Plague Inc. The Board Game is an board game simulating pandemic diseases for 1-4 players (with 5th player expansion available) lasting 60-90 minutes. It is based on the game Plague Inc., and was released in November 2017.
Overview
Each player is deadly disease competing against the other plagues. Players may choose between 2 disease types, which is Bacteria or Virus. The goal is to get as many DNA Points as possible, while trying to eradicate the humanity. The player with the most DNA Points at the end of the game wins.
The game setup consists of :
- a World Board, the main part of the game
- a Card Mat, to place the cards, or flip it over to play Single-player
- Evolution slides
- Play Tokens, represents the infected countries.
- DNA Point markers, to mark how many DNA Points the player gathered.
- Country Cards
- Trait Cards, used to evolve disease.
- Event cards
- an End Game Bonus card, eexplains the bonus players will get at the end of the game, and,
- a Death Dice.
Gameplay
Multi-player
Starting the the card mat.
To start the game, each player should put their starting country card to the correct continent and put a Play Token on it. Then following a starting order, the first player place their DNA Points marker on zero on the DNA Points tracker on the World Board. Then the second place their marker on 1, then the third player place it on 2, and so on.
Every turn, each player should complete 5 phases before then next player could play their turn. These are the phases in order :
Phase 1 : DNA
In this phase, player should move their marker based on how many DNA Points they get in that turn.
Phase 2 : Country
The player draws one card from the card mat. Player may choose between the 3 face-up country cards or a face-down card. Then the player may choose to place the country card or place it on the World Board. After that, a new face-up country card should be placed on the mat.
Phase 3 : Evolution
In this phase, player may choose between placing a Trait card on the Evolution slide (evolving), or discard one card from the Evolution slide (devolving), or choose to do nothing and skip the phase.
Phase 4 : Infection
Player may infect countries by placing as many Play Tokens as possible. The number of tokens placed in this phase are limited to the infectivity of the disease. Player may also choose to do nothing and skip the phase.
Phase 5 : Death
In this phase, player may choose between skipping the phase, or try to kill fully infected countries. Player tries to kill a fully infected country by saying the country name and roll the Death Dice. If the player gets the same number as or less than the number of their lethality, then the country dies. If else, then nothing happens and the country survive.
When a country died, each player gets one DNA Points for each token they placed on the dead country. Then every player who infected the dead country gets 1 Event card. After that, tokens on the dead country are removed and returned to its owner(s), and finally, the killer keep the dead country card for the end game bonuses.
Scoring
Each player gets DNA Points based on the price of every traits they have on their Evolution slide. And then players gets the End Game Bonuses. The bonuses are the following :
- Lucky Escape, rewarded for player who gets the most token on the board at the end of the game. The player gets extra 4 DNA Points.
- Continent Killer, rewarded for having the most killed countries in a given continent. The player(s) gets 6 DNA Points per continent.
- Ultimate Wipeout, Rewarded for player who killed the largest country in the game. The player gets 7 DNA Points.
If the game is a tie, then the player who falls down to the floor first and pretend to be dead wins.
Single-player
In single-player mode, the player play against the "PlagueBot". To start, player should flip the Card Mat over and the mat become PlagueBot slide, your opponent. While the cards that normally be put on the Card Mat should be put on the table next to the board instead.
PlagueBot plays with special rules, as the following :
- PlagueBot has unlimited Play Tokens (instead of 16)
- PlagueBot starts with 3 starting countries (instead of 1)
- PlagueBot doesn't get any Trait cards.
- PlagueBot always starts second
While the player does their turn normally (the same way as playing Multi-player), PlagueBot only play through 3 phases for every turn, which are the following :
- Country Placement, similar with the player's Country phase, except that PlagueBot only takes from the face-down Country deck. If there is no card left on the deck, then it will take the largest Country from the face up Country cards.
- Auto-Evolve, PlagueBot draws one card from the Trait deck, and put it on the leftmost space of its slide. Every turn, the Trait cards should be moved to the right and every new Trait card should be placed on the leftmost space, and the rightmost Trait card is discarded.
- Trait Control, PlagueBot does specific actions according to the Traits it has and the instructions on the bottom of PlagueBot slide. PlagueBot will do actions in order from the leftmost Trait card it has to the rightmost. If a Trait card has more than one trait, then PlagueBot will start from the upper trait first.
In the Trait Control phase, PlagueBot may do the following :
- Waterborne, place a token in every climate suitable, connected country with a seaport.
- Airborne, place a token in every climate suitable, connected country with an airport.
- Cold Resistance, place a token in every cold climate, connected countries.
- Heat Resistance, place a token in every hot climate, connected countries.
- Infectivity, place a token to all climate suitable, connected countries.
- Lethality, place a token in every climate suitable, connected country that the PlagueBot doesn't already infect. Then PlagueBot kill one largest, fully infected, and PlagueBot controlled country.
In the Trait Control phase, in some conditions, PlagueBot might not be able to do some actions, which is alright. But if the PlagueBot can't do anything in this phase, it is considered stuck, and will do one of the following :
- PlagueBot draws one Country card, put it on the board, and put a token on it. Then it process the Traits it has.
- If PlagueBot still unable to process any Traits after doing that, then PlagueBot will discard all the Trait cards it has and replace it with the new ones, and end its turn.
There is no Sudden Death Mode, but the game ends in 2 ways :
- If PlagueBot is stuck and unable to draw any new Country card, then it will automatically kill all fully infected countries controlled by PlagueBot, and end the game.
- If the player is eradicated, and there is no Country card left to draw.
Scoring
The scoring goes as normal but with some special rules :
- PlagueBot doesn't score from Trait cards, while player scores from Trait cards as normal.
- PlagueBot earns twice as many as the player would normally get from the End Game Bonuses.
Rules
- For some reason, it is called "Death Dice", not "Death Die" (consult the rule book for more details).
- Each players gets DNA Points for each countries they conquered + bonus DNA points from special abilities.
- Player infect a country by placing a token on a Country card.
- Player conquers a country by having the most Play Tokens placed on the country.
- If there are more than one player with the most Play Tokens placed on a country, then those players conquers the country and received DNA Points from that country.
- If a player choose to discard a country card, they must also discard all of the Trait cards they have and draw 5 new Trait cards, no matter how many Trait cards they discarded.
- If a player takes a country card but unable to place it in the correct continent on the board, then player must discard the card.
- Discarded country card and trait card is removed for the rest of the game.
- Evolving costs DNA points. Therefore if a player evolve their disease, they must move their marker back based on how much the Trait costs.
- If a player chose to place a Trait card on a special ability space, then the ability is disabled until the Trait is devolved.
- Player may only infect a new country if it is connected with the country they infected.
- Player is connected to a country if :
- the country is in the same continent as the country the player have infected.
- the player is able to infect the country through its port. (e.g. if the player have Airborne Trait and the country they infected have an airport, then the player may infect ANY country with airport.)
- Player may only infect country if the player is resistant to that country climate. (e.g. hot countries requires Heat Resistance Trait, neutral climate countries doesn't require any resistance trait, etc.)
- A country is fully infected if the country has no empty token spaces left, regardless of who infected the country.
- Players may only try to kill a fully infected country.
- Player may try to kill as many countries as possible as long as they conquer the country.
- Players may play event cards as long as they meet the card criteria.
- Players may not use Event cards at the same turn they received it.
- Player who already have 3 event cards may not draw a new event card.
- If a player has no token left on the board, then the player is eradicated.
- If there is no Country card left on the Card Mat, then the game enters Sudden Death Mode.
- In Sudden Death Mode, all Country phase are skipped.
- The player is eradicated if they don't have any play token on the board.
- If the player is eradicated before Sudden Death Mode, they may only return to the game again by paying a small DNA Points penalty (consult the rule book for more details).
- If a player is eradicated in Sudden Death Mode, then the game ends and goes to the Scoring.
- Largest country card is determined from the number of token spaces on the card. If it is a tie, then it is determined from the number of population of the country.
Development
On May 10, 2016, Ndemic Creations launched a Kickstarter Project, with fundraising goal at $34,000. The project is a huge success, with the goal reached only one day after launch. On June 1, 2016, the project was closed with $355,784 earned from 6,590 backers. The developers then announce that they will release the game in November 2017.
Gallery
Photos
Videos
References
Plague Inc.: The Board Game Main Page
Plague Inc.: The Board Game on Kickstarter
How To Play Plague Inc: The Board Game
| Series | |
|---|---|
| Games | Plague Inc. • Plague Inc: Evolved |
| Board Games | Plague Inc.: The Board Game • Plague Inc: Armageddon |
| Merchandise | T-Shirts • Plush Toys |
| Others | Plague Inc. Original Soundtrack |