My thoughts on the game of Tafl.

So a little while back we played the board game known as Tafl. In it's core game play mechanics it is a lot like a small mixture of chess and checkers. It's an ancient strategy board game from Vikings, and went everywhere they travelled.

You play the game as so, the Black pieces have to stop the queen piece, or in  the version we played the Red piece from either reaching the edge of the board or the corners, depending on the version we choose. The White pieces are used to claim and clear paths for the queen/red piece to get to the edge or corner of the game board and win. you take pieces by having one of each colour aside the other, for example: Black moves next to a White piece, White then moves one of their pieces up next to the Black in a line and claims the Black piece in the middle.

I ended up playing both to edges and corners. The version of corners I found more interesting, only because I managed to break the game within a couple of moments. We played by the basic standard rules of just getting the queen/red piece to the corner would mean White would win. So I found that by moving every Black piece to each side of each corner, which can be done in 8 turns can "pocket" out the White player, as he is now unable to make those pieces move and can't take them out of the game. I was told after breaking the game and my oppentant quitting, that there is a version where the corners are represented by White, which in turn would ruin the evil lock down strategy I made.

Then I played to edges, which seems impossible for the Black player to win. I nearly lost most of my White pieces when me and my oppentant switched colours but managed to make my oppentant to forget about the queen/red piece and ended up winning by using a White piece as bait.

Overall a fun game, made more fun that I managed to make a lock down.

Bibliography Task

Mitchell.B.L, 2012, Game Design Essentials, John & Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sybex.



Tompkins.J.P, 1980, Reader-Response Criticism, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.

Question Time!

So my first task was do to with Introduction to Critical Games Studies, we were tasked with getting questioning a fellow Student and swapping the answer so we may blog about them, so that's why I'm here now! and here are those questions and answers I gave.

Question 1: What is the title of the last fictional book you last read or currently reading?

Personally I love reading comic and manga books, the latest of which is a series known as "Black God" a manga series published by Yen Press in 2009. a basic run down of the story without giving away spoilers (and I've only read the first volume, so currently I don't know all of the story at time of writing) is about Superhumans known as Tera Guardian's and Doppelgangers roaming the main streets of Tokyo. The first volumes doesn't explaining everything but the fight scenes are very well drawn out and I enjoyed reading it, most likely going to continue reading it.

Question 2: What is the title of the last Non-fictional book you last read or currently reading?

For this question, I remember staring blankly at my parent who asked this question for a little while trying to think what it actually was. The thing is, I don't remember the last time I read something non-fiction, it's just not my reading style I guess. Moving on.

Question 3: What is the last Live Performance you attended?

Once again, it's not my sort of thing. in fact I don't think I have actually seen any performance in Music, Drama or Dance live.

Question 4: What was the title of the last film you saw at cinema or watched on DVD?

I didn't remember the last film in the cinema I watched, which just proves how interesting I found it (insert humor here) but the last DVD I watched was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Which is rather a good squeal to the first one, for those who don't know about the series, it's originally a book series about 12 sections who compete in an entertainment known as the Hunger games, where one male and female from each section are the tributes. the 24 participants then compete against each other, in a bloodshed to be the last one remaining alive.  It's a pretty sick idea of a book/movie but it is told so very well (and I don't mind violence so it gets my approval). Looking forward to the third film in the series coming out later this year!

Question 5: How often do you read a newspaper?

Not very often, although I do tend to have a little flick through the Daily Mail, even then I won't read more then 10 minutes of it unless there happens to be an interesting article or two for me to read.

Question 6: Which art gallery/museum/exhibition did you last visit?

I don't think I've been to a Art Gallery, museum or exhibition. Moving on once more...

Question 7: How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

Now both me and my partner both agreed we couldn't give an exact amount of time spent playing video games, so we both agreed on that we both played about 20+ hours a week. Such hours have been spent on League of Legends, Destiny and Skull girls. I don't always play 20+ hours though, been when I do it's because I have free time.

Question 8: How many hours a week do you spend playing non digital games?

This was more of a 5+ hours gap, as I do playing board games like Dungeons and Dragons but only rarely do I get to play them. I play a lot of Card games such as Yu-Gi-Oh, Cardfight Vanguard and Weiss Schwarz, which all have different mechanics and rules behind them but are equally fun as each other.


And that's all folks, now you know a little more about some personal preferences about me, until next time.