Dicing with Destiny
The first part of this series focuses on the exploration of Benjamin Woolley in regards to ancient board games, utilising tools such as dice and boards.
The beginning of the program focuses on the discovery of ancient games and continues to discuss the meaning behind said games, an example being a game known as 'alea evangeli' which could be considered an ancestor to chess. The ideas that this section promote is that certain games were used in order to understand the universe, or in order to make political choices and reasons similar to these. This idea is based the on the middle ages, when these games were developed for royalty or religious orders such as the church or 'druids'.
The program continues to travel through the different developments and structures of ancient games, going through different areas such as gambling and time passing.
Throughout the episode Woolley investigates multiple games other than Alea evangeli, such as:
The Stanway Game, a game found in a Colchester, was one of the first complete game set found.
Backgammon, it is commonly known today however it was an ancient game similar to Alea Evangeli.
Nine Men's Morris, the original Noughts and Crosses. It was typically found etched onto the side of buildings and rocks to be played.
Hazard, a game where players were required to vote on the outcome of dice and gamble on pure chance.
Faro is the same as Hazard, however the betting is done on the outcome of cards.
Game of the Goose is a game that utilised a spinner to decide where a player will move and was originally intended to be played in order to teach right and wrong.
The ancestor of Snakes and Ladders was Gyan Chaupar, a game which involved reaching enlightenment.
Finally Chess, a game of mimicry that will represent war and originated from India.
Monopolies and Mergers
The second part of the series is a further development upon the first part, which was used to explore the idea of the purpose that games had in the past. In this episode Woolley aims to explore the further meaning that games can hold, however instead of looking into the historical importance he delves into the social and political importance of games and how they eventually became the popular games they are today
This episode explores different game such as:
War on Terror, a game which promotes the satire of war and has players control their own country or region to fight against terror.
Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit is a monopoly-esque game that was released prior to monopoly, focusing on a form of tax system instead of rent. The game was played in a similar fashion to Monopoly.
Monopoly is one of the most popular family board games in the world. Each different version of monopoly follow the same mechanics and layout, making them all synchronous and playable by the nation.
Cluedo is another example of a successful and popular board game, it manages to successfully combine things such as skill and luck in order to create and enjoyable experience.
Scrabble is a board game not dissimilar to the above, it is very easy to pick up and is a combination of luck and skill. However, in relation to Cluedo and Monopoly it was not developed in Britain and was instead created in America.
Kensingtion is a game that was created back in 1979 that involves placing tiles in order to create shapes and then move them across to either a white hexagon and have all vertices of the hexagon taken by your own pieces.
Dungeons and Dragons, or alternatively D&D for short. This game is often acclaimed as the original RPG game and is an evolution of the typical wargames that had been around for so long. This game offered the player a tangible character, or 'Avatar' to control in the world and manipulate as they saw fit.
The evolution of board games is obvious, especially when exploring RPG games, because they are evolving to have more immersion in the form of Avatars and game worlds.
Joystick Generation
This episode further develops upon the evolution of gaming that was established in the previous episode and explores the transition from board to video games.
They explore a large number of different games within this episode, games that range from simple ZX spectrum and BBC Micro games in the 70's and 80's, to the more modern PlayStation and Xbox games.
Games such as Tomb Raider, Elite, Black and White, Grand Theft Auto, Little Big Planet and more. Each of these games pushed the game industry in different methods.
Elite explored the idea of 3D in games, offering some of the first 3D environments ever shown for video games.
Tomb Raider was a game that introduced the idea of 'girl power' and set the stage for the popular woman protagonist or 'last woman standing' narrative that is often found in games and film.
Black and White and Grand Theft Auto are both games that showed a dark side to morality, offering you choices of what you would like to be, making you question your own morality. There is a large issue with the idea that GTA is a game which can encourage people to commit crime outside of the game world as well, which offers material for an argument into video games and violence which is for a different blog post.
Through watching all three of the Games Britannia I have been able to observe and learn more in regards to the history and evolution of board games and computer games.
