Games Britannia: part 3 of 3

Diving deeper into the games Britannia series, here we learn about the Joystick generation, the birth of the commercialisation of video games we know today. Benjamin woolley starts us off by talking about his childhood ant how he loved Tolkiens: Lord of the Rings book, the fact that he loved the idea of adventure and the map in the back of the book. This thirst for adventure brings him to playing a game called Dungeons and dragons, where he first experiences a taste for this adventure. He suggests that these games are appealing as "they open up a story" "add an interactive dimension which allows you to explore a fictional terrain."

The first computer game Woolley encounters is a game called Elite, it was a pioneering videos games. its opened up the way video games were made. The programme then explores Black and White, a game based on compulus, where you play as a god role and use a hand to control the world, however this may be the case, you may be the god and control everything, but the little people are actually the controllers as they all need homes, something to eat, somewhere to live, they need your help with most things, so really the people roaming the game are in charge.

Lara croft was one of the most revolutionary games of the time, it was one of the first games to put a personality and a face onto a game character. This games makes the player feel responsible, similar to a god game, it makes you feel and care for the character you are playing.

The typical Grand Theft Auto is also reviewed by the programme, suggesting its moral destroying behaviours. Woolley suggests that this game blurs the morals of us as human beings. This game relishes its role as a rebel, it draws from many other famous games and their niche features.

The development of Multi-User Dungeon paved the way to social gaming, many games are mostly multiplayer. All gamers enjoy playing games, but enjoy playing games with other people even more. The multiplayer games market is the equivalent of the the way board game brought players together. Socialising and playing together is the most effective form of gaming.

Games Britannia Part 2 of 3: Monopolies and Mergers

Following on from the previous episode, here Benjamin Woolley shows us the influences of board games over the last 200 years on British society and how they have developed into game that can become a moral teaching for many people.

One of the games that stood out for me in the programme was a game titled The landlords game, it was a board game invented and patented by Elizabeth Magie in 1904. The game was supposedly designed to explain to people how the 'land grabbing' and renting system worked. It was also used to provoke children to gain an awareness over unfairness, hopefully taking this new awareness into adulthood. This game was first published in Great Britain in 1913 with the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit, this game later was the major influence that then created the most popular board game in history - Monopoly. The similarities can easily be seen, but the versatility of this game was that each place on the board can be changed by naming them differently, a feature that has made the current monopoly so successful. Depending on the place of sale, the board can have specific place names that are popular to the place of sale.

After this point, family board games were being produced to bring families through the Great depression, Cluedo and scrabble became a popular family game during this time, these them started to form the biggest game companies at the time, some even are around now, producing the same games.

But since then not much has changed in the content of board game, but they are just not as poular as they used to be. New board games such as War on Terror by Trrorbull games have similarities to Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit as they both contain content in which relates to the current world, it was designed to give people the chance to see why countrys do what they do to acquire countries and land, and how much cheaper it is to fund terrorism. This is mainly just a play on satire, but the game company are finding it hard to find suppliers that will stock such a sensitive game.

The final part of this series, Woolley will be looking at the 'Joystick generation' and viewing how videogames have affected us as Britains.

Games Britannia, part 1 of 4 "Dicing with Destiny"

On our most recent critical games studies lecture we were shown part one of a four part series called Games Britannia; a series in which historian Benjamin Woolley shows us the origins of our countries earliest games. At first the show takes us to a quarry in Essex where they had found one of the earliest board games if not the earliest that still remained intact. There were also 13 black and 13 white small pebbles on the board, two of these were in fact smaller and could of resembles a control piece in the game, similar to the king piece in a game of chess. It was nick named The Stanway Game as it was found in Stanway in Essex. Some of the game bits had already played on the board and from this Benjamin Woolley found a game historian from the British Museum and asked him if he could piece together the rules of the game.

Stepping even further back into history, Woolley learns of a game found in many religious cults and beliefs. A game known as Alea Evangelii was supposedly a game that was used as an educational tool to educate followers on the process of life. This game was believed to of been played at 400AD. At first many religions frowned upon playing games, but as the documentary progressed Woolley found that there was a game that was played during church ceremonies. This game was called Nine Men’s Morris and was played quite noticeably in the religious building in the past. It is a game similar to Tic-Tac-Toe where when a player lines up 3 of his stones, then you were allowed to remove one of the opponent’s stones until there is none left. This game is played on a set of 3 squares and so was easily scratched into stone, floors and even ceremonial grave stones. The religions didn't mind this for some reason as nowadays, games are considered bad by religions unless the game actually teaches the players morals and understandings. Particularly if games contain dice/dies, many religions saw the dice as a devils game as you are pretty much relying on chance and luck, which is exactly the opposite of what religions wanted in their games. Saying that though leads me onto why we as human being invented games.

Animals in the animal kingdom play around with object as do we, but on the human being has the ability to craft the simple act of play into a game which contains rules and structure to challenges ourselves. And why do we do this? Because we get bored! Humans get bored and so turn simple play into games in which we can compete with each other at. Many of the first instances of games began in the East in Asia/India and were brought over and manipulated to our requirements in Britain. Let’s take for example good ol' Snakes and Ladders. It first began as a religious game to teach the Hindu religious families about life and how you will be rewarded at the end for all your hard work. This game consisted of ladders and snakes of temptation however it also did include a different feature that wasn’t adapted for the English version. On several squares there is a moral in which the player may have to wait a turn due to temptation, thus teaching families about the right way of life (in the religious point of view.)

This is all the detailed notes I wrote about part one of the Games Britannia series and so I come to the conclusion that if you are a fan of history or board games or both, then you should try and get this video someplace as I found it extremely interesting.




"Dicing with Destiny" Games Britannia 2009 [TV] BBC4, December.