Tweaking Ancient Games, Senet

11/12/14

Earlier in my blog i wrote a short piece on the ancient game Senet. This is the game I choose to write an essay on for my first modules assignment in Critical Games Design. This consisted of a short history of the game and an iteration process to try and improve the game. I choose some changes that in my opinion would improve game play. 

Board Layout

The first change to be made is the game board. The proposed change keeps the same amount of squares but changes the layout. All the special squares are still on the same number squares (15, 26­29). This change in the board layout should make the player feel like they are closer to the finish. It does this by making it clearer to see where the players are in relation to the finish. 

Player feedback showed that when playing with this board, players felt they were closer to the end of the board. As the players turn round a corner onto a new row their thoughts are that there is only one more corner to pass before the home straight and being the winner of the game.   

Capture 

The second change to be made is a capture mechanic. Players will be able to take opponents counters and add them to their own, creating a stack or adding to it (see third rule ‘Stacking’). Stacks can only capture opponents counters/stacks if their own has a greater number of counters in it. This should create more competitiveness, frustration and further the tactics involved in playing the game.

Stacking  

The third change to be made is a stacking mechanic. This rule goes hand in hand with the capture mechanic. Players will be able to stack their counters to make them more powerful. If one player’s counter stack is greater than the other player’s stack, they over power them. This should create even more frustration and more competitiveness within the game. 

Entering The Board  

This change involves all player’s pieces having to enter the board at square one instead of starting along the first two rows on the board at the start of the game. This rule was added after the ‘Capture’ and ‘Stacking’ rules were implemented, to prevent the players from capturing each others pieces too early on in game play.  

The results from playing this version of the game showed that these changes force the players to play with more competitiveness. When playing this version of Senet, players became more interested and emotionally invested in the game because of the increased competitiveness in gameplay. The more pieces a player takes from their opponent the more invested in the game they become because they are getting closer the inevitable finish to the game and therefore closer to victory.