During this ongoing covid-19 pandemic I’ve been playing and discovering a lot of boardgames. For instance the original Pandemic, which of course come quite close to reality nowadays. I really enjoyed the fact that you play with your friends against the game, but somehow the game doesn’t really stick. Something was missing and I can’t really put my finger on it. Until I played the exciting spin-off Pandemic Rising Tide off course.

Stop the Dutch flooding

Being from The Netherlands myself, Pandemic Rising Tide is an interesting game for me personally. It tells the story of my country struggling with the water surrounding it. Just like in real history before and during the fifties. In this boardgame citizens of The Netherlands need to stop the country from flooding. And my gosh, the depiction of this conflict is pretty realistic when it comes to translating it to a board game. 

Dutch realism

Let’s start with the fact that all the names and territories depicted on the board are faithful to reality. This is a rarity. For instance I’ve seen the Dutch version of Ticket to Ride, but that game is just a lazy way of using the map of the Dutch country. Also because it depicts some train lines that never existed and will never exist. Rising Tide is such a blessing to play, but it isn’t the realism that makes this a keeper. The tension and excitement makes me want to come back again and again to play this game.

Walking on a tightrope

In Rising Tide you are constantly looking to balance between your resources and the rising water in the areas. And however I can’t really compare this to the real deal, because these issues and events happened mainly before and during the fifties of last century. The game does give the player a good taste of how the country deals with crises like the current Covid-19 situation. The Dutch like to walk on a tightrope and that’s exactly what you do in this game. What a coincidence!

Pandemic Rising Tide: better than vanilla

All in all, Pandemic Rising Tide is a great game. In my opinion even better than the vanilla Pandemic boardgame, biased by my own background off course. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the regular game and is up for a nice gameplay twist. You won’t regret it.

For more on Pandemic Rising Tide; check Boardgamegeek.com!