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The ancient game of Ur's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #8 | 4.246 | 4.333 |
| Accessibility | #16 | 3.021 | 3.083 |
| Overall | #19 | 3.313 | 3.381 |
| Fun | #19 | 3.348 | 3.417 |
| Controls | #20 | 3.184 | 3.250 |
| Audio | #21 | 3.021 | 3.083 |
| Graphics | #23 | 3.429 | 3.500 |
| Originality | #35 | 2.939 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
3.4.2
Wildcards Used
Mom, I'm on TV
Game Description
Play the ancient board game Ur against its developers.
How does your game tie into the theme?
It's the most ancient known board game.
Source
https://github.com/Dark-Energy-Studios/gwj42
Discord Username
evilc00kie#9323, Kjarrigan#5219, 13darkice37#1085, Tchibo#4092
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
Depending on the member between 2 and 4.
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Comments
This felt like it was straight out of Table Top Simulator! Very impressive models and pieces for the game! The game itself is very enjoyable to play, and pretty self-explanatory. It shares a lot of elements with a traditional Korean board game (Yut Nori). It's interesting how similar board game mechanics arise independently around the world (or perhaps Yut Nori was inspired by Ur).
I only played one round, but I'm curious if you implemented different AI strategies for the different opponents. The only minor nitpick I had was that there was a slight lag time between when you rolled and when you could move the pieces. Overall, great job!
Glad that you liked it. As a passionate TableTop player myself it was quite nice experience trying to implement existing-turn-based game-rules and it was actually much more work than I expected.
Regarding you AI-question. Yes indeed all four AIs have a different tactic. Below each AI a short phrase/keyword gives you a hint on what it’s “trait” is.
And yes the roll-delay bugged us as well but wasn’t fixable properly in the remaining time.
Very nice done, I enjoyed playing this game! I didn't know it before.
The only buggy thing was that I quite often had to wait until the stone I was hovering was selected, or I had to hover it again...
And yes the delay of the dice roll is a bit annoying in the long run. We have some ideas on how to fix this if we do another board-gamy game in the future.
Sorry I couldn't get the game to run at all on Mac. Safari and Firefox both crash after you select a challenge.
I suspect this is an issue with GLES 3 and HTML5 on Mac as I've seen it in a few games now
Sorry as well, that it didn’t work for you. But you are probably right. It was exported with GLES3 and none of us tested it with a MAC before pushing the submit button.
We've actually got a physical version of this game, great to see it implemented in a gamejam!
I found some of the controls difficult, my eyes are draw to the "dice" on the left, but the button to roll is all the way on the right (yes I know I can rotate the camera, but I prefer to watch from my side.) On top of that, sometimes the roll too a while to complete -- as in I couldn't click my piece but the dice looked like they were finished.
Graphics and audio are good, and you've definitely nailed the theme. Nice work.
Wait, you can?
damn.
@Drejzer - yes you can move the camera. There is a message in the initial help screen on the bottom right:
Glad that you enyoied it and thanks for the feedback regarding the UI. Having the Roll Button on the right side felt “intuitive” for me because I’m a right used to roll dice with my right hand and my mouse is on the right side of they keyboard so it felt strang to click left. And actually the dice used to be right in front of you and were just moved in the very last minute to the left because there was some spare space and you could actually see them better. Didn’t occur to me that moving the Roll button as well would be a smart choice, but you are correct. The distance between I where I have to click and where this triggers something is pretty long. Maybe we could make the dice clickable directly (as with the chips).
And yes the delay is a bit too long. But we have ideas how to make it better in future games.
Really good idea, and the execution is great - I love how the game feels like a physical version, with the clickety-clack of the dice and the beads moving in the board. Fantastic job!
I have but one complaint - the pause between the dice hitting the table and the game letting me choose my move is way too long. It slows down the game quite a bit, and takes away from the dynamism of it all.
I'm going to hazard a guess that it's because there's a timer so that the dice are completely still before ending calculations, since the dice roll goes by physics. In which case, perhaps choosing the result ahead of time and cheating the physics would've been easier. Regardless, it's the one thing I'd love to see fixed if you revisit it post-jam!
Thanks for your encouraging feedback.
You’re guess is pretty much correct. We never did any 3D games before so it was a bit of a struggle to get the dice actually physically rolling (and being random). Cheating the Physics sounds like a pretty cool idea and we’ll definitely try it when we do another dice-base board-game.
Great idea! I remember watching a youtube video about this game a few years ago, but this was the first time I ever played it. I felt the AI was a bit too passive - it had many opportunities to capture me but usually chose to develop its pieces instead.
Thanks. Not sure if we watched the same video but my recommendation list popped up this “Tom Scott vs Irving Finkel” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I (it’s really enjoyable to watch) which definitely influenced our choice to implement this ancient game (instead of others)
Regarding the AI - they all have a specific trait they stick to (rushing a single chip forward, bringing as much chips on the field as possible, etc) so they are pretty “dumb” in that regard but developing a proper challenging AI was planned but unfortunately wasn’t ready in time.
But AI is a thing we want to tinker with in the future. We’ve participated in BattleSnake a couple of times and we’re thinking about making something similar for Ur as well (so AI vs AI on the Ur ruleset) because it actually felt like a game were developing a good AI would be fun.
Hard to tell if I'm imagining things but it seemed like each of the "devs" played a bit differently when challenged. Nice job with the AI, it was frustratingly competent. 4500 year old game still holds up.
Yes - each Dev/AI has a different trait that they stick too (and the phrase/words below each Avatar actually gives you a hint what it is).
Glad that you enjoyed it.