The
Royal Game of Ur
When
the Royal Game of Ur was discovered, the game's rules were not known,
thus many people tried to come up with their own versions of how they
thought the board suggested that the game would be played.
According
to Murray, the first version of the royal game of Ur dates back to
2560 B.C. Four game boards were found in the royal graves of the
First Dynsaty among the treasures discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley
and his exploration party. There were different variations but the
boards only differed in the decoration of the cells. There were
different variations but the boards only differed in the decoration
of the cells. (H.J.R.Murray, 2000, 19-20)
According
to Bell, one of the variations had little discs of shells with red or
blue centres set in bitumen which covered the wood. Another more
elaborate variation has the board completely covered with an
incrustation of shell plaques inlaid with lapis lazuli and red
limestone, and is divided by lapis lazuli strips.
This
version's game board was 8 by 3 squares as shown in the image below.
It was played using four sided dice, with two of their sides
having a jewelled corner, and the other two being plain.
Bell's
initial suggestion of the rules of the game were that each player had
seven tokens and three dice, and players would bet money before the
game. Both players' tokens would start off the board and enter
onto the tile indicated on the image. When the first player is
decided, each player took turns at rolling their 3 dice and were able
to get the following scores:
First
a score of five is required to put a counter on the board. Players
would then move one of their tokens towards the next special square
(every fourth square) based on their rolling score each turn. Once a
counter reached the first special square it would next move into the
middle line where it risked the chance of being removed from the
board by having the opponent landing on the same square. Finally when
getting to the end, an exact throw is needed to get a piece off the
board.
Bell
also says that fifteen hundred years later, another version of the
same game was being used by Egyptians. This version had different
shaped game pieces and had more middle squares, however it still kept
the 'special' squares every 4th
square as seen in the figure below. (R.C.Bell, 1979, 22-25)
Having
played this game myself, I wanted to do a few iterations of my own,
to try and make it more fun to play.
As
I will be mentioning the terms 'Mechanics', 'Dynamics' and
'Aesthetics' in my iteration, I will first give a brief description
of their definitions.
Mechanics
are the core of the game, they refer to the rules, boundaries and the
actual game pieces required to play the game.
Dynamics
are the behaviors that may occur during game-play due to the chosen
mechanics.
Aesthetics
are the desired emotional responses that a game evokes when played.
(Robin
Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek, [year])
The
following is an example of mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics, and
their effect on each other in context of the Royal Game of Ur.
If
a player's token lands on the opponent's token, the opponent must
remove the token off the board. However if a token is on a 'safety'
box, the opponent may not land on the same box. These are a couple of
mechanics which bring the following dynamics to life:
Players
will try to stay on the safety boxes as much as possible to avoid
having their tokens knocked off the board and they will move their
tokens onto the opponent's tokens when possible to gain an advantage
over them. These are dynamics which bring the following aesthetics to
life:
The
feeling of competition is caused as both players try to maintain an
advantage over their opponent and dramatic tension is built whenever
an opponent is about to take a roll which may possibly knock one of
their tokens off the board.
Having
explained the basic definition of mechanics dynamics and aesthetics I
will move on to the iterations that I did to the later version of the
Royal Game of Ur.
The
first iteration was that when a player's token lands on the same box
as another token of their own, it will give all tokens in that box
increased movement the next time they are moved, and the movement
increase is equal to the number of tokens in the same box.
The
idea behind this iteration was to allow for more choices. Rolling a
four was always the best one could hope for, however with this change
players had more meaningful choices to decide on. The dynamic created
by this iteration was that players could stack tokens in order to
rush ahead as a trade-off for risking having more tokens knocked off
if an opponent landed on them.
According
to Brenda & Ian, trade-offs are when a player must make a choice
to gain something and lose another, none of the choices are entirely
right or wrong, but it is up to the player to decide which one to
make. Such decisions are important to make the player feel involved.
(Brenda Braithwaite & Ian Schreiber, 2008, chap 5-6).
After
testing the game, I noticed that the game allowed more chance of
landing on an opponent's token, thus the aesthetic of competition was
increased, but the game was slowed down as more tokens were being
sent back off the board. Due to this, adding inevitability was the
next target I wanted to achieve.
In
the second iteration I added an additional effect to one of the empty
boxes: When a player moves a token onto this square their token would
no longer be able to get knocked off the board, thus making its
progress inevitable. According to Leblanc, inevitability is important
as it adds dramatic tension. Drama is a desired aesthetic in games as
it makes them more compelling. (Marc Leblanc, [year], 439-445)
When
testing this iteration two things were noticed. This mechanic led to
a dynamic where players tried to use the 'un-knockable' tokens to
limit their opponents' possible movement. The other thing I noticed
was a fatal flaw in the game due to a combination of both the
iterations. When trying to get off the board, a 1 was required at the
end, however when an 'un-knockable' token stacked up on another token
right at the end, the smallest possible movement was a 2. To top it
all, the opponent could not knock the tokens off due to the
'un-knockable' effect so whenever a player's tokens end in that
position, that player would effectively have lost due to never being
able to move those tokens again.
The
next iteration was simply done with the intention to fix this flaw.
By changing the increased movement mechanic to an optional movement
increased, players would be getting even more choice, and would no
longer get in a situation where they could no longer move.
Having
tested the game using all three iterations, the flaw was fixed
however I noticed that no new aesthetics were added to the game due
to the changes. The effect of the iterations only empowered the
game's original aesthetics.
In
the end aesthetics are what matter to players because that is
what
gets players emotionally invested in a game.
Had
I planned the iteration with an aim to add a particular aesthetic
from the start, I would have been able to choose the dynamics that
can give the desired aesthetics, and then decide on the mechanical
changes required to enable those dynamics. I learnt that this is the
ideal flow of thinking when designing and iterating games, because
even though it is the mechanics that determine the dynamics and in
turn, the aesthetics, a designer must first know the desired
aesthetic in order to know which dynamics are needed and in turn,
which mechanics would enable these mechanics.
Having
gone through the process of iterating and assessing the changes the
Royal Game of Ur, I feel I have acquired a better understanding of
how particular qualities of games are placed together to achieve the
end result. I look forward to every chance at researching and
iterating existing games as it is through these experiences that I
will inevitably improve my skills as a game designer.
Bibliography
H.J.R.Murray,
A
History of Board-Games Other Than Chess, 2000
,
(p.19-20)
R.C.Bell,
Board
and Table Games From Many Civilizations, 1979,
(p. 22-25)
Robin
Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek, MDA: A Formal Approach to
Game Design and Game Research
Brenda
Braithwaite & Ian Schreiber, Challenges For Games Designers,
2008, (ch. 5-6)
Marc
Leblanc, Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics, (p.
439-445)
