Tweaking Ancient Games

We were tasked to tweak/ iterate an ancient board game and in the process make more it’s suitable for modern days.

I decided to tweak the ancient game Duodecim Scripta and these are the iteration ideas I came up with.

Iteration One: Instead of each player having six game pieces of the same size, it would be a nice mix if each player could have six different sized game pieces and instead of having the ability to merge pieces together like you can in the non-modified ‘Duodecim Scripta’ you had six pieces all the time and used the pieces sizes to knock out opponents pieces, so for example of one player had the biggest game piece and landed on the other players smallest game piece that would get knocked out of the game board. Having different sized pieces would also require some tactics and a bit of a gambling as you would need to look closely at the board to see where your opponents pieces are placed and which ones to determine which and when your various sized pieces should be moved.

Iteration Two: Instead of having to roll from one to six to get the players pieces into the middle rows players should start with all the pieces already on the middle row then players must first roll a one to get the first piece out and onto the board and the same for the rest of the numbers going up from one to six. The catch is the players will probably roll the dice over and over again maxing the chance factor that’s already there even more.


Iteration Three: Taking some of the squares and transforming them into no go trap squares that send you back to the beginning or squares that give you an extra roll of the dice as well as a square that sends your opponent backwards and a square that sends your opponent forwards.

Iteration Four: Only being allowed one piece on the board at a time each and having to reach the end of the board before being able to enter a new game piece on to the board, this would slow down the game pace.

Iteration Five: A mix of iterations three and four with all the trap and bonus squares and the lone game piece on the board at a single time would create some pretty tense situations it would probably slow down the game a bit both players would be focused on their single game piece.

Iteration Six: Making Duodecim a two team game with two players on each team with slightly different coloured pieces than their teammate. There would be one black player and one white player going from top right to bottom right and the other black and white players would be fighting it out going from top left to bottom left, this would mean the teams would crisscross and could potentially knock each other off the game board.

Iteration Seven: Taking the game board and extending the rows from six squares to twelve squares and adding one twelve sided dice in or two six sided dices in as well as adding in my iteration five in with more trap and bonus squares that could make the game random as well as tactical. With twelve squares at the start each player could have twelve pieces or split into two teams of two with six game pieces each.