Games Britannia is a Documentary Presented by Benjamin Woolley. Woolley explores popular games in Britain from the Iron Age to present day, while exploring cultural and the social history behind different games that are played. Firstly Woolley describes an archaeological dig in which a grave is found with Alea Evangelii (‘Game of the Evangelists’) a member of the Tafl family of games. Tafl games are Germanic and Celtic board games played on checkered or latticed boards. Woolley then talks about Dr. Irving Finkel former curator of the British Museum who explained the possible rules of the game (still not the proper rules as they are not known). The board itself consists of 19x19 squares (shown below), in which one player will have more pieces than the other.
· Black player takes the first turn
· Players move one piece on a turn
· If players cannot move a piece they lose a go
Movement
· Pieces move orthogonally any number of intersections
· No piece can move onto or through occupied intersection
· The King is the only piece that can move onto or through the Castle
· The King is the only piece that can move onto or through Citadels
Capturing a basic piece
· A piece can only be captured on the enemy’s turn by the enemy piece moved on that turn
· A piece is captured by an enemy piece when it becomes surrounded on two opposite sides by adjacent enemy pieces
· The King cannot be one of the pieces used in the capturing of an enemy piece
Capturing the King happens
· If the King becomes surrounded on all four side by enemy pieces
· If the King becomes surrounded on three sides by enemy pieces when positioned on the edge of the board game
End of the game
· The Black player wins the game if the King is captured
· The White player wins the game if the King sails to a corner
Woolley afterwards goes into investigating other board games which are now our modern games, such as Snakes and Ladders, chess etc. I did enjoy watching this and learning something different that I didn’t know.
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