Ancient Board Games - Duodecim Scripta

This week we looked at more Ancient Board Games, This weeks included Duodecim Scripta and Tabula.

Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum, also known as the game of twelve lines.

Bell shows an image of a man and woman playing a game marked with twelve lines in the C2nd-3rd BC). He also notes that the engravings may show a early version of the game known as XII Scripta.

There have been lots of different board designs, some of which use symbols while others use words.

H.J.R. Murray describes the game as a backgammon-style race game for two players. 

Within gameplay each player has 15 pieces and the game is played with three six sided dice. Players roll the three dice and can either use scores individually or combined.

I think this is an interesting game with unique mechanics, but isn't one of the most interesting Ancient Games we have studied in Eddies lectures.

Ancient Board Games - Tafl

In this weeks lecture we looked at another Ancient Game, this week was Tafl.

According to Murray Tafl was played in Scandinavia even more 400AD. After a while the game spread to Iceland and Britain. Murray also noted that it "was the only board game played by the saxons".

The game itself is played on a square board of 11x11. The defending players pieces are played symmetrically in the centre of the board around a larger piece known as the "King". Its note worthy that the defending players pieces are outnumbered by 2:1 by the attacking player.

The object of Tafl is for the defending player who plays as white to move their king to either the edge of the board or to one of the corner squares. The attacking player who plays as black has to surround the opposing players king and prevent him for reaching a corner square.

The pieces move similar to the rook in a game of chess. A piece can be taken by being sandwiched between two of the opposing players pieces. The only exception is the "King" who has to be surrounded on all four sides to be captured by the opposing player.

This is a interesting skill based war game which i found fun to play.

Games Britannia Part 2: Monopolies and Mergers

Following on Benjamin Woolley's last episode, this one shows us the influence of board games from british society from the last 200 years and how some can become a moral teaching for others.

One of the games that took my interest the most was a game called "The Landlords Game". This game was created in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie. The game was apparently origionally designed to explain how "Land grabbing" and the renting system worked, but it was also used to teach children to gain an awareness over unfairness.

The game was first published in Britain in 1913 with the title of Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit. This game later became one of the most famous board games in the world called "Monopoly" as the similarities are easily spotted.

After this era games like cluedo and scrabble were made to help bring families through the great depression and out of this came some of the biggest games companies at the time, some are even still around now!

I'll update my blog with the 3rd part of Woolley's series.

British Museum Trip

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances I was unable to attend the trip to the British Museum with my fellow Computer Games Design students, Although I plan on going there when im next in London.

I shall update my blog with pictures and more when i have returned!

Games Britania. Episode 1. "Dicing with Destiny"

This week we looked at  Games Britania "Dicing with Destiny" presented by historian Benjamin Woolley to help us understand how ancient games worked from the iron age to the information age. 

In this episode Benjamin explores some of the earliest games in their first known forms and explains how they would of been played in their time.

The first game was the Stanway which was excavated from British graves in 1996 but after discovery it was found that the game was from around 43AD. 

He also looked at how religion was used in games, and it was found and believed that Snakes and ladders was actually represented as a Hindu journey to enlightenment and nothing like the fun family game it is today! 

Woolley found this as a perfect analogy for how the sacred energy which once imbued games has been drained away by commercilization. R.I.P.

Senet: An Ancient Egyptian board game

Senet: An Ancient Egyptian Board Game

In today's lecture we looked at Senet, otherwise known as the Game of Thirty Squares. According to findings the game was discovered from a painting found in the Tomb of Hesy in 2600 B.C.E.

History of Senet

After doing some research into Senet I found out that it was already being played in Ancient Egypt before 3000 B.C, way before writing was first recorded. The game of Senet is most related to the afterlife. It was said that in Ancient Egypt people mastered Senet to appease Osiris, Guardian of the Underworld. It was said that they must emerge victorious in order to pass through to the Afterlife.

How to play

The game of Senet can be characterized by its rectangular board consisting of rows of 10 squares referred to as "Houses". Each player starts with 7 or 10 pieces, depending on what rules set is being used. Pawns are alternated across the first 14 squares of the board.

Rules

Various people have formulated various versions of the rules by which Senet was played including Timothy Kendall, R.C. Bell, Gustave Jéquier and Edgar Pusch. The main difference in opinion between the rules is how many pieces the game is played with.

Tweaking Ancient Games

In this weeks lecture we were asked to tweak and iterate some of the Ancient Games we had studied. The game I decided to iterate was Senet, as it was the game that held my interest the most.

After playing a few games of Senet with a friend, i decided to think about what were the underline problems with this game and what i could do to make it better.

The first thing i started thinking about was the pace of the game. Bare in mind that we were given kendall rules and told to play them (7 pawns each on 10x3 board).

The games were okay but a little slow, so I made my first iteration to reduce pawns of each player to 5. This really helped with the pace of the game as it allowed players to work their way around the board instead of just overtaking.

We played a few more times and the reduction of counters really helped make the game more exciting and engaging.