A couple of months ago I purchased the board game Pandemic (designed by Matt Leacock) for obvious reasons. I got around to trying my hand it at last night and found it to be fun, challenging, and surprisingly reality-based.
This award-winning board game pits the players versus 4 different pathogens that are dispersed around the globe and all poised to cause outbreaks. The game involves strategic decisions and trade offs such as building research facilities, working towards cures, and treating disease. Each player has a special unique role with special features -- I was a dispatcher while my friend, newly minted PhD, was fittingly a scientist.
For my first time playing, I set the game to the lowest difficulty level and still ended up consuming by chain reaction outbreaks that I was powerless to stop.
Needless to say, I think the game was well worth the price and fun to play. I hope that the legions that play the game get an inkling of the real non-board game challenges the world faces with infectious disease outbreak and maybe a small fraction, like those still obsessed with Candyland, will be inspired to pursue infectious disease as a career.