Dragons, farmers, warriors, pirates, spaceships and so on and so forth: nowadays there is a board game for every theme, even the strangest. Do you like bird watching? Here you go, Wingspan. Do you like mice? Root and Rats of Wistar are served. Do you want to manage a zoo? Ark Nova is the solution. Or maybe would you like to bring herds of cows to Buenos Aires, strange as it sounds? Great Western Trail: Argentina is for you!
But perhaps the most popular and popular theme of all is the divine one: after all, who wouldn’t want to play Zeus, Ra or Odin and fill their enemies with lightning, fire or sacred hammer blows?
And so here you are served with Ankh if you want to worship the Egyptian divinities, Mythic Battles: Pantheon if you want to move to Olympus or The Feast for Odin, if you want to serve lavish dishes instead of hammering.
However, a little-traveled path is one which refers to the gods of the present, perhaps out of caution or perhaps because the pagan gods have always been more human and interpretable without too many diatribes, who knows… The fact is that, honestly, I have never played a game about the life of Muhammad, or the deeds of Vishnu, or about playing Tibetan bells to ascend to Nirvana…
But I played with great satisfaction nothing less than a game about the life of Jesus. It’s called Ierusalem: Anno Domini and it’s published by Devir, which evidently likes to get out of the “comfort zone” of themes.
Oh yes, because after having retraced Mozart’s life with Lacrimosa and before having taught us what the Karvi are (spoiler: Viking boats always too underestimated), these wonderful authors and illustrators take us back to the year 33 AD, when, in short, it was not a good time for the prophet of Christianity.
The control of the territory is taken to the next level with a placement “not” of workers, but of followers, using classic Eurogame mechanics: to score the majority of points, that will lead us to the holy victory before poor Jesus arrives on the top of Calvary, we will have to place our followers of the prophet at his feet, or in any case as close as possible to his 12 most ardent fans, i.e. the Apostles, during the event of the millennium: The Last Supper. Sitting at the right hand of the son of God will be a playful obligation during the game, but Peter, Paul and even Judas will also not be underestimated in the final count. At the end of the game (which coincides, given that we are in the sadly well-known 33 AD, with the death of Jesus) the player with the most fierce and adoring fan base will be the winner and will take on the burdens and honors of spreading the Word, or more he will simply get some well-deserved applause.
In all this, of course, there will be no shortage of resources, miracles and memories of the life of the Nazarene, collecting parables will in fact be another way to score points: such as Rise and Walk, “five loaves of Bread and two Fish” and Walk on the water will sell out in a few rounds.
In a short time, our patience will also run out: the meeples of the apostles, of loaves, fish and stone, of our followers, as well as piles of cards and tokens will certainly find space in the game box, but certainly won’t find order, creating quite a few problems in the setup.
To avoid falling into the sin of disorder, we therefore tried to do our good deed, with our organizer for Ierusalem: Anno Domini. Apostles and Nazarene will be in their container, ready for the Last Supper, as will our followers, the cards, all the parables in good order. Furthermore, resources and decks are in trays sized to be placed directly on the game board, to raise the level of the game to the celestial comfort.
The Last Supper is ready, let’s not serve it cool down with the mess and let’s set up… divinely!
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