Royal Game of Ur [ED]

Iterating the Royal Game of Ur – Critical Games Studies

Jack Hutchinson (S148882)

“With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken related to game design and game mechanics, discuss the design problems you have encountered in tweaking the dynamics and game mechanics in The Royal Game of Ur, and explain how you overcame them. Support your answer with close reference to your readings using an appropriate method of citation. Append a bibliography listing the sources you have consulted.”

The Royal Game of Ur is an ancient board game that was discovered by Sir Leonard Wooley between 1926-1930 in southern Iraq. It is argued that the game is the oldest in existence as the board(s) found date back to 2600BC. The first version of the game board is made up of “a larger ‘body’ of 2x3 squares, a narrow ‘bridge’ of two squares and a smaller ‘body’ of 2x3 squares”. (Becker, 2008) It is layed out to force the players counters to cross paths and if the roll is right, to remove one of the opponents counters which adds tension and excitement to the game. The newer game board consists of a block of 3x4 squares where the counters enter, then a long bridge of 8 squares, bottlenecking the counters to add more overtaking and 'killing' of counters.

 

After play-testing with Finkel's rules on both boards, we decided to use the original board (Fig 1.) as we felt we could iterate the mechanics easier. This decision came about after playing both twice and feeling that the original board has a higher amount of skill involved with choosing when to spawn a new piece and choosing to strategically place counters to ensure they are safe from being removed. We felt that we could iterate the original game board to make it more exciting for the player, while keeping the luck element involved more so than we could on the newer board, as there are fewer chances to use tactics as once you are on that long bridge to safety, there isn't an option at the end to keep the counter in a safe zone, therefore minimising strategic capabilities and making the dynamics of the game stale, and repetitive.

There are many rule-sets to the game, Finkel arguably being the most conclusive by himself being the translator at the British Museum for the Mesopotamian clay tablets that held Babylonian and Sumerian words which revealed the first set of vague rules used for the Royal Game of Ur. Those are the rules me and my partner used when testing the game, as we felt it allowed the game to be more balanced than Bell or Murray's interpretations of the game.

We used the rules that Finkel documented (Finkel, 2008) in 'Rules for The Royal Game of Ur':

-        Each player has 7 counters that they need to move from their spawn point to the other end to capture it. (See Fig. 1) All pieces start and end off the board.

-        Players throw 4 tetrahedral dice marked with colour on two of the points to represent rolling zero to four in binary.

-        Every throw, a player is allowed to either spawn a counter onto the board placing it with the roll thrown, or move an existing counter forward corresponding to the amount thrown.

-        If a counter lands on a 'rosette' square, indicated on the board above by a star, the player gets another roll that moves that counter. Players that are landed on a rosette cannot be removed by the opponents counters.

-        If one player's counter lands on a square that contains the others counter, it removes it from the board and back to spawn.

We made various iterations to the game, these are the ones that I feel made the game more enjoyable and more balanced to play:

The first immediate problem we found after playing the game a few times was that there was no real joy in winning. I personally felt as if the game was tricking you into thinking that there is a lot of strategy involved when you are deciding which piece to move, when in reality it doesn't matter as most of the time, there is only one real viable option to choose from. It is important to consider how the aesthetics of the game will change as we iterate it, as “If the player doesn’t see a clear winning condition, or feels like they cant possibly win, the game is suddenly a lot less interesting” (Hunicke, 2004) as too big of a change to it can make players frustrated or bored. To make a game balanced, chance and skill (Braithwaite & Schreiber, 2008) must be given in equal measures. Chance gives weaker players and the game a more competitive feel as it gives them a real chance of winning, yet “A [good] game is a series of interesting choices” (Meier, 1999) which (in my eyes) is the definition of skill in a game. Both are equally important to make the game appealing to the audience, the more balanced it is, the better the aesthetics will be for the player.

So the iteration we put in place was to allow the player to split up the amount he has rolled across any amount of counters in the game. For example, if a player rolled a four, he/she would be allowed to move one counter forward 2 squares, another counter 1 square, and spawn another counter onto the game board, therefore taking up the 4 rolled. We did this as we thought it would add an element of skill to the game by forcing the players to look more than one step ahead, therefore making it more worthwhile winning the game as you as the player would have made more choices based on calculated decisions rather than pure luck.

When we played this iteration, we found that we were taking a long time to make decisions as you felt you needed to be sure of what you were doing and the different odds you have of the opponent rolling a favourable number. As the games progressed faster, we found ourselves more encapsulated in the decision making, always thinking of what to do with each roll you might get next. This gave the game a real sense of strategy and skill that kept us as players on our toes. The downside to this was that it slowed the game down significantly, as our counters ended up piled behind each other in our respective spawn zones, waiting for a 4 roll to move one counter up the board anyway, which made the game repetitive and it at one point it was at a stalemate for 5 minutes. After a few games we found ourselves risking more by moving more counters less spaces, hoping the opponent won't roll a high number, making the game a lot more exciting, but while keeping the skill element by strategically placing counters based on the odds of the roll the opponent gets.

The second problem we found with the game, is that there are too few important moments in the game that create some sort of tension or excitement. Tension is the fear that the player feels when he/she thinks they are going to become the weaker side of the conflict. (Ventrulli, 2009) So to create more tension, the iteration we made was to make the Rosetta stone in the middle of the board give the player the option to travel through the enemies capture zone, or your own. As the player, you have to make that choice as soon as you land on the Rosetta.

Doing this created dramatic tension in the game, giving the player a choice, essentially playing it safe or going for the kill. The outcome is also relatively unknown until you get closer to the capture zone which makes the decision at the time seem more important to the player, but the outcome of the decision again all comes down to the chance of the roll. Playing through this iteration made us feel very anxious at times to see if the choice we made would pay off or not, but most of the time we would not get the chance to remove an enemy's counter as you land on the Rosetta stone too few times to warrant it being game changing. Upon realising this, we added a second iteration onto this one, which was to force the player to roll the correct number to exit the board. In the early stages of the game, it looked like it would be too much of a positive feedback loop for the player going into the enemy's spawn, as at some points there were more than 2 enemy counters waiting to roll correctly. This added tension throughout the game, but towards the end of the game it became the pivotal moment as one player would always be ahead, with the chasing player praying that they land on the Rosetta stone so they still have a chance to remove the enemy's counter and prevail. This gave the players the feeling that they still had a genuine fighting chance if they are behind in the race which gave the game the balance between stronger and weaker players.

~ Conclusion ~

In conclusion, we aimed to make The Royal Game of Ur as balanced and enjoyable for the audience as possible. We felt to do that we needed to incorporate more skill based iterations while still keeping to the original racing feel of the game. I think that the iterations I put in place gave the game more excitement to the players, but I believe that is why the original game passed from country to country with a different board in each, as it is so easy to manipulate depending on what you are looking for out of the board, be it divinatory purposes, gambling or just for fun. Iterating this game while keeping it balanced and enjoyable was difficult, but it was a lot of fun and our final iteration of the game proved to be enjoyable and engrossing.

Bibliography

Becker, A. (2008) “The Royal Game of Ur” in Finkel, ed. pp. 11-15.

Finkel, I. L., 2008. “On the Rules for The Royal Game of Ur” in Finkel, ed. pp. 16-32.

Hunicke, R., 2004. MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research pp.1-4.

Braithwaite, B. & Schreiber, I., 2008. Challenges For Games Designers Charles River Media (chap 5 & 6)

Rollings, Andrew; Morris, Dave (1999). Game Architecture and Design (Quoted by Sid Meier, Date Unknown)

Venturelli, M., 2009. Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design – A PopCap Case Study pp. 2-4.