Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Pathogenesis is a deck building game in which players take the role of bacterial pathogens attacking the human body. The game was developed in partnership with scientific illustrator somersault1824.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Deck / Bag Building
Add new pieces during play to improve the cards, tokens, or dice drawn later.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Cooperative Game
Players coordinate their actions toward a shared objective and win or lose together.
Team-Based Game
Players compete in fixed teams and coordinate toward a shared team result.
Read the full game description
Pathogenesis is a deck building game in which players take the role of bacterial pathogens attacking the human body. The game was developed in partnership with scientific illustrator somersault1824. The game is based on 100% real science and the mechanics were created to mimic how real biology works. Avid deck builder players will feel at home playing the game as the mechanic foundation was based on several popular deck builders. The mechanics have evolved and mutated during the creation into a game that is quite its own. The game offers several modes of play including solo play, cooperative, competitive, and team play. No knowledge of science is required to play but it was developed to enhance the learning of the immune system at the college level. Second Edition: The immune system for the 2nd edition of Pathogenesis has been updated. These updates include 4 immune system cards (4 copies of each) that are more consistently damaging than before as well as updated antibody tokens that have an attack value of their own. The adaptive immune system response is now less volatile and even more dangerous than before!