Ancient board games - Ur games

For the past few weeks I've been playing some very old board games. I've never heard of any of these games before and I was really interested in learning how to play them. Here are my thoughts on my favourite one:

Royal Game of Ur

Also known as The Game of 20 Squares, the object of the game is to get your pieces around the board and get to the finishing point. Sounds really simple right? That is until you take a look at the board: 

Now if you were like me and have never seen this game before then you would be confused with what you have to do, where to go, and what the squares on the board mean. Hopefully this next picture will clear two of those questions up:

                                                              

So the game is for 2 players, the mechanic of this game is a race to the end and you just follow that route to the end. Again, nothing's ever simple. In fact, there have been different theories to how you travel around the board and where you finish. In my game however, I played it as it is shown above. It would seem at first that the game is purely based on luck on what you roll, but there are elements of skill as well, for example, you can choose any of your counters to move which could be to either progress to the end, to land on a certain tile or to send your opponents counter to the start.

I did find the game quite tense to play, especially when travelling down the middle heading towards the finish with one of my counters. This is because on most squares if your opponent lands their counter on yours then your counter is sent back to the start which can be frustrating (but equally fun doing it to your opponent). The game can also be stressful when you have more counters on the board than your opponent, however this can actually be an advantage for you. Not only does having more counters allow you more options to choose which one to move (and make your opponent go back to the start) you can also block your opponents moves.

The only problem I have with this game is that the symbols on the squares have different meanings and rules to them which are hard to remember. The easiest to remember as it is the most rewarding is the star/flower sign  which, when landed on, gives the player another go. I think it's best if you play a game either online or against someone who has played before to learn what each symbol means as it helps you remember what each one means and their significance.

If you want to play this game, I found a version of it on Itunes for the iphone or ipad, and it's FREE!: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/forgotten-game-of-ur-free/id887848773?mt=8 So why not give it a go for yourself?

paidia, ludus, alea, ilinx, agon and mimicry - Their meanings

Caillois terms are really interesting. He teaches us about the complexity of games in his book 'Man, Play and games (1961)'. He does this by introducing new terminology to the four different forms of play and even two types of play. The title of this post are the terms he uses, but what do they mean?:

Paidia - Means 'play', whether being 'play for pleasure' or 'free play'. This could mean that the player can do what they like without limits. An example of this is 'The Sims' as the player is allowed to create their own character and make them do anything they want them to do.

Ludus - Also means 'play', however more 'rule-bound play' where the player is constrained by the rules towards a goal. Most games are like this, Mario Kart can be an example of this as the player must try to be in first place to win or else they will lose.

The two terms above are like each other's opposite as their meanings are the opposite to one another. The next four terms though are more to describe the gameplay of each game:

Alea - stands for chance or randomness. Games the require dice such as Snakes and Ladders use chance a lot as you are aiming to try getting a certain number or the highest number possible. Poker can also be a game of chance as you are going by your cards given as well as what is laid on the deck of the table.

Ilinx - stands for movement. I'm guessing this could be related to using different peripherals for your game such as the Oculus Rift to control your player character's head movement, the Virtuix Omni to control the player character's movement and alike.

Agon - Stands for competition. Playing online can bring out the biggest of competitions in gaming. However, one of the biggest agon games known has to be chess as two players compete against each other to checkmate the opposing player's king.

Mimicry - mimicry stands for simulation or role play. Most simulation games such as Train Simulator and Construction Simulator try to mimic the job role of driving a train or working on a construction site.

Battleships - Let's change a rule!

Good old Battleships! I use to play this game a lot when I was younger, I wasn't bad at it either. Anyways, I was thinking about the rules of Battleships and thought to myself: 'What would happen if I added a new rule to the game?'

I thought of two rules in the end, and played them both separately:

-First rule that I thought of was more of a change in the mechanics of Battleships, changing the amount of guesses players had during their turn. The way I did this was by introducing a 6-sided die. You rolled the die when it was your turn and the number you roll is the amount of guesses you have for that turn. This was a fun and random mechanic as players now rely on both guessing the correct squares and on their luck for rolling a high number. When I played with this new mechanic I started to enjoy Battleships more than last time as before the pacing of the game can be very slow and a little frustrating, especially if you keep missing.

-The second rule I thought of was a time limit for each go. This was to prevent players from stalling or taking too long to choose a square. This also put more pressure on each player as if they pass the time limit they miss their go. The time limit I chose was 10 seconds which although fastened the pace a little was still too slow for me, so then I chose 5 seconds. This may be too fast for some players and would make them guess more randomly than systematically so I guess the time limit would have to be agreed by both players for it to work properly.