{"id":8084,"date":"2019-12-06T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=8084"},"modified":"2019-12-05T15:49:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T20:49:35","slug":"pandemic-rapid-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/06\/pandemic-rapid-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic Rapid Response."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pandemic Rapid Response is the latest brand extension to the Pandemic cooperative game franchise, which now includes the two Legacy seasons and multiple spinoffs in specific geographies, but all of which adhere more or less to the original game’s mechanics. This one, however, is a completely new game with the Pandemic theme pasted on to it, adding a real-time element and a lot of dice rolling, removing all of the path-finding aspects of the original and creating a more tenuous connection between the game play and the theme itself. It’s available exclusively at Target<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Rapid Response, two to four players play crew members on\na plane that brings emergency supplies to the worst-affected cities in a global\noutbreak. There are five types of supplies, represented by four cubes each of five\ncolors in separate rooms on the plane, and a track of cities around the outside\nof the board with a plane token to move around it. In the most basic version of\nthe game, you start with two cities already asking for help, which means they\nneed four or occasionally five supply cubes in a specific combination, and you\nmust gather those supplies from around the ship in a convoluted fashion so you\ncan deliver them from the cargo bay. You start with three ‘time tokens,’ and\nlose one each time the hourglass runs out, at which point you also unveil\nanother city card that is requesting assistance \u2013 three more, in total, in the\nstarter version. The hourglass runs long enough for multiple player turns, but\nyou have to move quickly and make split-second decisions. When you deliver to a\ncity, you remove that card and gain one more time token; if you run out of time\ntokens at any point, however, you lose the game.<\/p>\n\n\n

\""""\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

Each player has six dice that show various symbols on the\nsix sides \u2013 the five supply types as well as an airplane symbol. You start your\nturn by rolling all of your dice, and then you may reroll any or all dice up to\ntwo more times at any time during your turn. You can spend any die, regardless\nof face value, to move to an adjacent room on the plane. You can spend a die\nwith a plane symbol to move the plane one city in either direction. If you’re\nin a room and have dice with the matching supply symbol, you can place those dice\non the room’s track; once you get at least four dice (it varies by room), you\ncan ‘activate’ the room, take the displayed number of cubes, and then roll all\nof those dice to see how much ‘waste’ you generated, based on how many circled symbols\nyou get on the roll. You then move up the waste track in the recycling room,\nwhich goes from 0 to 10; if it exceeds 10, you lose the game as well. You take\nyour cubes and move them to the cargo bay, which holds up to ten cubes until\nyou deliver some. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can deliver goods by moving to the cargo bay and using\none die with a plane symbol to activate it, after which you return those goods\nto their original supply rooms. You can also deal with the excess waste by\ngoing to the recycling room and placing up to five dice on that room’s track,\nlosing them for the rest of the turn but moving the track marker back up to\nfour spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each player has a unique role, as in the original Pandemic,\nthat gives you some small but useful benefit, such as getting to move the plane\n1 or 2 spaces per die, or letting you roll one fewer die for waste when you\nactivate a room. One role lets you reroll up to two more times, for a total of\nfive, which I think is the most useful of all, although I am not quite sure of\nthat after just a few plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can increase the game’s difficulty by using more city\ncards both at the start and in the mini-deck you’ll use during the game each\ntime the hourglass is emptied; or by using the Crisis cards, which just throw\nmore obstacles in your path, like the ones that sit atop already-played city\ncards and require you to deliver one specific cube to satisfy the crisis card\nfirst before you can make a second delivery to complete the city card. I don’t\nthink they’re necessary, but they do add another wrinkle to the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge is already pretty difficult, and I think you\nshould be prepared to bark a lot of orders or “suggestions” at each\nother while you play because your time is so limited. You start the time, the\nfirst player rolls, does a few things, rolls the remaining dice, tries to do\nsomething else, maybe rolls a third time, stops, and the second player has to\njump in immediately to start their turn. It’s a frenetic experience, which\nisn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a big switch from Pandemic, which is also\nvery tense but draws it from the game itself rather than a timer. Pandemic\nRapid Response plays two to four players but is definitely better with more; you\nneed the advantage of more pawns moving around the ship to be more efficient\nwith your deliveries. It’s also the shortest Pandemic game by playing time; the\nbox promises 20 minutes and I think that’s accurate once you get the rhythm\ndown, although before that, the games might be shorter because you lose so\nquickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pandemic Rapid Response is the latest brand extension to the Pandemic cooperative game franchise, which now includes the two Legacy seasons and multiple spinoffs in specific geographies, but all of which adhere more or less to the original game’s mechanics. This one, however, is a completely new game with the Pandemic theme pasted on to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[582,1136],"class_list":["post-8084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-board-games","tag-real-time-games","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8084"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8087,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8084\/revisions\/8087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}