School Projects (II): Redesigning the board game Pandemic

 

"Pandemic" redesign project for engaging students with math and science topics

Project goal: Supporting students to engage with mathematics and science topics through playing and redesigning the board game Pandemic, which represent an emergent global issue

Participants: Grade 7 students

Pandemic board game:

The cooperative game Pandemic (Z-MAN Games, 2007) models disease spread across the world. This game was used it as a model of an emergent global issue. In this game, players take different roles and work together to treat infected populations to buy enough time to complete the ultimate objective which is the discovery of the cures. 

Pandemic board game, Z-MAN Games, 

Retrieved from https://www.zmangames.com/en/games/pandemic/

Project stages:

Project stage	Description
Playing Pandemic in groups and mastering the rules	Initial sessions were allocated to the groups’ playing the original game together.
Brainstorming on possible changes and their game theme	In the play sessions, students discussed the game stories of their interest and how to use learning topics
Narrowing down ideas on using math and science topics with the teacher	The teacher sat with each group to discuss their ideas and help them reach initial consensus
Designing and playtesting their games	The groups started their designs and aimed to test their game drafts
Inviting their classmates and other classes to play their games	Their classmates and other grades played their games
Reflecting on the project possible future changes	The class reflected on the project. They also reflected on what they would change in their own games in their groups and individually.

A game play session

An example of the redesigned games

Reverse Pandemic:

This group aimed to reverse the Pandemic’s story, i.e., in their game players acted as diseases which aimed to spread around the world. For example, what would make the game more difficult for players is vaccination instead of epidemics.

Game goal: The 6 players of the game, as diseases, work together to spread around the world. The board works against this goal by immunizing the cities.

Designing the board, deciding how to connect the cities

Creating their board based on having 6 players 

Setting up the game to playtest it

Vaccination cards

“The city defence changes when you get 70 percent of population get vaccination.” (one of the students from this group)

Game redesign aspects

1. Developing the game theme and goal: Players acting as viral disease (game aesthetics/ dynamics)

Transforming aspects	Description/Examples
Building on the original game’s narrative	Creating a cooperative game in which players act as diseases
Developing  a consensus on the theme and goals	Developing  shared purpose and understanding of their game theme, which helped them focus and develop and exchange idea
Using Pandemic elements	Using cubes (viruses), board map and role cards, which mediated the idea exchange on implementing their ideas

1. 2. Expanding the game’s backstory: Taking the perspective of bacteria and viruses (game aesthetics)

   Transforming aspects	Description/Examples
   Learners’ practices becoming more focused and purposeful	Detailed evaluation of possibilities of implementing their initial ideas through using and creating game components and rules
   Expanding their game backstory through exploring how bacteria and viruses act as they discussed their game story with their science teacher	Exploring the mechanisms that could strengthen or weaken players (i.e., diseases); e.g., how bacteria could develop resistance against antibiotics, and how viral diseases could spread to far locations by international travels Transforming their design space to explore more relevant scientific explanations

3. Using numbers, percentages and probability as a tool in materializing ideas (game mechanics)  

Transforming aspects	Description/Examples
Decoding and modifying the original game mechanisms	Understanding the original game system to reverse the game’s logic; e.g., evaluating how the infection cards work, determining which cities to be infected based on designed probabilities, and how epidemic cards trigger an outbreak
Using different mathematics topics in creating the game dynamics and rules	e.g., using numbers, percentages and probability in determining their “City Defense” cards (helping cities to prevent the spread of the disease) and their vaccination cards

 4. Playtesting for balancing the game (game mechanics/ dynamics)

Transforming aspects	Description/Examples
Making a deeper sense of the interconnections in the original game	Exploring the mechanisms in Pandemic that create a power balance (e.g., unexpected events)
Encountering the role of randomness in making their game system balanced	Making their game based on both chance and strategy to make it playable (e.g., adding random virus bases)
Group members’ expressing their ideas on different aspects of their game	Participation of all the group members in playing game and contributing to making their game playable (e.g., with making the map a complete graph) and challenging