Notes/ Review of Games Britannia pt 1

Games Britannia pt 1

In today's lesson we watched part 1 of 3 of a documentary called Games Britannia. Our task once we had finished watching it was to upload our notes to our blog, I thought as I have already uploaded a lot of notes already I would compile my notes into a short review of the first part of the show and tell you what I learnt from it.

Firstly we saw a finding in an archaeological dig that was of what appeared to be  the first game, of which was further shown to be a game but also a device in which the players and creatures believe could predict the future. This was then proven wrong obviously as it is just a game but was a very complex and difficult game at first glance as there was two teams on a squared board set out much like chess only with different coloured stones and only using one line across each side of the board. As well as this one side had an extra stone in the middle. As the documentary developed we found out how this game would have been played by a professor at Cambridge University and watched a game being played. At first glance it appeared to be a primitive version of a combination between chess a draughts.

After this the narrator and presenter then showed us more older games from all around the world and showed us how that they became worldly popular and their origin, for example most board games that we play now such as chess came from the middle east / Asia as well as many, many more such as snakes and ladders which originally started as a game of which the players would attempt to climb to heaven or the promised land from, what I could gather the Hindu religion. The game was then shown around the world and has been re made and simplified to the snakes and ladders game we all know today.

As I said earlier my notes weren't as long as my previous notes displayed on here so this isn't going to be a long blog entry but from what I can gather the notes that I have taken from my other readings such as Costikyan, Marc Le Blanc etc all explain the same as this documentary, which suggests to me that most if not all games need a degree of struggle and in this documentary it was shown that there was a lot of struggle include in these primitive games as well as endogenous meaning and so forth but the original games became too difficult and then became a tedious task to complete, i.e. the original version of snakes and ladders which exaggerates the fact that in order to make a good, effective and compelling game you need to have the right level of difficulty and attractiveness to your game when creating one to keep the players interested and occupied and having to fight to a reasonable degree, to an overall goal at the end, for example check mate in chess. Also speaking of chess when watching the documentary we was shown why chess was is called the immortal game by being shown a replay with the presenter and a professional chess champion of the first champions game of chess between Britain and France. 

I hope again this was a good entry and you have learnt from my rough notes and review about the basic history of games in Britain and I am looking forward to filling you in on the rest of the documentary.