My apologies up front if you are a gamer lady with a non-gamer hubby or boyfriend. Please substitute wife for hubby in the review.

Dilemma: Find a game that my non-gamer wife will enjoy.

Desired outcome: Wife will enjoy the game enough to play it often, allowing us to spend time together and generate a common interest. The LONG term goal- get her more interested in playing other games.

Problem: Wife is smart, but so far has been uninterested in most games I've brought home. Her issues with most 'gamer' board games:
* Rules complexity. A ton of rules is daunting to her.
* Long. More than 1 hour and she starts dragging.
* Confrontation. Going head to head against others (and me in particular) is often frustrating for my wife. She can have self-confidence issues and get down on herself if she feels she's not smart enough or plays well enough.

Solution: Pandemic.

Pandemic has been a huge hit with the two of us. It answers all of the issues my non-gamer wife has with board games:
* Rules complexity. I was able to easily explain the actions and get us going (with me handling the epidemics and whatnot). After only a few plays she started correcting me if I go to the next player without an infection phase and tells me to hit the bottom card on an epidemic.
* Confrontation. The co-op nature is great. Instead of fighting and trying to measure herself against me, we are playing as a team. She likes thinking of us as a husband/wife disease SWAT team saving the world.
* Quick play. Because of the fast play time she will readily agree to a session. Of course, the ironic thing is that she'll agree to several plays in a row and we end up playing for 2+ hours, lol.
* Enjoyment. She is really engaged in the game. A lot of tension in the game comes from flipping the infection cards or seeing an epidemic card get drawn. Many times my wife physically flinches as each infection card is revealed. Or if we have several 3-cube cities there's a serious groan when a quick epidemic card is revealed. She has also quickly grasped the different roles and has gone from mostly using my recommendations to forming her own actions and giving me tips on mine. All-in-all she is very engaged for the whole game.

Tips for Maximum Enjoyment with Non-Gamers:
* When developing strategies, avoid dictating. This goes for ALL co-op games, but especially when trying to engage non-gamers. Talk in general terms. Say things like, "Someone needs to head to Asia to heal over there," as opposed to, "Use your Beijing card to fly there then move to Shanghai, cure one, move to Hong Kong, cure one, blah, blah."
* Play with your cards revealed for the first few games. But then move to hidden hands. Use phrases like, "Anyone have a head start on yellow fever?" and "Who can get to Africa quickly?" This play makes the game more a cooperative effort between individuals then a multiplayer puzzle solve.
* Roleplay a bit with the theme. When you flip an infection card make it a bit dramatic and say something like, "Influenza hits the hippie populace in San Francisco." or "The Black Plague has hit Baghdad hard! Oooowwwww.... and unleashes an outbreak all over the mid-east!" Avoid just quickly flipping over a couple of cards and saying, "Add a cube in San Fran and Baghdad."


Final tip: If this decription and review sounds like your situation, go buy Pandemic immediately.

Thank me later.

I couldn't agree more. I wouldn't say that my wife is a "non-gamer", by any means, and I'm grateful that she'll gladly play some games now and then and she enjoys going to our local game group, but she certainly has nowhere near the interest that I do. But she absolutely loves Pandemic. And in our travels around the country this year, we've introduced Pandemic to several of our family and friends and they have, almost without exception, been very taken with it, too. We counted about three or four times where we'd visited with someone and played the game, and the next day when we were talking about getting together again for lunch or whatever, they'd say, "Hey, can you bring that Pandemic game again??"

About the rules... It's nice you don't need to explain everything right away. Just cover what the basic actions are, and introduce things like the Epidemic cards and what happens with them when the first one comes up. When we're playing with new people, we usually structure the turn order so the that my wife and I go first, that way the others can get the idea of what they are supposed to do on their turns. We may coach things a little bit for the first turn or two (I like your idea about talking in general terms instead of dictating), but usually by that point they have grasped what's going on and can fully participate and add their own input to the game. I've been amazed to see definite non-gamers and 12 year-old kids grasp the game well enough halfway into their first game to the point that they're pointing things out and making great suggestions that I didn't even see, having played the game 50+ times.

Pandemic is a fantastic game for non-gamers; so long as at least one gamer is around to teach the rules, explain the basic strategies, and move the bits around.



It would have been so easy to say "Looking for a game for your non-gamer partner?" or "Looking for a game for the non-gamers in your life?". You give tips for playing the game with non-gamers (not specifically people who identify as female who are married) and this is really the proper scope of this great little review. Note that I have no problem with you being married to someone who identifies as female, if the title was "Looking for a game for my non-gamer wife; I've found it!" then there would be no issue of excluding people.

Anyway, I guess I'm in an annoying nit-picky mood this morning, I really do like the review and I've also had great success playing this game with non-gamers, and I've found that your advice to "avoid dictating" is extremely important.

This is sensible information and deals with a common situation for many gamers. I am lucky to have a wife who generally enjoys most games I choose. She regularly asks me, "Well, what do you want to play next?" However, she herself will NOT choose a game! This tells me that she'll never love games as I do, but that's a small price to pay. I know which games she would rather not play, such as Guillotine, so common sense tells me to avoid games in this category.

What works best for me is to play a new game solitaire first before even attempting to play it with the wife. A while back we struggled through a few turns of San Juan, and it went poorly. We have not played it since then, although I'll try it again now that I know the game pretty well. The advantage of knowing a game prior to teaching it is clear since not many people enjoy slogging through the rules and having little to show for it. My wife would rather not play at all unless she is sure we are playing it correctly.

Your posting is very timely since Pandemic is the next game I will teach her. This should be fun since she is very smart and is a health care professional. She is one of those people who has a limited tolerance for confrontation, so a cooperative game like Pandemic should be a good choice.

Thanks again for your helpful suggestions!

Brian

I had the exact same experience with my wife. Down to the dislikes, and the reason she loves Pandemic. She has actually requested to get it to the table.

It's not fair to say things like that when people might be drinking something. Thank you for a good laugh. :-)

How funny. Its like my wife to a T.


She loves playing game with me as long as the following qualifications are made.

1) We are on the same team and get to kill other players (she loves eating people as the zombies in Last Night on Earth)

2) We are on separate teams, and she gets to gang up on and ultimately destroy me.

3) We are against each other and she beats me.

Any other permutation and she is unhappy... especially when I beat her in a game. We have never played a cooperative game before. So Im looking forward to trying out this one.