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FEATURE Pestilence
Wash Your Hands After Playing
Nowadays, the plague has been almost completely defeated worldwide. If required, it can be treated with antibiotics. But in the 14th century, the situation was totally different. Back then, the Black Death depopulated entire regions in Europe. Even though it could also be quite virulent as a game theme, companies have exercised considerable restraint covering this. Other than in Pandemic and its Legacy derivatives, where players cooperatively try to fight the spreading of abstract epidemics, it seemed too macabre for a long time to take pleasure from the devastating impact of a deadly pandemic disease that had actually happened.
of his own town and, at the same time, decimate the population of other towns through wars, raids or natural disasters. The dimensions of the growth are deter- mined by two dice, while the cards, illus- trated with woodcut-like black-&-white drawings in a contemporary style, bring blessing or misfortune.
Establishing a trade center simply increases the birth rate. The influx of immigrants, however, is at the expense of all competitors. But it is even more perfidious to unleash war between two towns where the winner – determined by dice roll – suffers severe losses as well. As soon as the Death Ship card is revealed, phase 2 begins. Whereas the card effects remain unchanged, the dice-rolling now results in a decrease in your own popu- lation. Depending on the moment when this change begins, the elimination con- test can take 15 to 45 minutes.
The strategy game Black Death, by Greg Porter (Blacksburg Tactical Research Center), stands for the second infection. It describes itself as “tacky” and “maca- bre.” Players take on the role of germs that spread over a stylized map with the objective to reach certain numbers of victims. The higher the chosen conta- gion level, the lower the mortality rate, or vice versa. If you set both at a value of
Therefore, I couldn’t find the first game-publishing outbreak before 1991, at B&B Productions in England. In Steven Barsky’s Plague!, play- ers are taken back to the year 1349, when
the plague hit the English harbor town of Mel- combe. Their job is to drive dice powered wagons, picking up bodies from the houses to bring them to the burial sites. Competitors might use rats to block your way, and infect the carters through fleas, which makes these lose their load and
forces them to replace it. Three cats and one vacuum cleaner (sic!) for fighting rats and fleas relieve the strain a bit.
Richard H. Berg, designer of countless wargames who died last year, chose this game for James Lowder’s Hobby Games: The 100 Best (Green Ronin, 2007), since, as he wrote, he always had a lot of fun with it. Unlike most of the other “Euros,” this one is actually about the theme. What makes the game particularly appealing to him is that a substantial set of event cards constantly changes the situation fundamentally so that players have to revise their plans again and again.
Once the pandemic had broken out, it reached two more companies two years later. In Plague & Pestilence, by Tray Green and Dawn Payn (Hillary’s Toy Box), the arrival of the plague is preceded by a phase of prosperity, during which every- body strives to build up the population
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After a considerably better edition was released in 2008 under the title Black Death V1.01, now there is even a version with a local-historic reference to the German Ruhr region available: Last year, Pest im Pott was developed
as a supplementary learning tool accompanying a special exhibi- tion by the Spielezentrum Herne, together with the author and the educators of the local archaeo- logical museum. The game can still be acquired for very little
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in the worst case, it can happen that units are cured and thus have to be removed without being scored as plague victims.
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money at the museum shop.