Game Review: Pan Am

The golden age of aviation brought us some amazing stories of accomplishment and discovery as airlines took to the skies to explore the world. One such company became the first to truly go global and set its place in history. Pan American Airways first connected North and South America and the first to have launched commercial flights over both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They computerized before anyone else for reservations of their guests. They were glamorous and accessible to the masses and established themselves through their name, logo and legacy. Today we will look at a game that celebrates their success and try to build up along side of Pan Am!

Pan Am is designed for 2-4 players and is designed by Prospero Hall. It is published by Funko Games.

Overview

Pan Am pits players as individual directors of a small airline that are trying to operate enough to gain money and buy stock in the ever-expanding airline Pan Am. Players will attempt to secure routes and sell them to buy stock in Pan Am. The winner is the person with the most stock holding at the end of the game!

Gameplay

The main gameboard is placed in the middle of the play area with token supplies of money, Pan Am route markers, the die and extra planes. The Destination and Directive cards are placed in a deck face-down on the board.

Each player begins with 3 plans, 5 Airports, Engineers based on player count, 2 destination cards, 1 directive card and $12.

The game is played through seven rounds total, each round with 4 distinct phases. These are:

1-Event Phase
2-Engineer Phase
3-Resolution Phase
4-Pan Am Phase

In The Event Phase, players will reveal the current Event and apply the affects immediately. This card will also set the price of the Stock for Pan Am for the round. The price will either go up by one or down by one dependent on the card drawn. The other option is having the stock change to a specific number as indicated on the card.

Next up is the Engineer Phase where players will begin to place their Engineers in bidding tracks and work sites. The places you take will determine the play order in the next phase. You may assign them to one of five different locations. These are the Airports, Destination cards, Planes, Routes and Directive cards. Some of the tracks are bidding tracks, allowing you to pay more money to lock in a position over another player. Only one person will get to use this track per round. The work sites allow for multiple players to place their pawns and use the action.

The third phase is the Resolution Phase where players will perform all the actions of their Engineers in order of places they were assigned. If you placed into a bidding track you must pay your bid or sell you stock at a loss for the current price. Airports allow you to have landing rights in a city and raise your income level $1. Destination cards give you new locations you can use for travel. Planes will allow you to claim a route, the bigger the plane the longer the route it will cover. Routes allow you to use your Destination cards in a way to claim a route location with one of your planes. Directive cards give you a secret advantage you will use at one of the steps in the game.

Claiming Routes with your Destination cards will require you to be in those cities or at least have a way to discard cards to be in them or have an Airport there also. This is where the game is mainly played, so make sure you are able to make Route from the beginning on.

Finally the Pan Am phase sees the expansion of Pan Am and the chance for players to earn money. The die is rolled according to the Event card and Pan Am travels along the path rolled to find an unclaimed route to take over or they land on a claimed route from a player already there. Claimed routes must be sold to Pan Am if they arrive there and are sold based on the conversion chart on the board. You lose the income you were gaining each round from that Route as well but you do get your plane back.

Impressions

What Could Be Better:

Variety. I like that there is an alternate reality option of going backwards with the growth of Pan Am but I would have liked to see some different maps or ability to somehow play this on a different board style.

Color. I like the art style here (more on that in a few) but I really would have liked to see some different plane colors. They feel too muted in color choices, but a brighter color in the mix would have been nice. 

What I liked:

Art. The art décor of this one is top notch. It feels like you stepped right into the 1950’s at the height of their travel with the player boards and especially the Destination cards. The location Destination cards are a sight of beauty-I would love any of them blown up into poster size even!

Scale. This game scales well from 2 to 4 players with the small adjustment of the number of Engineers you can use. The game felt right with the number we had each game although it was tough the first play with four to adjust.

Style. The gameplay of Pan Am is unique enough to be different from other games on my shelf but familiar enough in mechanics that it didn’t take a lot of time to learn and get use to the game. I really enjoyed how smooth this one was.

Overall

I really enjoyed Pan Am and I can see why so many others do as well. The game moves you right into the height of air travel as you compete against others on the board to snatch up those routes first and try to flip them for profit as fast as you can. There is a slow play way to compete as well, as you try and gain income from big routes and add those up over the rounds and hope the price stays or goes down. But I personally really do well with this when you can buy the most and sell for profit to buy the cheap stocks early.

The game is aesthetically one of the more unique period pieces I have hit my table. It exists outside of the normal troupes many of my board games end up in like fantasy, animals or something pretty but abstract. I love the throwback style and feel to the game-even the trays for the planes feel like they should be a replica of the food trays they used to serve on flights. The art for each location is definitely the best of it all-these pieces feel like something that should be hanging up in Don Drapper’s office or lined up along the walls of your favorite travel agent. I cannot think of another game that has captured the feel of the 1950/60’s so well in this style.

Let’s talk gameplay. There is nothing difficult about Pan Am, but there is a lot to still be challenged by. This isn’t an easy game but it is one most players should be able to pick up on pretty quickly. The beauty in it comes from multiple plays especially at different player counts, trying to play the market and get the stocks cheap and abundantly. I really enjoyed the natural feel of the game, it felt instinctual and moved at a natural flow. Like I mentioned before, games like Ticket to Ride shine through some of the basic playing styles here so that players familiar with that game will see things they like and know in this one. It is a natural progression for an entry level hobby gamer to give one like this a shot to progress their understanding for strategic planning in gameplay.

Overall Pan Am is an excellent game and likely to be on my top 10 list of 2020. It is a well designed game with a fun IP (intellectual property) in a world where often the IP overshadows the game and game play itself. I highly recommend this one and hope you all get a chance to fly the friendly skies with Pan Am!