Pandemic Puzzles and Scenarios: Practice With a Goal

Most practice in Pandemic is just playing more games. That works, slowly. Each game has dozens of turns, and the turn that decided it is easy to miss. Puzzles fix that. They hand you one position and one goal, and ask whether you can see the line.

Z-Man Games posts ten free puzzles and two free scenarios on its Pandemic page, next to the rulebook and the solo rules. This lesson shows how to use them.

What a Pandemic puzzle is

Each puzzle is a one-page setup built on the standard rules. The Pandemic Puzzles concept is by John Knoerzer, based on the game by Matt Leacock. A puzzle tells you:

• The state of the game: infection rate, outbreaks, cures found, and which cities have cubes.
• The team: which roles are in play, where each pawn stands, and which cards each one holds. Some puzzles also tell you which Infection cards come next.
• Whose turn it is.
• One goal, to reach by the end of a named turn.

The goals vary. “Archival Expert” asks you to cure blue by the end of the Operations Expert’s turn. “The Friendly Skies” puts the team at 7 outbreaks with three cities at 3 cubes, and asks you to get through the next Infect step with no outbreak at all.

A warning page comes before each solution, so you can solve without spoiling it. Several puzzles use roles and Event cards from the expansions, so check the setup before you start.

The ten titles are Archival Expert, The Friendly Skies, Say Goodbye to the Blues, The Event Speciale, By a Thread, Identity Crisis, Local Planning, Special Planning, Prescription Strength, and Pilots License.

A method for solving

Puzzles reward the same habits every time.

1. Read the goal twice. “By the end of the Scientist’s turn” means every action before that point counts, including turns by other roles.
2. Count the actions. Four per turn, times the turns you have. Write the total down.
3. List every free move. Event cards cost no action. Some role abilities, like the Medic clearing a cured color as he enters a city, cost nothing. Free moves are where most puzzle solutions hide.
4. Work backward from the goal. If the goal is a cure, the last action is Discover a Cure at a station. So who ends where, holding which cards? Then ask how each card reaches that hand.
5. Check every share against the rule. A card changes hands only in the city it names, unless the Researcher gives it. Many tempting lines fail right here.
6. Play it out on the board. Move the pawns and cards by hand. A line that works in your head often breaks on the table.

Then, and only then, turn the page.

Why puzzles help in real games

Every puzzle is built on the same skill: working backward from the end of a turn. Real games need it most in two places.

• The turn before a cure. Where does the collector need to be, and which card must move first?
• The turn before an Infect step that could lose the game. Which cities must be safe, and which free moves can make them safe?

After a few puzzles, you start seeing the backward line during play, before the turn starts instead of halfway through it.

The free scenarios

Scenarios change the rules for a whole game. Both are free on Z-Man’s page.

Isolation is a four-player scenario by Matt Leacock. Four cities are under complete lockdown, marked with coins: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and São Paulo. Nobody may enter them, they never get cubes, and their Infection cards go back in the box. Their Player cards stay in the deck but cannot be used for Direct or Charter Flights. The scenario sets the starting cubes, the four roles (Researcher, Scientist, Dispatcher, Contingency Planner), and each player’s starting cards. With part of the map cut off, routes and meeting places change, which tests everything from the movement lesson.

Government Shutdown plays 2 to 5. With more than 3 players it needs the Event cards from On the Brink. Players start with only 2 pennies each, and you may take only as many actions as you have pennies. More pennies arrive when the infection rate or the outbreaks marker reaches spaces you seeded at setup, and the team splits them. You can spend a penny to take one of the face-up Event cards, which are no longer in the Player deck, and a new action lets you pass a penny to any player. It is a lesson in doing more with fewer actions.

There is also a free Survival scenario for the competitive format covered in the next lesson.

A practice plan for this level

• One puzzle a week. Solve it alone first, then set it up for your group and see who finds the line.
• Isolation as a group night. Play it at your usual difficulty and talk through how the lockdown changed your routes.
• Government Shutdown when your team is strong. It punishes wasted actions, which is exactly the habit Heroic needs.
• Keep the log. Add a line for each puzzle: solved or not, and which step of the method found the answer.

The puzzles show how much a single turn can do. The last lesson zooms out again: solo play, challenge play, and the people you play with.