Today we looked at Games Britannia part 2 and how the industrial era change games for politics, and money making style of game like buy squares on a board or moving around the board not as a race but as a positive feedback loop.
However instead of playing one of the industrial games we then looked at a game called escape Senet, in which the game adds another element, a player as the monster as they race to eat up the other 2 players.
The game makes player co-operation as the player can stack and team up with the other player to move along the place and abandon pieces (Which is only handy if the monster next turn as you can abandon a player into the line of attack meaning they have one less piece to get to the end and making your chances higher of winning however you also need to make sure it's a number less then a set amount eaten otherwise the monster wins making the game balanced more dynamic to the players cooperation and if they are willing to draw, rush for it, or attempt to block each other whilst a monster chases them down).
Early on in the game it seems to be a thing of picking if you would co-operate with the other player or be against them as the game really moved faster with team work, and players "piggy backing" on other players moves to get everyone moving.
The game people seemed to give the though that the monster was too over-powered or when playing impossible to win.
This changes depending on the players and how they co-operate or block each other for the monster to catch up.
This dynamic may not have been what was intended however it a good attempt and experiment with co-operational play that does not reward you for trying to beat your opponent, and by making sure you work in some way together to get a draw, rather then making the "monster" win.
Thursday 27 November 2014
Thursday 20 November 2014
Tablut: A game in which surrounding the king improbable
Tablut is a tafl game with a board that is 9 by 9 or 11 by 11(called Tawl Bwrdd)18 by 18(Alea Evangelii).
The game as two players with white or black, white has to protect the king and get him to the corners (or edge depending on the version of the rules you play) and black have capture the king by surrounding him.This makes the game compelling from the idea of movement on the board however king will more likely win then lose due to 1 piece movement and how you are forced as black to get 4 pieces around, when I say you can win with nothing but a king due to the movement style of rooks from chess, because of this the king can run away unless boxed into 2 or 3 boxes and then crushed slowly by the black team.
Whilst the game is meant to be fast paced, I think it would be better without a time limit as the game is trying to make pure strategy while playing as blacks, white can only move to retaliate what black does or does not move, meaning the game is over as soon as one or the other makes a simple mistake without seeing so in till 2 or 3 turns later when the move then makes you kick yourself into a corner in which you can be taken from.
The game is asymmetric and shows with the piece as the game gives more value to the king however the king counts just as much as another piece unlike in chess, where a king can do exactly what any other piece can do, so cornering can be just as hard (if not harder) then moving the king to the corner (or edge).
The game as two players with white or black, white has to protect the king and get him to the corners (or edge depending on the version of the rules you play) and black have capture the king by surrounding him.This makes the game compelling from the idea of movement on the board however king will more likely win then lose due to 1 piece movement and how you are forced as black to get 4 pieces around, when I say you can win with nothing but a king due to the movement style of rooks from chess, because of this the king can run away unless boxed into 2 or 3 boxes and then crushed slowly by the black team.
Whilst the game is meant to be fast paced, I think it would be better without a time limit as the game is trying to make pure strategy while playing as blacks, white can only move to retaliate what black does or does not move, meaning the game is over as soon as one or the other makes a simple mistake without seeing so in till 2 or 3 turns later when the move then makes you kick yourself into a corner in which you can be taken from.
The game is asymmetric and shows with the piece as the game gives more value to the king however the king counts just as much as another piece unlike in chess, where a king can do exactly what any other piece can do, so cornering can be just as hard (if not harder) then moving the king to the corner (or edge).
Thursday 13 November 2014
Duodecim Scripta, Tabula and how the modern game of backgammon came about!
The Game Backgammon came from that of a few old games as it evolved over the era's of play, and the original origins can be traced back to Duodecim Scripta, a old roman game played in inns and such places.
Duodecim Scripta was found in a silver mirror from the second or third century B.C.E
On the mirror's reverse side is an engraving of a young man and a damsel seated at a gaming table ,both dressed lightly. The translated words on the mirror are believed to be "I believe I have won." and the other word "Ofeinod" meaning is unknown.
The Game is a two player racing game, that is meant to last or be played for about 30 mins in duration time and needs a Special game board, with 15 pieces of their colour choice, plus three six sided dice.
The game starts with the piece off the board and build up, they can't move out of the home place in the middle in till you have filled and stacked the board, once this A/home row is filled then you move up to the top right of the board and move left along the top of the board and then once that is done down to the bottom and move right till the final phase of the game.
To move the pieces on the board you throw three dice and can use all the 3 dice as one or 2 dice for 1 and 1 for 1 or all 3 dice for 1 piece each, and on the final phase you use one dice to get the end of the board and off, if you don't get the number for off the board then you need to wait for the next turn or move another piece if possible.
The game has a blocking mechanic to help build strategy in the game, meaning moving pieces to help block or to advance has a choice and means you have to choose between safety or progression and know where or when to move, or even how to move the pieces in what line-up.
Capturing a piece is basic to if there is a single piece , it can be taken, if there is a stack of pieces then it can not be taken and helps save your pieces and slow your opponent limiting the choice they have.
The winner is the first one to get all the pieces of the board before the opponent and thus gaining a point, If the winner wins 10 times, they gain the title of Ultimate winner.
Let's now move on to Tabula and talk about how this game is a version that was iterated and changed to improve the game of Duodecim Scripta; So Tabula was a game populate with the Romans era and this solved the template for the game Backgammon as we know it today.
The game of Tabula was a race game, played with 2 players, with a game being about 25 minutes long and involving a board, 15 pieces for each player and 3 dice.
This game builds on the last ones mechanics but fixes moving and stacking to a point. The player must finish and get the pieces off the board, making progression force struggle between the players.
and thus we have the modern game of backgammon was iterated into existence!
Duodecim Scripta was found in a silver mirror from the second or third century B.C.E
On the mirror's reverse side is an engraving of a young man and a damsel seated at a gaming table ,both dressed lightly. The translated words on the mirror are believed to be "I believe I have won." and the other word "Ofeinod" meaning is unknown.
The Game is a two player racing game, that is meant to last or be played for about 30 mins in duration time and needs a Special game board, with 15 pieces of their colour choice, plus three six sided dice.
The game starts with the piece off the board and build up, they can't move out of the home place in the middle in till you have filled and stacked the board, once this A/home row is filled then you move up to the top right of the board and move left along the top of the board and then once that is done down to the bottom and move right till the final phase of the game.
To move the pieces on the board you throw three dice and can use all the 3 dice as one or 2 dice for 1 and 1 for 1 or all 3 dice for 1 piece each, and on the final phase you use one dice to get the end of the board and off, if you don't get the number for off the board then you need to wait for the next turn or move another piece if possible.
The game has a blocking mechanic to help build strategy in the game, meaning moving pieces to help block or to advance has a choice and means you have to choose between safety or progression and know where or when to move, or even how to move the pieces in what line-up.
Capturing a piece is basic to if there is a single piece , it can be taken, if there is a stack of pieces then it can not be taken and helps save your pieces and slow your opponent limiting the choice they have.
The winner is the first one to get all the pieces of the board before the opponent and thus gaining a point, If the winner wins 10 times, they gain the title of Ultimate winner.
Let's now move on to Tabula and talk about how this game is a version that was iterated and changed to improve the game of Duodecim Scripta; So Tabula was a game populate with the Romans era and this solved the template for the game Backgammon as we know it today.
The game of Tabula was a race game, played with 2 players, with a game being about 25 minutes long and involving a board, 15 pieces for each player and 3 dice.
This game builds on the last ones mechanics but fixes moving and stacking to a point. The player must finish and get the pieces off the board, making progression force struggle between the players.
and thus we have the modern game of backgammon was iterated into existence!
Sunday 9 November 2014
Ur and Senet: Ancient Games with little understanding.
Ur and Senet are games of which seem little understood about them truly, as many different interpretations of rulings such as starting, the amount of counters.
Looking at Ur first, found by Sir Leonard Wolley as he excavated three complete boards, and "the halves of at least two more [...] in addition to many fragments of loose inlay pieces which must have belonged to gaming boards too." (Becker 2007 p .11).
The game was then looked at by Murray, Bell , and Becker to try and iterate them to make the game in a playable state, but they all looked at elements that were unknown to us in till some rules on a clay tablet was found and read to a mild understanding but some mechanics are still unknown or unexplained. Overall from the rules we used for the game made the game rather enjoyable as we iterated the dice mechanic to increase speed of the game and made it easier the counting 4 sided dice with a white tip for are score of the dice (Using this sort of style of dice would have made more sense back then, however now we have dice that really do the job for use and make sure we are not wasting time counting which is or is not a 1 or a 0).
Then we looked at the game Senet, a race game with the mechanic of blocking players and has a very spiritual being, Senet was found to be an interesting game as the rules seemed a lot more fleshed out and we have found a lot more of the game pieces and boards to figure out how it would have played.
Whilst playing Senet, I slowly saw how the game was more blocking focused as both players would rather block players from moving then race ahead, and because of this the game seemed much slower then it actually was, for example the player may have got them self a piece to the square 28 but after a lot of turns the player would forget about the piece as it needed to have a 3 to move and leave the board, making players go back to moving pieces back at the start of the game and not paying attention to the roll and where they move the piece from or to; More and more making the players try to block them and stop progression rather then race to the end.
A simple yet can be fun game with the right mind set and right players, however I enjoyed Ur more, it was somehow more fun to play and you saw progression a lot more, making the game feel more faster and fun, building up the players different strategies and how they used the game pieces, personally I wanted to get one piece though and then another there for having a full focus on a single piece, however the rush idea to get all the pieces on the board and clutter the board also worked for my opponent as the game work well with both, and then the taking of pieces or the safe squares which gave another turn to the player, made the game flow faster then it really was.
Thus I believe both games are enjoyable but if there was a choice it would much be a Royal game of Ur I would rather play.
Bibliography:
Becker, A (2007) "The Royal Game of Ur" in Finkel ed.pp. 11-15.
Looking at Ur first, found by Sir Leonard Wolley as he excavated three complete boards, and "the halves of at least two more [...] in addition to many fragments of loose inlay pieces which must have belonged to gaming boards too." (Becker 2007 p .11).
The game was then looked at by Murray, Bell , and Becker to try and iterate them to make the game in a playable state, but they all looked at elements that were unknown to us in till some rules on a clay tablet was found and read to a mild understanding but some mechanics are still unknown or unexplained. Overall from the rules we used for the game made the game rather enjoyable as we iterated the dice mechanic to increase speed of the game and made it easier the counting 4 sided dice with a white tip for are score of the dice (Using this sort of style of dice would have made more sense back then, however now we have dice that really do the job for use and make sure we are not wasting time counting which is or is not a 1 or a 0).
Then we looked at the game Senet, a race game with the mechanic of blocking players and has a very spiritual being, Senet was found to be an interesting game as the rules seemed a lot more fleshed out and we have found a lot more of the game pieces and boards to figure out how it would have played.
Whilst playing Senet, I slowly saw how the game was more blocking focused as both players would rather block players from moving then race ahead, and because of this the game seemed much slower then it actually was, for example the player may have got them self a piece to the square 28 but after a lot of turns the player would forget about the piece as it needed to have a 3 to move and leave the board, making players go back to moving pieces back at the start of the game and not paying attention to the roll and where they move the piece from or to; More and more making the players try to block them and stop progression rather then race to the end.
A simple yet can be fun game with the right mind set and right players, however I enjoyed Ur more, it was somehow more fun to play and you saw progression a lot more, making the game feel more faster and fun, building up the players different strategies and how they used the game pieces, personally I wanted to get one piece though and then another there for having a full focus on a single piece, however the rush idea to get all the pieces on the board and clutter the board also worked for my opponent as the game work well with both, and then the taking of pieces or the safe squares which gave another turn to the player, made the game flow faster then it really was.
Thus I believe both games are enjoyable but if there was a choice it would much be a Royal game of Ur I would rather play.
Bibliography:
Becker, A (2007) "The Royal Game of Ur" in Finkel ed.pp. 11-15.
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