Royal Game of Ur itterations

After playing several rounds of the game of Ur I found it didn’t involve much skill to play and was very heavy on the luck element side of things, this made it boring to play.  I thought certain mechanics of the game of Ur worked really well specifically I thought the rosette squares served a good purpose it allows you to pull ahead of your opponent catch up to them or if you’re “lucky” you might knock their counter off the board. However it is still just a race game requiring little if not no skill or strategy to win.

By adjusting the mechanics of a game it helps fine tune the games overall dynamics and by applying changes to the fundamental rules of play I might be able to keep players interested for longer periods of time and the game will be more fun (MDA).

The first change I made was the addition of trap squares located at both far sides of the middle row and when a player lands on a trap square, that piece cannot be moved for two turns. This rule works as a double edged sword, on the one hand it can offer a huge disadvantage if you land there on the other hand however it can be a huge advantage to the other player, allowing a chance to catch up, knock a piece of the board (at the price of getting your piece getting caught in the trap) or win it all. With the use of this positive/negative feedback loop, the game progresses faster and creates a more sporting chance if one player is doing well and the other is behind, this made the game more competitive. (LeBlanc;2006)

When playing through the game of Ur again with the newly added rule of the 2 trap areas the game became more competitive, making the games we played have closer conclusions to decide the victor. This made the game more fun to play, but there are still no skill mechanics to test the player’s ability to play strategically. To change this fatal flaw so for my second iteration I made an adjustment to the moving rule by allowing the player to move more than one piece by dividing the amount of spaces you can move by how many pieces you move (E.g a player rolls a four he can either move one piece four spaces or move two pieces two spaces). This allows the player more control over their pieces and can determine what the most beneficial or safest move is for them to make.

The final iteration was if the player landed on the rosette in the middle row that counter had to finish off on the opponents side of the board giving the small opportunity to catch an opponent’s counter before it finishes. This rule didn’t come in to play very often, but I can say the rule is sound it gives a player a glimmer of hope that they can still catch the opponent, and if their lucky they just might.