Tweaking an ancient game: Ur

As part of an assignment, I need to tweak the mechanics of an ancient game of my choosing. for 

this, i have chosen the Royal Game of Ur, as I have the most background knowledge for it.

There was a variety of different routes I chose initially. Whilst i had considered making changes 

to the board itself, i felt that wouldn't change the game for the better. 

One of the idea that cam to mind was to change the nature of the 'safe' squares, so two player pieces (of the same team) can land on it, as well as having the ability to ‘block’ the route for the opposition, similar to the Egyptian game ‘Senet’.

Another change that was considered was to allow the players to allocate their moves to each and any of their pieces.  But this effectively destroyed the game by creating too may variations which made the game less frustratingly long, lessening the tension of the game.

This method was to modify the binary die so for every blank result the opponent can move their piece instead of staying stationary. Whilst this is an interesting idea, the problem with this is that it caused turns made the turn taking more confusing, making everyone to lose track of whose turn follows.

One tweak that as my attention is another change to the binary die, where this time players role the dice multiple times. But for every blank result, it is removed from the subsequent roll. For example, if the player rolls 4 dice and one is a blank, this is removed from their next roll in their turn, so they can only roll three on their next move. This would continue on until the player has run out of dice, and the turn will end. When the player's turn begins again, the player will have four dice once more. This modification gives the opponent an advantage which 'rolls over' to their next move, which they can use as part of their strategy.  This tends to speed the game up for an experienced player if his opponent is a novice.

Senet and Ur... Now what was that other game called?

As guessed from the title, this post is about two ancient board games: 'Senet' and 'The royal game of Ur' (hence why the title was written like that... see what I did there?).

Royal game of Ur

Originally discovered in what is now modern day Iraq by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, it is 

one of the oldest board games ever found, dating back as far as prior to 2600 BCE (before common era)

The game roughly plays out as follows:

-The two players have four pieces each on one side of a game board (the left side, that is) strangely shaped like some sort of guitar (maybe they were fans of rock - get it, because its made of rock and,,, oh, evermind...)

-The players would take turns to move their pieces around the board to the other end. the first player to get all their pieces off the board completely wins the game.

with these basic principles are other rules to spice up the game. for instance, an opposing player can send your pieces back to the start if they land on one of your pieces, and vice versa. Io avoid this, there are spaces on the board (the marked spaces) that render the player 'immune' to this attack, but it only applies to pieces on these spaces, so choose the time to leave them wisely.

Senet
A game originating from ancient egypt around 3100BCE, Senet sits alongside Ur as one of the oldest board games on earth. A game about passing through the netherworld, the board is made up of a 10x3 grid, the first fourteen of these squares are filled with a game piece, alternating between one player and the other.

The aim is much like the Royal game of ur: get your game pieces off the table before the other. when pieces land on the opposing players piece, they change places, instead of removing them. Another notable
mechanic in this game is the blocking system, where having three pieces together in a row prevents any pieces behind from progressing.

Treasure hunt! A wealth of fun!

We had participated in an enjoyable pervasive game; a treasure hunt, one that took us to the furthest flung corners of the Arts and humanities building.

Initially, we were split into three groups and given one sheet of paper with a QR code on it. This code, when scanned with a special application on our phones, gave us directions to other QR codes, displaying their message in a variety of ways, from text, to sound files, and video, hyperlinks and the like. The quest eventually took us to the library, where we had to find a specific book section. When we found the QR code, we had found it displayed a very cryptic message. for a while, we were unsure what it meant, until Eddie himself appeared (seemingly from nowhere, from what I saw) and told us that it actually was the end. The fault was that he didn't make the end clear enough for us, but once we knew, we could finally say we had finished the hunt.

The moral of this story? Pervasive games (Like Treasure Hunts and 'Killer') can be a very engaging experience, as it lets the players interact in the real world, unlike board games and video games.

Games Britannia "Monopolies and Mergers" thoughts and comments

Shortly after viewing the second episode of Games Britania, titled 'Monopolies and Mergers', I once again compiled my thoughts, notes and other observations into this blog. Here are some of the things I found during the video:

-The first published board game in America, the same game also credited for helping kick-start the American board game industry, was actually a near complete rip-off of the 18-19th century board game 'Mansion of Bliss'. The only difference was that it was made in America, and so (supposedly) made for Americans.

-The success of the 'Mansion of Happiness' gave rise to the popularity of board games, as well as their potential.

-Royal regatta was one of the first board games to replace the 'morally dubious' dice with a spinner.

-A lot of early american board games were actually morality based.

-The 'rags to riches' can be traced back to the board game 'Game of the Telegraph Box', which is actually based off the book 'Telegraph Box'.

Bibliographies; What are they good for?

In practicing citations for creating bibliography, here are some practice ones i did:

        2 full length books

Pulsipher, L. (no date) Game design : how to create video and tabletop games, start to finish.

Meigs, T. (2003) Ultimate game design; building game worlds. London: McGraw Hill/Osborne.

        2 contributions to a book

Bateman, C. and Boon, R. (2006) 21st century game design. Hingham: Charles River Media.

Fields, T. and Cotton, B. (2012) Social game design : monetization methods and mechanics. San Francisco, Calif.; Oxford: Morgan Kaufmann; Elsevier Science [distributor].

        2 articles in refereed journals

Browne, C. "Elegance In Game Design." IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI IN GAMES, VOL. 4, NO. 2, JUNE 2012 4.3 (2012): 13. Cameronius. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.

Wu, YuLung. "Courseware design of project research based on interactive game design." Computer Applications in Engineering Education 20.3 (2012): 510-517. Print.

Games Britannia "Dicing with destiny" thoughts and comments

After watching Games britannia's "Dicing with destiny" episode, I decided to compile my thoughts and put them on this blog. And although the thought of adding a pun in the title of this post came to mind, the episodes title was sufficient enough (as well as i couldn't think of anything). Anyway, on with the notes:

One thing I noted, was the fact that people were able to get away with carving game boards into the stonework, essentially 'vandalism', but this was accepted.

Also, the fact that most famous board games of today are merely shallow versions of games taken from places like India. Games such as ludo and snakes and ladders had been stripped of both complexity and meaning of their predecessors, becoming devoid of purpose other than merely having 'fun' or passing the time.

It also seems that games once carried spiritual or religious meaning long ago, in quite the contrast to now with snakes and ladders (a game that is barely classified as a game, if not at all).

I have no Paidea why this is is so Ludus-crous

After learning about Roger Caillois and the types of play, i have compiled games that i know of that would fit into each of these categories.

Paidea is where the game is played for pleasure and has no abiding rules. for example, a child rolling down the hill. there are no rules to this, nor are there any specified goals. it's just a kid and a hill. Simple.

Ludus, however, is where there are specified rules and goals. this is where a lot of 'games' fall into, such as Chess, Ludo, monopoly and the like. all with their own specific rules, as well as an end goal.

Within these main categories are 'play forms'. These consist of:

Agon - The struggle. A perfect Ludus example of this is Chess, whilst an example of Paidea's Agon would be playfighting.

Alea - Chance or fate. For Ludus, this would be things like Blackgammon, Faro, or pretty much any other Gambling casino game. An example for Paidea would be something like 'Channel surfing' or checking the mail for something interesting.

Ilinx - meaning 'Whirlpool', or the sense of vertigo. Paidea's version of this would be going on a rollercoaster, and Ludus's version would be Need for speed games.

Mimeisis (or Mimicry) - Role play.
An example of Paidea's Mimicry is a kid holding out his arms like a plane, whilst running around making plane noises. On the other hand, Ludus would have the kid playing against other people in dogfights in a video game.

Of course, a game is not limited to just one of these, and Paidea's version of Mimicry is not strictly the same as Ludus's Mimicry. As an example, Paidea's Mimicry has the little kid holding out his arms like a plane, whilst running around making plane noises. On the other hand, you have Ludus's kid, who is instead playing against other people in dogfights in a video game.