Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and first published by Z-Man Games in the United States in 2008. Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. Playing the game within the context of an actual pandemic is, on some level, a blackly comic endeavour, but Plague Inc. Has been highlighted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The best thing most of us can do to fight the global pandemic is nothing: stay home, stay safe, public health officials implore.

There's one place where that's not the case. In the board game Pandemic, players work as a team to fight the spread of disease across the globe. As a quarantine activity, knocking off 'disease cubes,' playing the necessary cards for a cure, and getting to 'eradication,' is deeply satisfying. It simulates some sense of power and control in a fictional version of our own reality. And thanks to a digital adaptation, you can play the cooperative game with friends from a distance.

The game has been popular during the coronavirus pandemic, according to its original designer, Matthew Leacock. Google Trends data shows that searches for 'Pandemic board game' reached an all-time high in March 2020. It has all been a bit overwhelming for Leacock, especially considering his personal circumstances: Leacock's wife came down with coronavirus in February.

'In my mind pandemics were things that theoretically could happen, somewhere, sometime. But it’s now all very real.'

'Personally, this has all been very strange for me,' Leacock told Mashable over email. 'When I first started designing the game in 2004, in my mind pandemics were things that theoretically could happen, somewhere, sometime. But it’s now all very real: Our family was affected in February when my wife came down with it. She’s recovered now, but it very quickly brought the reality of the situation into sharp focus.'

Here's how Pandemic works: The board is a map of the world, with cities from Riyadh to Buenos Aires to Atlanta (the CDC headquarters) connected by a web around the globe. As you turn over 'city cards,' those cities get 'infected,' which you signify with disease cubes. If a city gets four disease cubes, it causes an outbreak to every other city it touches. The aim of the game is to cure all four diseases (red, blue, yellow, and black) by collecting cards of that color, before a certain amount of outbreaks. It's a rare board game where your opponent is the game, not the players. Playing involves strategic coordination to move yourself around the globe, build 'research stations,' collect and share cards with other players, and cure and eradicate diseases. It's complicated, but fun, if you're into that sort of thing.

SEE ALSO: 7 of the best board games for interactive play

In the past, friends and I played the game from time to time, but we thought nothing of it. That changed when news of coronavirus started breaking through in early 2020.

I first played Pandemic the board game in the time of coronavirus at the very beginning. Before mandatory social distancing and stay-at-home orders were in place, but while coronavirus was percolating in Italy, in Tom Hanks' lungs, in the NBA. It felt like a cheeky thing to do. My fiancé, sisters-in-law, and I sat on the floor around the coffee table in the living room, and we tittered at the irony, greeting the unknown of a pandemic with mocking jest. We didn't know yet that that was the last time we'd be able to see each other for weeks, and weeks, and weeks.

We didn't bust it out again, mostly because, well, we didn't have people to play with. Besides, the seriousness of the situation made the idea of playing a game version of a pandemic less appealing.

Now, nearly two months into social distancing and with reopening plans in the works, that feeling has softened. Some friends discovered that there is an online version of the game, available on Steam, that works really well. One person has to buy it, but then you can invite remote friends to play once you start a game. My friends and I each used one computer for game play, and another computer for a video call, so we could play 'together.' (You could also get the same effect if you have multiple monitors or just listen to each other via Discord voice chat on your phone or in another tab while playing on your computer.)

I was surprised at how it felt...satisfying. Removing disease cubes in Milan was empowering. When we were able to gather enough cards to cure the 'yellow' disease, a 'DISEASE CURED' image popped up on the screen with a giant checkmark. It felt good, almost like doing something. There was also some sadness: If only 'curing' a disease were as easy as working together to collect cards. But the bittersweetness of success was more of a victorious rush than it was depressing.

Game Of Pandemic Online

Leacock gets how playing the board game in the time of an actual pandemic can be a bit of an emotional double edged sword. However, he hopes that people who do choose to play his game while social distancing can find some encouraging lessons within it.

'I totally get that some people would rather avoid the title — we’re inundated with news about the pandemic after all — but I’ve also been encouraged to hear that it’s given some people a way to talk about what’s going on, or have even used it as a way to fight back against the disease (if only in the game),' Leacock said. 'I also think the theme it promotes — that we all need to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate together to overcome a worldwide threat — is appropriate at a time like this.'

Pandemic Game Online Unblocked

Pandemic is obviously just a game. At the very least, playing the virtual version will give you something fun and challenging to do with your friends. But maybe, as you remove those cubes, build research stations, and find a cure, you too might feel something more.

Pandemic Game online, free

You can find Pandemic on Steam here, which you can buy for $9.99. You can order the physical game here.

UPDATE: May 6, 2020, 5:53 p.m. EDT Pandemic creator Matt Leacock has released rules and a guide for how to play a tournament style game of Pandemic over Zoom. More remote world saving fun, hooray!

Video games were already growing in popularity before the coronavirus pandemic. But now they’re everywhere.

Gaming sales in the US in August increased 37% year-over-year to $3.3 billion, according to the market research firm NPD Group. That’s the fifth straight month of huge jumps in sales compared to the same periods in 2019.

After a “low” point of 26% growth in June, sales in the US have accelerated the past two months—a sign that video games continue to surge in popularity even as quarantines end and travel restrictions loosen.

In the year to date, $29.4 billion of video games have been sold in the US—a 23% increase from the same period last year. The majority of that increase has been in content (the games themselves, either bought digitally or on discs), but sales of hardware (consoles and accessories) have also seen double-digit increases since the pandemic began. Consumers are buying more consoles, and those who already have consoles are buying more games to play on them.

But the increased sales are not just in the US, and not just on consoles. Mobile game sales on iPhones rose 44% in Japan and 20% in the European Union in July, according to data from Sensor Tower. According to Nielsen, as of June, 41% of self-identified gamers in France said they were playing more video games now because of the pandemic.

All of this has meant soaring profits for video game companies, including Nintendo, which reported $1.4 billion in profits in the second quarter—five times more than it made in the same period in 2019. Much of that was due to to the rise of the social simulation game Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which became immensely popular around the world after it launched in March.

Other games like Call of Duty: Warzone, a first-person shooter “battle royale,” have grown rapidly during the pandemic. The game had 75 million active players in August, up from 30 million in late March, according to its publisher, Activision.

Electronic Arts’ renowned soccer franchise, FIFA, added 7 million new players in the second quarter—doubling the players added in the same period last year, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The popular basketball game NBA 2K20 saw an 82% increase in active players during the period. Apparently, when you can’t watch basketball on TV, playing it in the virtual arena is the next best thing.

These widespread increases in both game sales and usage likely can’t be sustained as consumers leave their homes more often and life slowly returns to some semblance of a prior normalcy. But they may fall back to a much higher baseline, as the pandemic permanently changes our entertainment habits, further steeping the world in gaming culture.