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Italy, late Middle Ages. The fabric merchants need to write down their contracts in a language that everyone can understand and the literates are looking for an alternative to the elite of the traditional Latin language. So, the Volgare, the language spoken by the common people, taken from the dialects spoken in the various Italian regions, starts to gain relevance. During this period, Francesco D’Assisi writes his famous Canticle of the Sun and Dante writes the Divine Comedy, both written in Volgare.
The players will have to do their part in the creation of this new language! But who will provide them the proper knowledge to understand the manuscripts in the different dialects? Who will succeed to uncover the secrets of the books inside the Papal Library? Who will embrace the religious life and who will remain a merchant? Some of the players can become a famous banker, someone else can climb the church’s hierarchy to be the next Pope! But in the end, who will be the most appreciated and respected for his status and his culture?
The aim of the game is to obtain more Volgare points. The players will gain VP from reading manuscripts, looking for important documents like the Canticle of the Sun or "The Riddle from Verona". Players can also gain VP by improving their social status, for example, if the merchant becomes a banker or the Friar becomes a Benedictine Monk or the Cardinal becomes Camerlengo or Pope. Moreover, VP can be gotten with money and with the support of Politicians, Noblemen, Abbesses, and the Amanuensis.
- Allows various paths to victory
- Not overly long at about 2-2.5 hours
- Contains historical references that may appeal to history enthusiasts
- Extremely bland and uninspired theme
- Difficult to pronounce title and remember terminology
- Beige mechanics and aesthetic
- No exciting emotional response from gameplay
- Mediocre artwork
- Misleading deluxe edition claims
- Does not hold player's hand or provide clear objectives
- Knowledge track offers minimal benefit after reaching acceptable level
- Lost by tiebreaker suggests unclear victory conditions
- Collecting manuscripts and gaining power to form Italian language
- Medieval Italian history with language formation
- Historical simulation with Latin-based terminology
- Hybris
- Imperial Steam
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Set Collection — Collecting manuscript cards for victory points
- Token Collection — Collecting tokens that convert to victory points at end of game
- Track Advancement — Multiple tracks including knowledge, merchant status, and social hierarchy
- Track progression — Multiple tracks including knowledge, merchant status, and social hierarchy
- worker movement — Moving pieces around map gaining access to different actions
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- You're listening to the Broken Meeple show, a podcast that speaks passionately about board games for the benefit of those who play them
- This is probably one of the most interesting and possibly one of my favorite trick-taking games I've played now
- My eyes lit up you know and it's kind of like the first time I saw that typewriter mechanic for civilization of New Dawn
- People crying that this is like a nearly Flawless game are seriously downplaying the luck problem in this
- This is the Pinnacle of Bland
- There is no excitement in this game, this game just doesn't generate an emotional response
- It generates a lot of fun banter, a lot of cool thinking
References (from this video)
- Strong theme integration
- deep strategic depth and endgame scoring variety
- Complex to learn due to historical language theme
- Development and propagation of a new language (Vulgari/Evolved dialects)
- Medieval Italy; language creation across manuscripts
- Two distinct paths: merchant vs monk
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action Points — Five action discs used by all players; balance of movement and economy
- multi-path progression — Choose merchant or monk track with different rewards
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- deliciously confrontational game with everything out in the open, no hidden information.
- you only have 16 actions for the entire game
- There are two ways you can go in the game. You can stay a merchant for the entire game, and there are definitely some advantages for that, like there's a lot of income, but you can also decide to become a monk
- the action selection progress
- this is the most player interactive game I have in my list, and it is mean, but so much fun
- I love the aliens; at the beginning of the game, there are random aliens placed on the board face down
- you don't roll your dice. You set them to whatever numbers you want