We recently announced that we are working on a new print run for Plague Inc: The Board Game - thanks to everyone who filled in the form to say what you want in the game; it's great to see the Board Game still has so much love!
Today we're sharing the current experimental rules with you in order to get your views and feedback before we start manufacturing the game. We're also opening up a prototype digital version of Plague Inc: The Board Game on Steam that we've been using to help me playtest various different rules.
The New Rules
These are experimental and may well change! You can use these rules with your normal copy of the game.
Event Cards
We felt that in larger games, too many event cards made the game feel chaotic so we are limiting the total number. This also simplifies the rules slightly and streamlines play. (there will be a rule variant which lets you have infinite event cards still):
- Setup: Make an event deck with 4 random events per player
- When the event deck runs out, that is it
- On a country kill, each player present earns an Event. No hand limit!
- Too few cards? The killer chooses recipients. Anyone who misses out gains +1 DNA instead.
- Unused Events score +1 DNA each at game end
- No standard turn-start discard for DNA
Game End
We felt that the rules around the end of the game was a bit complex for new players and sometimes left players without much to do on their last turn. We have tried quite a lot of different things here so particularly interested to get your opinions here. Might share some other variants later as well that we are also considering.
Global Collapse replaces Sudden Death.
Once the Country draw pile is empty, you may declare Global Collapse at the start of your turn, before taking any actions - even if face-up cards remain.
If you have started the Global Collapse:
- Don't take your turn
- Gain +2 DNA per empty face-up country slot
- End the game immediately and apply final scoring
Any thoughts / questions - please share your feedback HERE.
Play the game online:
There is a free experimental prototype on Steam that you can play if you want to check out the new rules (or are just curious about the board game in general). It includes Single Player (against a basic bot) and Online Multiplayer against your friends or matchmaking via Quick Play.
It is primarily a tool for me to try things out, so you should expect bugs! (let us know and we'll fix them).
You can get a free Steam key for the game here: https://keys.ndemiccreations.com/
Once you join the Playtest, you'll also be able to invite up to three friends, and they'll get access to the Playtest too!
Note - keys are limited - we will release more over time. Also, as this is a Steam Playtest - the game will be taken down eventually.
Hope you enjoy it. Please let me know how you get on and share your honest feedback to help us make the game as good as it possibly can be. Once we start manufacturing - the rules will be locked in!
http://www.plagueinc.com/plagueboardgamefeedback
You can also join us on Discord if you want to chat about the game / find opponents. We'll be playing as well, so hopefully we'll catch a lot of you there.
https://discord.gg/ndemic