Tweaking Ancient Games

So basically the task was to iterate one of the Ancient Games that we have studied. Considering my earlier observations that The Royal Game of Ur was perhaps an iteration itself, and not even necessarily the final one at that, I thought it prudent to tweak that game.

The first iteration, which was highly successful, was to alter the board so that it consisted of a stretch with the starting and finishing zones on opposite ends and sides of the board. This created a heightened feeling of conflict, the game was still a race game in essence but it certainly felt as though the player was battling the opposition to reach the goal.

However, it was felt that the game moved too fast. To alter that, the second iteration changed the function of the rosette squares; no longer did they propel the player forwards with an extra move, instead they provided a type of blockade; pieces on this square couldn't be taken.

Unfortunately, this slowed the game too dramatically, but it was felt that the idea still had potential. So, the third iteration sought to draw this potential out. To do this, the capture function was changed; usually once a piece is captured it is sent out of play and must re-enter the board at the beginning. Instead, now capturing a piece sent them back to the closest possible rosette square, providing an incentive to keep pieces free of the rosette squares yet still have them used, allowing the game to move at an acceptable pace.

After that, the final iteration was to change the movement system to include a level of strategy, so instead of the usual four sided dice, cards labelled 1 - 4 were used. Players always have three cards in hand, so they can choose which of the three cards to use to move their pieces. This worked very well, and resulted as the final iteration.