tablut revised

So last week we got to test are iterations for the board for my iterations I feel that they worked well and need a little more balance added. so my iterations (although I won't go into detail ) were to add a king piece (this was the one that worked well) and a barbarian army (which needs tweaking).
this blog is going to be a short one

A break from work a trip to the British Museum

Last Thursday we went on a class trip to the British Museum which is located in London the purpose of this trip you ask well the trip was to look at the existing and used board games mainly Sennett and Ur however they did have various other game pieces. what was even more interesting is that we were guided around by Irving Finkel who is an Archaeologist   and assistant keeper of the middle east department of the museum. So after that whirlwind tour around the game pieces we were left to our own devices and wondered around the museum I spent most of my looking around the exhibits mainly the witchcraft and Japanese exhibits which were both quite interesting(however there were still so many exhibits that I wanted to have a look at but never got round though...) although this was the first time I had been to the British museum i found it lacking something (I think this mainly due to the fact that I have stronger interest in natural history and science.) overall it was a good trip and it reminded me that there is only so much you can get from reading  you  need to go out and preform your own reaserch take this as advice  to anyone who  has ( unluckily)  stumbled across this blog

escape sennet

Last Thursday we played a reiterated version of Sennett called escape Sennett. This  version was different as it introduced a new mechanic of a monster piece and what this did was changed the mechanic of Sennett from being a competitive game to being more of a cooperative game because instead of playing against your opponent you now play against the monster piece. So what does the monster piece do well the monster piece is very limited when it comes to movement moving 1 along the first row an then move half of what the die had rolled and can't get past the river square. the other pieces objectives is to get of the board this can be done individually so that one piece move each turn or it can be stacked on to an opponent's piece meaning both players can move that piece. also 3 pieces of the same color will prevent the opposite color piece from moving.

Tablut

On Thursday we played a game called Tablut.  The aim of this game( for the white pieces) is to get their king to the corner or edge squares (depending on rules although corners is the more accepted rule.) and the aim of the black pieces is to capture and wipe out all the white pieces and prevent the king from entering the corner squares. each piece moves any amount of spaces (as long it is not occupied or special squares) either left ,right,up or down. The board is set up as so 8 white pieces and king placed in the center with the king on the throne square and 16 black pieces placed along the outside in groups of 4 this game can be played with any amount  as long as there is twice the amount of black to white pieces. e.g 12 white 24 black


Capturing 
Capturing is when a piece is trapped between the two pieces(vertical or horizontal)  of the opposite color example two black pieces on either side of white piece counts as capture however if a piece intentionally move between two opposite colors it does not count as a capture. The king piece can only be captured if it is completely surrounded by the enemy pieces also edges are also useful for capturing the king as they act as boundaries.


Special squares
Konakis or throne square is the starting square for the king once the king has moved he can't return to that square any other piece can pass through but not land on this square.
corner squares are inaccessible to every piece except the king.
also the center squares can only be landed on twice by the white piece  before the white has to move away from it

Duodecim Scripta

Duodecim Scripta  which translate to a game of twelve lines. the objective of the game is to get all 15 of your pieces onto the board by rolling the dice and which ever number is rolled you put a piece on the board ( stacking is allowed)  which start at "A" then to get all your pieces towards the end which is marked with an "E". Players roll 3 dice and can either choose to move 3 pieces each moving the value of the dice e.g 1 piece moves 2 one piece moves 4 and the last piece moves 6  or 2 pieces with the sum of 2 dice e.g i rolled a 2, 3 and  5  so i can add 2 to 3 or 5  or 3 to 5 and move a piece either 5, 7 ,8 then the other with the remaining die or I  can move one piece to the sum of all 3 spaces.

a single piece can take any opponent piece and vice visa unless they are stacked  stacking is when a piece lands on the same square so they can stack and move as one individual pieces stacks cannot be taken (unless you are playing Finkle's version which allows for bigger stacks to take smaller stacks).

also to get your pieces of the board you roll one dice to get the exact number you want.

The major flaw of this game is that it relies on luck in fact the major mechanic is luck. while luck it self is not a bad part of a game to much makes the game completely void of strategy. because the rules we played meaning stacks could not be destroyed made it so that any opportunity to stack was taken cause it is better to roll one die for 15 pieces than to roll a die 15 times for each piece. the game was changed first in to Tabula around the middle ages  then in to the modern game backgammon  with hopfully all the problems within this game fixed 

Ancient board games lets have a go

 On Thursday we played two ancient   board games the royal game of Ur and the game of Senet these games where both interesting however I feel that these games lack something. these games don't really have a story to them except to be used as representing the passing of the soul to the afterlife meaning that these games have. It also felt a little weird playing these games (even though these were just a paper games.) But what I mean is that it just interesting to know that pharaohs  and probably high priests were playing this game essentially (or theoretically) predicting their own soul passage through the underworld or teaching apprentices through this game play.

example of Ur image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/worldhistory/royal_game_of_ur/

What is a game?

Summary 

Well last Thursday we watched the TV show Games Britannia  episode 1 dicing with destiny.This documentary explains the origin of games in Britain starting with iron age games and also exploring the deeper meaning to games like snake and ladders. The most interesting part ( to me at least) is that games weren't always a scapegoat for some of the world's problems in fact games were used to determine outcomes and predict the future as well as finding enlightenment and were also played while waiting at churches and also how games (I guess you could say) got corrupted by gambling and being industrialized during the Victorian era.

Thoughts

(Well I figured this will be a better title because after watching this I had a lot of different thoughts and questions so  this is going to by 2 cents on the matter.)

So games did not always start of being a scapegoat for the media instead games were used as a way of explaining enlightenment ( Snakes and ladders) used for predicting the outcome of battle (Chess)

So playing games actually had use in ancient times but they were also used for recreation as well ( Nine men Morris being played while waiting in church). So this so that games are not as recent as people may think. It also brings a new field and understanding to studying ancient cultures  as well. 

So how does gambling and industrialization corrupt games? 

Well I feel that as long as there is a set of rules there must also be a set of loopholes within that system( I.E crooked dice card counting tampering with the pieces etc.) so gambling is not a new concept I also think that countless people have died over such trivial things as well. The reason why gambling corrupts games is that it makes the consequences of losing a game very real and destroys the escape from reality because your loss affects your real life possessions such as money or deeds to various properties and even your own life...

industrialization although a major benefit to the games industry ( By making games commercial) the major flaw is that like other industries it all became about money. so that is why there are lot of clone games or similar games out on today's market well the biggest example of this is the company EA as they buy out small but successful game franchises and have sequel upon sequel made. in hopes of earning more money the flaw with this is that most games turn out rushed and not worth the money because these games don't have the basic mechanic of games which to immerse a person to that game's world.