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A 1,600-Year-Old Viking War Game
- mlangdon 13y agoSomebody who's good at this sort of thing want to make a webgame out of this? It looks pretty amazing.
- diziet 13y agoA couple of java based webgames based on this already exist: http://aagenielsen.dk/hnefatafl_online.php http://aagenielsen.dk/hnefatafl_online.php A couple of apps too: https://sensortower.com/ios/us/risi-apps/app/kings-table/548978736 https://sensortower.com/ios/us/risi-apps/app/kings-table/548... (iOS) https://sensortower.com/ios/us/machinecodex-software/app/tafl/378068778 https://sensortower.com/ios/us/machinecodex-software/app/taf... (iOS) https://sensortower.com/android/us/bill-holohan/app/hnefatafl/net.holohan.Hnefatafl https://sensortower.com/android/us/bill-holohan/app/hnefataf... (Android - 2 player)
- justinzollars 13y agoJust bought one. :) This dude is going to cash in tonight
- justinzollars 13y agoOkay Kings Table is pretty bad. no AI.
- erikb 13y agoAll android versions I found were different rules and/or bad.
- eschulte 13y agohttp://eschulte.github.io/el-go/weboard.html?game=tafl http://eschulte.github.io/el-go/weboard.html?game=tafl Uses webrtc, implemented mainly as a learning exercise for webrtc.
- erikb 13y agothis is buggy on my computer. only white moves and white moves everywhere, killing stones like in chess, no matter which color.
- eworoshow 13y agoMy version: http://www.gamegardens.com/gardens/view_game.wm?gameid=68 http://www.gamegardens.com/gardens/view_game.wm?gameid=68 And the source: http://hg.ericw.ca/high-king http://hg.ericw.ca/high-king Building this game (back in 2007!) landed me my first job in the US and set me on the path to developing my first commercial games.
- erikb 13y agonice but sadly no AI and no other players :(
- quantumpotato_ 13y agohttp://boardspace.net/english/about_tablut.html http://boardspace.net/english/about_tablut.html
- btilly 13y agoThe article is interesting in everything except using the word "Viking" inappropriately. As someone who once was fascinated by the topic, I found that bit frustrating. In 400 AD, germanic people were known by names like "Goths". The viking period started several hundred years later. The relationship of Germanic people with England was that three groups of them, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, were settling there. A few hundred years later those people united in response to the Viking threat, then were conquered by the French duke of Normandy (which, interestingly, had nobility of Viking descent) and country became known as England and the people there became known as anglosaxon. Just to give a sense of the timeline, stories of a legendary Celtic folk hero that was part of resisting the Germanic invasion later got carried to France in medieval times, mutated beyond belief, then reentered English as King Arthur.
- peter_l_downs 13y agoHa, this is quite a coincidence — I was just reading up on the Mabinogion [0] (I think that's what you meant?) Really pretty interesting stuff! My younger brother used to be really into King Arthur so I grabbed him a translation for Christmas, he says it's pretty interesting to read through and realize what parts were "stolen". [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion
- btilly 13y agoThat is connected, but in a different direction than any I particularly looked into.
- dkuntz2 13y agoThey got the time wrong on the vikings, but isn't Hnefatafl the Norse version of the game?
- Svip 13y agoReplacing the word 'Viking' with 'Norse' would make the page much more appropriate (and accurate).
- salgernon 13y agoThis is pretty obviously where terry pratchett got his idea for, and subsequent implementation for his (ostensibly fictional) game "thud" or "Hnaflbaflwhiflsnifltafl" in pratchett's dwarvish. Looks like it's wikia page needs an update. http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/Thud_(game)
- keammo1 13y agoThank you for posting this. My aunt bought a variation of this game for me (under the name "King's Table") when I was about 10 and it was one of my favorites. One summer when a few of my friends and me spent the summer at our college campus, we had a tradition of playing this game over breakfast. I haven't played in many years, but I highly recommend trying it out if you have the chance. Though I am not very well versed in old/ancient board games, but I found this one somewhat unique since you needed a different way of thinking depending on which side you were playing as.
- tempestn 13y agoTafl games are indeed cool. This is just one variant of many, and we actually don't even know what exactly the original rules were. Best guesses are constructed largely from off-hand references made in unrelated literary works. Lots of good info in the wikipedia page (as always): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games
- gliese1337 13y agoIndeed. I have played a good number of them (although there aren't enough people around to play with to get really good at more than one or two), and all the variations require slightly different strategy. Changing the board size by one unit, or the number or arrangement of starting pieces, can totally shift the balance of the game, explaining the complementary changes to things like who moves first, whether the king can participate in captures, and whether the corners or the whole sides are winning spaces. A serious omission from the article (although I suppose understandable, given how the article is focused) is how the inherent asymmetry is accounted for; usually, games are played either in two rounds, switching sides (so you have to learn to be good at both halves to win the full game), or by first betting on how many moves you think it will take you to win- lowest bet plays white and loses if they run out of moves. I object to the casual description of Hnefatafl being similar to chess- it's a two-player strategy game played on a board, but it's no more similar to chess than checkers is. Chess players (while they might have an advantage in strategic thinking over the average person) in my experience have usually found that their chess skills don't transfer at all.
- darklrd 13y agoAt first glance, it seems very similar to chess.
- gahahaha 13y agoHas anybody found a decent single player web version?
- kriro 13y agoI do like the idea of games/culture research. I've always wondered if the somewhat notorious board game tradition in Germany was related to the post WW2 mindset. Especially the Prussian military tradition with a strong focus on strategy and tactics being faded out by a general anti war sentiment and maybe channelled into other areas. Maybe there's some transfer to business strategy as well but I always thought the relations were a little far fetched (Clausewitz or Art of War for business strategy etc.). Random remark: It's often mathematically correct to go for it on 4th and 10.
- eru 13y agoModern German games are not heads-on competitive. Definitely not war games. (On board game geek, I heard the term `parasitic conflict'. Ie you are trying to benefit from other people's actions and make yours as unbeneficial as possible, but you can attack them directly.) Boardgaming does seem to help with basic arithmetic, and understanding and playing within a set of rules seems to be the essence of programming. (Especially once you realize that if you want to play to win, only the letter of the rules count, not the spirit. There's no meaning.)
- fit2rule 13y agoThere has recently been a version of this game made for the Oric-1/Atmos computer (an ancient 80's 8-bit machine which has a devoted community these days). You can read about it here: http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=684&start=240 http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=684&star... If you want to play it, get yourself the emulator - Oriculator: https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/ https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/ .. or load it up on your own real Oric. ;) Anyway, point is, its an interesting game indeed ..
- gweinberg 13y agoA version of the game came with the NeXT pizza box.
- parennoob 13y agoBit offtopic, but I liked this game a lot, and am looking for a decently priced (< $50 with shipping) board game version of this. Anyone have any leads? All I can see right now are sets imported from English gift shops, or handmade versions, both of which exceed the $50 price point.
- jgamman 13y agomake your own from bits of paper? coins? 3D printing a bunch of stylised chess pieces? honestly, they're just symbols with a rule set...
- JeffL 13y agoSemi off topic, but that blog that this article is from is fantastic.
- m0g 13y agoI tried it for a few games with friends and I'm not sure at all that with the standard rules defenders can win. With many rule sets you can lock the board pretty easily and make it a draw or lose situation for defenders. I'm not aware of any demonstration of attackers winning every time or not but it's my strong suspicion.
- krleza 13y agoThis game looks really interesting. It reminds me a board game I invented when I was a child, based on the Star Wars 1th death stars attack. There was similarities, like the non-symmetric start positions : empire tie-fighters were divided in four groups and rebels x-wings and y-wings where grouped altogether in the center with Luke Skywalker as the king who had to go on a special square. But there was a lot of complications (different speeds for different type of star-fighters, automatic turrets which shoot only on the rebels, the attacks were based on a dice probability depending on the type of star-fighters, and a lot more...). The whole thing was so complicated that nobody wanted to play more than once with me... Simplest games are often the bests. But I don't care, I still believe my "Death Star Attack" was one of my best (yeah, I have invented tens of board games that nobody wanted to play with me :) )
- quantumpotato_ 13y agoPlay online: (vvs AI/2P) http://boardspace.net/english/about_tablut.html http://boardspace.net/english/about_tablut.html
- mathattack 13y agoThanks! I was wondering where I could play around with this game. Does anyone have an idea if there's a mathematical solution to this game? Is there an inherent advantage that one or the other should win?
- quantumpotato_ 13y agoI'm sure there is, even Chess has White winning by ~.5%. Tablut is a variant which: 'The interface lets you rearrange the fleets from the standard position before the play starts. You can also change four optional rules. First gold, then silver can rearrange, add or remove ships, and alter the rule options. Then, gold can either make his first move, or elect to swap and play silver. This option assures that the forces will be evenly balanced.'
- jnazario 13y agothanks for this, i found a couple of versions of this on iOS. won my first two games against a simple AI! love learning about new games like this. great find.
- ilaksh 13y agoWarfare is a disgusting, embarrassing and outdated aspect of our culture.
- ender89 13y agoWe call that "Thud" where I come from.
- viewer5 13y agoThe game pieces in the picture are stone, right? Any idea what material/technique is used to make the dark lines on the pieces? (And how I could learn to make pieces like this?)