David Parlett Visits

Who is David Parlett? He is a games scholar who has studied card and board games as well as publishing many popular books:
The Oxford Guide to Card Games and The Oxford History Board Games.
 He is also an inventor of many board games, his most successful being Hare and Tortoise. His German edition won the most prised "Spiel des Jahres" (Game of the Year) in 1979.

David Parlett visited out university where he gave a talk. He asked us a question as he began:
What is a race game? What defines a race?
Idea's were thrown around the group. 2 or more players in a game competing against each other was one point mentioned but the main thing that defines a race game is Start and Finish. With that in mind, can Cribbage or Chess be defined as a race game seeing as players must get to a certain point on the board before their opponent? It's an interesting question and one with multiple answers.
He also spoke about other aspects of board games: How do players move, how many players?


He then challenged us to make our own game. Sam, Matt and I started throwing around idea's about what we could do and ended up with a 3 player board game. Each player had their own start point and four playing pieces. The object of the game was to get all four of their pieces around the board and to the finish. One the trio of triangles on the board were an addition three triangles coloured black. If a player landed on this board they could heavily impact the progress of another player by resetting one of their pieces back to their initial start point.

Pervasive Games

In this lecture we learnt about Pervasive Games. Games such as "Killer" which is a role-playing game sometimes carried out at Universities and College.

Killer starts out with a group of students and a Game Master who decides the rules and gameplay. Each student is given a target and must "kill" them either by assassination via a nerf gun or an alarm clock which sort of acts as a bomb. No one knows who their assassin is and must kill their target before they themselves are killed. If they fail to do so, the assassin then inherits their targets target.

There have been a few incidents when playing this game. In 2009, Fife, Washington, people were evacuated from a Costco and car dealerships when a "bomb" was left behind by someone playing "Assassin". It was found in a flower bed and it contained a magnet and a beeping motion sensor with the words "Bomb, you're dead"

Eddie had found us a film to watch, La Decima Vittima, translated as The Tenth Victim. Subtitles were a must as it was a foreign film. It was difficult to follow but once you got in to it, it made sense.

At UCS Ipswich, our group of students also have a game of Assassin running. I haven't signed up but if the applications are still open, I'd consider giving it a go


IMDb. 1965. The 10th Victim. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059095/. [Accessed 03 March 15].

Games Jam

When the Games Jam was first announced I wasn't that keen on participating. I'm not sure why I didn't want to go but I had changed my mind by the time our lecturer made the final call on who wanted to participate.

It took place over 3 days (kind of), starting on Friday evening and ending in the late afternoon of Sunday. Phil, Aiden and another chap, Phil's friend who had a lot of experience with animation (I'll have to speak to Phil so I can edit in his name)

Before it all began, Diego Richuitti, who currently works at Ubisoft Milan as a Junior Designer, spoke to us. He told us about the differences between AAA and Indie companies. He spoke about his time and what he does, and also what Ubisoft expects from team members. He may have only been a "Junior Designer" but he was treated as a professional in his field regardless of how many years you had accrued at another company. You joined as a professional. No more, no less.

He talked about how he, having only been there a few weeks or months, was asking and giving directions and orders to the people who had worked there for years. They all came together and worked as a team, even though he was the new guy. 

He then spoke about what it's like to be work at a AAA studio:

• Your decisions must be well thought out and fit with what is needed
• Communication is key. You have to be able to give the artists, 3D modellers and Coders clear instruction on what you wanted
• Mistakes can happen and you must take responsibility. If after 30 hours or whatever the time frame, your idea doesn't work and is a failure, you must be able to stand back and claim it as your fault. You are leading them, after all.
• Learn from those mistakes and try not to replicate it.

After a hectic 48 hours we ended up with our game, Unlucky Chucky. It was an experience I'll never forget and one I'll be repeating in the 2nd year of my course.

You can play Unlucky Chucky here http://globalgamejam.org/2015/games/unlucky-chucky

Games Britannia Part 2

In this episode, Woolley starts by tracing the political and social impact that board games had in Britain during the last 200 years. Britain was the country that came up with the idea of a board game and then exported it to the Americas. It was an idea that it could be used as a tool of moral instruction.
America then adapted it and used it to promote the American Dream

Woolley carries on by tracing the development of board games through the post-war era. Cluedo, Scrabble and Monopoly were, to some, a Holy Trinity of British games that are still bought and played to this day.


In the modern day, board games have evolved to include a wide range of fantasy role-playing such as Dungeons and Dragons, an invention from America. Here in the UK we still produce small political games which play on satire.

Lack Of Update

 

There's been very little update on my blog over the holidays. It was spent enjoying the company of friends and family visiting from Australia. It was also spent catching up on gaming. It was the first time I could spend all day and night simply gaming and doing very little else. I'm sure others were also as keen to do nothing but game.

But why spend all day and night gaming? What makes us absolutely focused on these games for hours on end? What makes this game "fun"? What is "fun" and how do we describe it?

I can't really say what's fun in games. There is, for me, a sense of great satisfaction and pleasure when I play for hours on end, whether it's with friends on Battlefield or War Thunder. I also enjoy playing single player games without any interaction with people over TeamSpeak.

I enjoy gaming as much as the next person and there can be a limit to how long is deemed appropriate or safe. There was a news item quite recently where a man in Taiwan spent 3 days solid gaming. The man, aged 38, died. There was also a previous death from another who spent 5 days gaming.

It's a fun activity to do, on your own or in a whole clan/guild of others, but like all things, it should be done in moderation!

This was also meant to be put up a few weeks back. Perhaps my time is wrongly spent!

British Museum Trip

On the 4th of December we went on a day trip to the British Museum where we spent the day learning about various board games that we were planning on writing about for our assessment. We toured around with Irving Finkle as he explained the various ancient board games that were on display such as The Royal Game of Ur.
We visited the many different areas that had board games relating to them, such as these two rock sculptures. At the base of them was a board game that was etched in to the stone.

I believe The Royal Game of Ur wasn't on display and a copy of it was instead. It was on loan to another museum but the fact we still saw a working copy was just as good. To be fair, if you really studied the pieces, it would seem as if it was the original set.

Dicing With Destiny

Games Britannia Part One:

Benjamin Woolley presented this series and began this video by telling us about his experiences growing up playing board games and some of his experiences and memories that came from it.

Benjamin himself is an Historian and began his quest looking at ancient games, one of which
was found during an excavation in Stanway. They discovered what looked like a board game and pieces close by. Since this finding there have been many discussions and theories on how the game was played.

Woolley then solicited the help of Irving Finkle. He came to the conclusion that this was some sort of war game played between two people. Banjamin started to inquire on how games that were played through history had some form of impact on cultures and religions around the globe.

We play games simply because we become bored so easily. We ply them to pass the time and enjoyment. He made a note about a church he visited and said that there were markings on the steps where people would play games while waiting. 9 Men's Morris, similar to Noughts and Crosses, has remained and have done so throughout the years.

Soon games involving dice started to circulate and along with that, gambling. It was disliked by many in the 18th and 19th century. Even the dice were manipulated in some way which paved the way for cheaters to gain an upper hand.

Gambling became an incredible hit with the upper class. Faro, a simple version of Roulette was popular among the rich and was played by all who could afford it. However in 1985, a Gaming Act was introduced to try and curb gambling. A man who was killed over a £300 debt was one of the reasons this was pushed and eventually introduced.


Goose was a new game introduced that focused on good morals by rewarding, or penalising the players. It was a game that was copied and brought forward the commercialisation and profit of board games. Soon, games companies were coming up with their own rules and taking ideas from all around the world and hoped it would work, and eventually, sold on to the masses. Games such as Chess and Snakes and Ladders are some examples.