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A Gaming Life
Pandemic: Rising Tide – The King of Bad Timing
Poor Z-Man games. What happens when you have all of your publicity planned for a game, ready to go out on a certain day, and then suddenly the world explodes with not one, not two, but three events that would each individually make you step back and say “oh shit, that was bad timing”?
Z-Man games had to do that with their announcement of the newest Pandemic series game, Pandemic: Rising Tide.
The post is dated September 1, but news was announced before that, just as Harvey was hitting. They quickly apologized even though they really had no need to (but I don’t blame them for thinking that they should, in this day and age of Internet Outrage).
They have a wonderful thing at the end of the post where they say they will donate $5 from every pre-order to Hurricane Harvey relief.
And then Irma hits. And there’s also flooding in India that’s been happening for the last couple of weeks.
I guess other games news sites were busy, or didn’t cover it last week out of respect (or maybe request?), but today’s Boardgame Breakfast on the Dice Tower was the first I had heard of this game, 10 days after this post was released.
It then showed up on Shut Up & Sit Down’s news post for this week.
Anyway, the game itself looks fascinating and has nothing to do with hurricanes.
Instead, Pandemic: Rising Tides is about holding back the water in the Netherlands at the dawn of the Industrial Age, with dikes, dams, and other engineering paraphernalia.
Yes, this is now the second Pandemic game (see Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu) that actually doesn’t contain a disease.
Not of any sort!
Which makes one wonder…is it really a pandemic if no disease is involved?
You back there, feel free to discuss it.
Anyway, I’ll let Z-Man describe the game:
Following the widely popular Pandemic: Iberia, the next game in the Survival Series, Pandemic: Rising Tide introduces players to an entirely new way to enjoy Pandemic. It is the dawn of the Industrial Age in the Netherlands. For centuries, the country has relied upon a series of dikes and wind-powered pumps to keep it safe from the constant threat of flooding from the North Sea. But this system is no longer enough.
Sounds cool, and like something I’d love to play. I never got the chance to play Pandemic: Iberia (but maybe as a “new to me” game sometime in the future?) but this sounds even cooler.
What may this game add to the whole Pandemic ethos? Who knows, but along with normal Pandemic designer Matt Leacock, the co-designer for this game is Jeroen Douman, one of the co-designers of one of the heaviest games I’ve heard of, Food Chain Magnate.
I wonder whether that means the difficulty is going to be ramped up at all?
This game is scheduled to be released in late 2017, so who knows when that will be. Late October? November? December 31?
Stay tuned.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 