Tweaking Ancient Games

I have decided to have a look at tweaking and making iterations to Tablut. After playing it for a while one thing that got a bit annoying was when people started to try and block the escape tiles when I was playing as the white pieces. This was annoying as I had no way of winning the game. To try and fix this I've decided to try playing it with more escape points so that its harder to block them all off  or making it so that you can't place pieces around the escape points. I'm hoping that after trying these iterations it will make the game much better.

Tablut

Tablut is an ancient Tafl game where the black player has to try and capture the white players king, while the white player has to get their king to safety by getting him to the corner of the board. Players can move their pieces as many squares as they want providing they don't jump over a current piece. To capture an enemy piece you must have two of your pieces on either side of an opposing piece. One exception to this is to capture the king you must surround it on all four sides.

After playing several games of Tablut I quite enjoyed it. However one downside that I did find with the game was that the black player could block of the escape points and were in a position where they couldn't be captured. This means that nobody could win the game.

Caillois’s Terminology

We looked at how you can categorise different video games depending on things like rules and what the player does when playing the game.

We started by looking at how Newman, J, said we categorise games depending on if you play the game for pleasure or are limited by rules and have an outcome they need to achieve to continue. He did this by looking at Roger Caillois terminology. These are known as:

  Paidia: Play for pleasure.
  Ludus: Limited by rules with a clear outcome to achieve.

 Newman then continued to show more ways that we can categorize out games by looking at Caillois's adaption of Huizinga's four terms. These were:

Agon(Competition):Sports and Racing.
Alea(Chance):Betting and Roulette.
Ilinx(Vertigo):Mountain Climbing and Skiing.
Mimicry(Simulation):Theater and Cinema.

From looking at these different categories we discussed how games we know and play fit into each category or with most games into multiple categories. I decided to pick a game I play and see how they fit into these categories.

FIFA 15: This is a football game and is a ludus game. This is because there are very strict rules that the player has to follow or they would be penalised. FIFA is also an agon game because there is a lot of competition between the two teams to try and win the game.

Senet

Senet is a race game which is believed to be around in the Egyptian times. The exact rules for the game have never been found but people have tried to recreate the game by using information gathered from excavation sites.

The version of the rules we played with has the players use a 30 square board with each player having 7 pieces. Pieces are places alternatively on the board starting at 1 and the last piece at 14. Players use thrown sticks to determine how many squares they are allowed to move. 1 piece is allowed on each square so if a piece goes to move their they have to swap positions. However having 2 pieces of the same player they act as blockers which means the player can't swap with them. Plays must roll the exact number to get off of the board. If any piece lands on square 27 they must move their piece back to square 15. A player wins the game by getting all of its pieces off the board.

Bibliography

Crawford, C. (2003), "Interactive Storytelling" in, Wolf, M. and Perron, B. The Video Game Theory Reader, New York, Routledge, pp. 259 -274.

Garcia, A. Sun, Y. Shen, J. (2014), "Dynamic Platform Competition With Malicious Users" ,  Dynamic Games and Applications, 4 (September) pp. 290-308.

McCarthy, D. and Corran, S. (2005), The Complete Guide To Game Development, Art & Design, Lewes, The Ilex Press Limited.

Interview

- What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading, or what is the title of the last fiction book you read?

I don't read many fictional books but a I have read most of the Harry Potter books. After watching all the films I was told to read the books as they are very good, I ended up reading about the first half of the books and never got round to reading the last half.

- What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading, or what is the title/topic of the last non-fiction book you read?

I am currently reading The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell which I have only just started reading and I'm currently enjoying reading it. I decided to start reading this when Dave Pimm said that it was a good book and is relevant to my course.

- What is the last live performance (Music, drama or dance) you attended?

I have been to a few live performances when I was younger however I haven't been to any live performances in the last couple of years.

- What was the last film that you watched?

The last film that I watched was The Inbetweeners 2. I had seen the first Inbetweeners film and all the TV episodes and enjoyed all of them so I decided that I should see the new film. I thought that the film was very good and enjoyed every minute of it.

- When was the last time you read a newspaper and what was it?

I don't read newspapers that often. I last read one on the way to university the other day as there was a copy of The Metro on my seat so I had a read of it.

- When was the last time you went to a museum?

The last time I went to a museum was quite a few years ago when I went to the Science Museum in London. I have also been to several other museums like the British Museum, Natural History Museum and Tate Modern.

- How much time do you spend playing games a week?

I spend many hours a week playing games on both PC and Xbox however recently I haven't been able to play as much due to going to university and work.

- How much time do you spend playing non-digital games a week?

I don't play many non-digital games anymore however I used to play games like Monopoly, Cluedo, Snakes and Ladders, The Game of Life and many others.