As might be evident from my preview of The Great Hunger and subsequent interview with its designer, Kevin McPartland, I like the idea of educational games based around historical events—games that are informative as well as engrossing. When Of Popes and Plagues popped up on my Gamefound radar, I just had to take a closer look.
Designed by Tray Green and family, Of Popes and Plagues is a 2–6 player ‘card game of 14th Century Europe and the outbreak of the Bubonic Plague. He who dies last wins!!!’
Gameplay Summary
The campaign page is rather short on details, though a draft rulebook is available. Similar to The Great Hunger, the game has two phases: in the first, you strive to build your population; in the second phase, the same dice rolls instead cause your population to decrease. As well as using dice, players draw and play cards which can benefit themselves or penalise opponents. The transition between phases occurs either when the Death Ship card is drawn or the first time someone rolls double ones on the dice—ones are referred to as Plague figures and any time someone rolls their double, they instantly lose 20 population, as well as triggering the plague as mentioned.
Some cards are beneficial (Sun cards) and some less pleasant (Rat cards)—these typically increase or decrease population, or steal some from another player, but there are a few special cards with wider-ranging effects. The Death Ship has already been noted, triggering a switch to the plague phase. Another, Inquisition, can be placed on another player, such that on every turn while they possess the card, they must make an inquisition dice roll; score low and lose 5 population, but score high and they can transfer the card to another player. Pestilence cards similarly cause an ongoing penalty by decreasing rolled dice values in the first phase or increasing them in the second, but a doubles roll lets a player move Pestilence cards elsewhere. Other cards trigger wars (where two players go head-to-head), while Negotiated Peace cards can be played to avoid the war. I won’t describe all the cards, save to note that players can take Improvement cards, giving them ongoing benefits, and you’ve guessed it, there are cards which let players tear down others’ Improvements.
This is most definitely a back-stabbing, take-that sort of game!
The winner is the last person left with any population.
Campaign
This is Of Popes and Plagues’ second campaign, the first having started in, as far as I can tell, 2024, but failing to reach its funding goal. The new campaign has a lower goal (this seems to be the case with all the crowdfunding restarted campaigns I’ve seen), which it has met.
There are a few inconsistencies within the campaigns: the first said the game was for 3–6 players, ages 8 and up; the current states 2–6, ages 14+ at the top of the page, but 10+ in one of the images a little farther down. Given what I can glean of the game, it’s not as complex as a 14+ rating would warrant, but it’s also probably not for 8-year-olds. As regards player count, while it might be playable at two, cards such as War (which player A inflicts on player B, who then chooses a player to go to war with) wouldn’t work particularly well.
The campaign page doesn’t explain gameplay very well, and there are no playthrough videos. There is a rulebook, but an if not red, perhaps slightly off-green flag is that the campaign page states that ‘The games and the printed rulebooks are in stock and ready to ship!!!’ (again, the over-excited triple exclamation marks) while the rulebook landing page has a note inviting people to help edit the rulebooks. I guess they could be referring only to some of the languages being complete and only to others for editing, or it could be a mere oversight. Incidentally, there is a Tabletop Simulator mod to allow for some investigation of the game.
Talking about oversights, but moving slightly farther afield, the publisher, Hillary’s Toy Box has comprehensive description of the game’s cards on its website, which could have been usefully linked from the campaign page. However, many of the other pages on their website relating to the game are suspiciously empty or populated with information about other games.
Coming back to the campaign rewards, besides the base game, extra include an expansion which contains 138 additional cards, well beyond the 70-odd in the base game. However, this isn’t really an expansion, but different artwork and swapping the gameboard functionality for card-based population counting, as explained in a project update.
You can also spring for some unnecessary bling, such as custom dice or dice and card trays, and… a colouring book?!
Verdict
I totally like the theme of the game, and can see how it could be informative and educational. Of Popes and Plagues’ campaign page even includes a section on working with educators to produce classroom material. The artwork is appealing and thematic.
I think, but am not certain, that ‘old-style’ artwork in the expansion refers to Green’s 1993 game, Plague & Pestilence, but Of Popes and Plagues ‘is not a reprint of Plague & Pestilence, rather a recreation with the addition of the Inquisition and reworking of many game mechanics.’—there are more details elsewhere in the forums, but that’s probably only of interest to people familiar with the old game.
Unfortunately, gameplay is so inadequately described, it’s difficult to tell how playable Of Popes and Plagues actually is, especially at low player counts. This isn’t helped by the inconsistencies in age estimates. I would really like to see much more detail before committing to this project. Additionally, shipping to the UK costs almost as much as the game itself, which is a bit of a turn-off.
For me, though, the final nail in the coffin is the large amount of grumbling in the Gamefound comments, expressing dissatisfaction with the campaign, which is a shame for such a promising game concept.
About the author:
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
