At Gen Con, ICv2 spoke with Lyne Bouthillette, the Manager of Marketing and Communications of Z-Man Games, about the Pandemic Survival tournament program, their Z-Force demo team, and the new edition of Onirim.Bouthillette shared details for Z-Man’s international Pandemic Survival world championship competition, which was premiering at Gen Con. Two-player teams compete to be the first team to find all four cures, or at least be the last team still alive at the end of the game. After the preliminary rounds, there will be a national finale (for the U.S. at Gen Con 2015), followed by a world finale at Essen in Germany , with a grand prize allowing the winners to choose any location on the Pandemic map to be "Airlifted" for a vacation.
The first preliminaries were held at Gen Con, with another set this weekend at Toronto Fan Expo, with plans for more events to be held at conventions, stores and "any place we can find enough players to do it," Bouthillette said. Scenarios exclusive to the tournament will be designed by Pandemic creator Matt Leacock, with each scenario being unique to the event. Stores can sign up to host a preliminary round event by contacting Kalinda Patton at Z-Man Games.
Z-Man’s "Z-Force" game demo program was revived earlier this year. Z-Man’s philosophy for the Z-Force is for stores “to have the best time ever” if they have Z-Force come to their location for demos. The Z-Force has 70 members in the U.S., according to Bouthillette. Interested stores can contact Z-Man directly.
Several games were premiering at the show, including Tragedy Looper, Battle at Kemble’s Cascade, Pandemic Contagion (see "'Enigma,' 'North Wind,' 'Battle at Kemble's Cascade'") and Chimera (see "'Chimera'"). Tragedy Looper is already available to the trade, with the other three releasing later this year.
