason."
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What I'm trying to say is, if you're feeling the ambient dread of COVID-19, consider an impromptu game night. We humans do a lot of funny things to deal with our anxieties. We channel them into habits, good or bad. We retreat into our electronic devices. Denial is always popular. But there is, it turns out, something quietly defiant about playing a game called Pandemic in the middle of an actual pandemic. I like to think it speaks to the chutzpah of the human race — our stubborn resilience, our essential cheekiness. Winston Churchill would have loved this game. It's whistling in the dark.
And it felt hopeful, in the end. For a few glorious hours, my team of four was fighting back, shuttling between cities, heroically saving entire populations and eradicating disease around the world. I'm happy to report that in our notional recreation of a worldwide pandemic, we did indeed save the world. On our third try.
And it felt hopeful, in the end. For a few glorious hours, my team of four was fighting back, shuttling between cities, heroically saving entire populations and eradicating disease around the world. I'm happy to report that in our notional recreation of a worldwide pandemic, we did indeed save the world. On our third try.
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Are you the sort of person who enjoys imagining the dark thought of a new, potentially deadly disease spreading across the planet like wildfire, infecting cities, then regions, then continents, then planets? Does this wholly imaginary scenario play into a macabre desire to explore what a worst-case scenario might look like? Do you also like telling your friends what to do?
Well, the board game Pandemic might be the ideal thing to pull down off your shelf if you suddenly find yourself spending a lot of time indoors for some reason or another.
On Chicago Tribune, Christopher Borrelli interviews Leacock about his background and the origins of Pandemic, noting in passing that the game "has sold more than two million copies since first published in 2008".Well, the board game Pandemic might be the ideal thing to pull down off your shelf if you suddenly find yourself spending a lot of time indoors for some reason or another.
• For something non-Pandemic from Leacock, here's his talk from Tabletop Network in November 2019 when he gave a presentation titled "Designing from the Inside Out" on "the importance of emotion in game design and empathy as a design skill":
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