Hnefatafl: Design Document

For the second assignment, we are to create a design document about the iteration of the ancient game of our choice. My game of choice is Hnefatafl. The direction of my iteration was led by further reading the history of the game. Where in one nordic excavation site, there was found, two fossils of young (what appeared to be of 9 year olds) male persons wielding a sword in the hand, along with the board game of Hnefatafl. This was the baseline for the assumption that ancient Nordic youth was forced to go to war with the adults and that the game was part of the life that revolves around war and violent. The way I see that game from the historical fact is that to merge the game and the history. The game revolves around the theme of escaping capturers, and I so I thought it would be justified to say that the youth did not want to go to war (they may be forced into it). To iterate the game aesthetically, I changed the theme of the board game to escape the death, which gave me the skulls and tombstone pieces. And so the look of the board has changed to this: 

"The theme of the game is to escape death. This is presented using the gameplay mechanic of Tafl board game, where the king tries to escape attacking soldiers. In this game, you play either as the skulls (initially king’s army) or the tombstones (capturers)."

The new gameplay and ruleset is listed below:

- The game is played on a 11 x 11 board.

- 8 skull pieces in the center surrounding 1 jeweled skull, and 6 tombstone pieces in each of the 4 surrounding edges.

- Players take turns, moving one piece at a time.

- Players take control of each side 3 rounds, then swap sides for the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th round.  

- The movement of all pieces is the adjacent blocks of any range.

- Pieces cannot move diagonally.

- Pieces cannot move through another piece.

- No pieces other than the jeweled skull is allowed to settle on the marked center square.

- If a piece is sandwiched by the opposing pieces, the sandwiched piece is out of the game.

- No tombstone pieces are allowed in the three marked squares in each corner.

Winning Conditions:

- The game is won by winning at least 4 rounds.

- If both players won 3 rounds each, then the game is a draw.

- To win a round, all four corners have to be filled with skulls with the jeweled skull in one of the corners. (3 skulls and 1 jeweled skull).  

- Alternatively, eliminating all opposing pieces will grant the player a victory for the round.

- When a corner is occupied by a skull, the block will become void (the skull stays on top of it, however it is not available for any other skulls).

- If the jeweled skull is sandwiched by the center square and one tombstone, the skull player loses the game.

- If there are less than four skulls (includes the jeweled skull) surviving, it is automatically a loss for the skull player.

- If there are less than 2 tombstones, the skull player will automatically win.