The board game is based on the battle battle which took place during the World War two. In September of 1941, the German High Command decided to launch a final, decisive offensive to crown their invasion of Russia, capture Moscow, and break the Red Army once and for all. Code named Operation Typhoon, German tanks and infantry pressed relentlessly forward until they could see the very spires of the Kremlin.

Players place their pieces on the indicated hexes of the game board. Each unit in Battle for Moscow is double sided. Both sides of the unit counter have numbers printed on them, representing the unit’s movement allocation and strength of the unit. One side shows the unit’s full strength capability, while the other displays the unit’s half-strength capability.  During gameplay, a unit can be damaged, but not completely destroyed; and likewise, reinforcements can be brought in to bring a half-strength unit back to full strength.

The setup for the Russians is easy. Russian hold Moscow at the start of the game. The Russian units are placed in the indicated hexes, with the half-strength side facing up. All of the Russian units have the same statistics, so it doesn’t matter where they are placed. The German setup is little tricky. Panzer movements can be ranged movement by unit type and nearby terrain. It can be affected by transportation types. Can mix movement and combat phases.

We can add a few tweaks to make the game more interesting. Each side gets 2 point per enemy unit destroyed, even if they are replaced later. The Germans get 10 points if they can occupy Moscow at the end of any Soviet player turn. We can add the situation of frostbite. If a player unit is on a tile for more than 2 turns there are chances they get frost bite, we can use dice to decide the outcome.

Whoever holds Moscow at the end of the game wins.

Stats:

Zarurgar: Friendly but always hungry and thirsty. Will not harm. In-case of a fight then hit dice 1d8. No armour. Attack: Slam +3(1d4)

Monster: Hit dice: 1d8+1. Armour class: AC15, Attack: fists +4(1d2-1)

Night-eaters: Hit dice: 3d8+6, major weakness: sunlight, Armour Class: AC16, Attack: Bite +5(1d8+1)

Xercusia: Hp: 50, Hit dice: 5d10+10. Attack: Zena venom +9(1d6+6), Armour: AC20.

Aim: Slay the monster to retrieve the treasure.

1^st room: Entrance to room one is hidden as a spell has been cast by a mage. Guarded by two monsters. To find the entrance, player chants a combination of sentences found at 4 places on the walls (has to combine it). After chanting the prayer loudly one monster comes out from the hidden entrance. That’s how we get to know the entrance. Player slaughters the first monster (if dice roll>7) (else take damage of 2 hit points), and gains access to room one.  (If dice roll > 8). Killed second monster (else take damage of 2 hit points). Two broken pieces of key are found in their souls. Need to combine these two keys using the tool in room one, to access the room two. To use the key combining tool, player has to fuel it by collecting the blood of the first monster killed into the vessel placed nearby and pour it onto the tool. Find vessel (if dice roll> 3), else keep finding.

2^nd room: Once the key is forged with monster blood, player opens the door to the second room. Room 2 is a puzzle room or a magic room. Suddenly a wild Zarurgar appears. It has a weapon but does not seem dangerous. We can make out it is hungry as it is salivating. And the zarurgar is blocking entry to the rest of the complex. We go back to room one and bring some monster meat for the zarurgar. The zarurgar and we become friends, it allows us to roam around room. After passing the Zarurgar suddenly the tiles turn into a dusty chessboard tile covered with snakes with the snake leader in the middle. The only way to get past that is positioning a mirror in such a way that the leader thinks there is another opponent snake leader and runs away. Mirror pieces can be found with the friendly Zarurgar. But now the Zarurgar is thirsty. (Player can decide to kill the Zarurgar, only if the player rolls dice>12, else Zarurgar gets angry and runs away: Or the player can peacefully interact with it) So, in the same vessel we used to bring monster blood for forging the keys, we bring monster blood for the zarurgar. Zarurgar drinks it, becomes more friendly and gives us the mirror pieces. But the mirror pieces can be forged together only with a midnight hare’s saliva. So, we wait till midnight, to capture the hare and extract its saliva. As monster blood dries out after 2 hours, the vessel is clean. So, we hunt the midnight hare, (if dice roll>13)catch it with our bare hands (else if dice roll<13) kill it, and take out its saliva into the vessel. Now we forged the mirror. Once we go back into the room 2, we see the snakes have got restless and have spread all over the room. So, we place the mirror at the entrance of the room leaving a slight gap for us to go. The snake leader sees his own reflection and gets scared and orders his army to retreat. And where the snake leader was, we see a shiny object. It turns out to be a key. On the key is inscribed “domatio kolpo” (in Greek it means the room of trickery), but we didn’t know that yet.

3^rd room: (If dice roll>8) we enter the third room (else player gets scared and runs away). On entering we see everything is perfect. Gold and silver benches. Ample amount of food, fruits, sweets. Many beautiful women singing, dancing. Few come towards us, smile and wave to us. One of them gives us water and apples to eat. We are hesitant at first, but they were mages, who casted spells once we looked into their eyes. So, we get lured in and enter room three. (If dice roll>6 else the women get irritated and throw the player out).We take a bite of the apple as we were already tired and under a spell. Slowly everything becomes blur, and we can see or smell anything for a few minutes. We fall unconscious. Later we sense something biting out feet. We open our eyes and gain some visibility. The whole room has changed, and we can see what it is originally. It is a rotten place, with skeletons, flesh lying around. And the beautiful women are actually night-eaters (deadlier version of a zombie). And it is known that even a single bight from a night-eater will definitely cause a slow and painful death. We are infected badly now. But we still have little luck in our favour, as the sun is rising the ground-eaters main weakness. So, they all start scrambling and running away. As we don’t know the actual antidote/cure for our poison/infection. We some how manage to grab a night-eater. As they are weak in sunlight, it does not fight us. We tell it that we will let it go only if it gives us the cure. At first it refuses, but as the sun becomes stronger, it becomes weaker and on the verge of dying.

 In the last moment of its and our death it gives us the cure which is: A grey hair from the back of the zarurgar mixed with its tear, captured on a glass plate, to be swallowed when the sun is the strongest. If dice roll>12, We crawl our way back to room two. If dice roll<12 we faint. Where we are met with our friend zarurgar. It gets worried seeing us like this and offers us help. We say we need a grey hair from its back and a tear. But it refuses to give us the grey hair, as Zarurgars in their lifetime only get one grey hair on their back and it is a matter of pride to have one. We request it more and more, but it declines. We have no other option but beat up the Zarurgar with whatever energy left, pluck the grey hair from its back. But now we need a glass plate, so we go near the entry and break a piece from which we had placed. But now slowly one by one snakes start coming. So, we have to be quick. As the poor Zarurgar is in pain, it is crying. We collect it’s tear on the glass plate, thank it and apologise to it. And make our way to room three before the snakes come in. Reaching room three, we place the hair on the tear on the glass. Now we wait for the sun to become the strongest. This we can make out by placing the rotten flesh on the sun rays and see when it starts burning. Once the sun is the strongest, we consume the mixture. Suddenly our bite wounds start burning like acid, we are in terrible pain. We are bleeding from the nose and the mouth. As the sun settle down, we are in lesser pain and notice the wounds are healing. We start to feel much healthier and advance to the fourth room.

4th Room: We see the doors to the fourth room are already open. We advance towards the room. Suddenly we are in pain as it feels some one is carving on our wrist with a blade. We see our wrist with “xérei óti eíste edó” (in Greek it means “It knows you are here”) written in our blood. We still advance. We see a fairy with her back turned towards us. Once we enter, the door closes automatically. The fairy turns around and reveals herself to be a Xercusia (combination of a witch, a night-eater and having snakes for hairs). (Her hit dice is very high). (If dice roll>7) We attack her, (else) we run away. (If Xercusia hit dice >12) then she strangles us with her hair snake, (else we dodge her attack), if we get attacked our hit points get reduced by 4. We try to attack again (dice roll >16) we successfully attack her inflicting 20 hit points, else she dodges and casts a spell on us reducing our hit points. (Dice roll>16) We break free from the spell, else she gets very angry and attacks us inflicting more damage as we are still under the spell we die. After breaking free (if dice roll>14) we run into room two, else we stay there to fight. If we run to room two, she follows us. (if dice roll >17) we use glass for our defence, when she casts a spell it reflects from the mirror and lands on her giving her hit points of 30 killing her instantly, else we use glass to fight her. If we don’t run to room two and stay and fight. We attack her again with our weapon (if dice roll>17) we kill her, else she freezes us for eternity. After killing her in the two possible scenarios, at the place of her dead body we find the treasure.

Today’s, blog is based on the improved version of Sokoban called Sokoban unleashed. Sokoban is basically a Japanese puzzle game, in which we are in a warehouse and we have to push around boxes/crates upon the desired location.

In Sokoban Unleashed we made certain changes to make the game more interesting. In the newer version, each box will have a box which moves simultaneously with the movement of the original (twin boxes). The twin boxes can be colored same to denote that they are twins. E.g. if we move a purple box, its corresponding twin will also move in the same direction. Boxes can even be numbered the same to denote twins.

The player has to strategically move the crates, in such a way that the twin does not block its future path, otherwise the player will have to just go back again, which will increase the number of moves. Player with the least amount of moves taken to reach the goal wins.

In the below map, the crates are represented with coins. Each coin has a twin. So the player has to carefully think that in the least amount of moves/crate movements how to reach the goal. The red unit is the player. And the coins are the crates. This is just level 1 so it may look easy. But as the levels increase the complexity will increase. This improved version will be fun and mentally challenging for many age groups.

For those of you don’t know what dungeons and dragons is, it is a role playing game, which preferably more than two players can play. This game uses a standard seven dice set. The best part about this game is that the maps can be made as per the players wish. People can make maps, situations, events, according to them.

Players can choose their, race (Human rogue, Elves, Dwarfs and halflings), class ( fighter, rogue, mage, cleric). Each race and class has a unique ability and strength. Armour can be selected based on the class. Starting money or ‘gold pieces’ is different for different classes. Players can purchase armor, weapons in according to their budget. Also players can select from three packs: Pack A, B and C. Each pack has different items which can be used. It is a bit confusing to a beginner. But as the game progresses it becomes easier to understand the game. During the game progress, it is really fun as we can make our own decisions which affects the future steps. The dungeon master can narrate the story to the players, and rolls dice in favour of the monsters and maybe players.

Overall its a very fun game to play if you have a good imagination. Players can use the best features of the game and design their own scenarios and situations and conditions. And depending upon the decisions taken by the players the game can either last for a long time or end immediately.

This is an improved version of the game “Risk”. Risk is a strategical game for two to six players. In which the players first have to secure their territories by placing their troops, turn by turn. The standard version is played on a board. In Risk, the board is divided into six continents having forty two territories. Players can form and dissolve alliances during the game. The players turn by turn have to attack the opponents, and the result is decided by rolling a dice or two(probability) and taking into account number of troops on the attacking territory and the defending territory.

In our improved version we have made certain changes to make it more interesting. We would start by having four kingdoms. Each player gets a kingdom to rule. Who is to start first is decided by a roll of dice, the highest roll starts first. Each player will be given 4 troops having 20 soldiers each. The soldiers are classified as weak and strong. In each troop there can be only 13 weak and 7 strong soldiers. To attack the opponent, the player can only do so by a specific entry point. A player has to attack with a minimum of 2 troops. Along the boundary of the kingdoms there will be a valley where players can sneakily send their soldiers. But through the valley player can send only one troop.

In the kingdoms there would be three cities: Food, Weaponry, Horses. The city in control of food is responsible for reinforcements. If the opponent destroys the ‘food city’, then reinforcements will be stop to the kingdom taking damage. If ‘weaponry’ is destroyed then weapons cannot be upgraded. Once the ‘horses city’ is destroyed, then that will affect the movement of the player. The city with food will give higher immunity to soldiers on its boundary than other blocks.

Once two kingdoms start battle, the outcome will be decided by a roll of dice and the values will be compared to the corresponding table made for odds (probabilistic odds). To destroy a whole kingdom the opponent must destroy and capture atleast two cities first. The damage a Kings castle can take is very high and the odds in favour of the castle are high.

The players can have fun by planning out different strategies and make alliances and maybe even betray their alliances for winning.

Actions– The primary actions of the user depend upon which input he chooses. Basically, the actions are jumping, hitting, ducking, moving forward, moving behind. User can walk around.

Gameplay– As the name suggests Budokan is a martial arts action game. In the start the player enters the courtyard. The player can practice four different forms of martial arts. He can either go to the Kendo dojo, in which he can practice fighting using a wooden sword. The second dojo is where the player can practice fighting using a Bo (staff). In the third dojo the players can practice using nunchaku (piercing chain weapons). In the last dojo the player can practice karate (unarmed combat). The player has to practice alone. Only once the player has finished practice, he can challenge the instructors in that particular dojo. Player get to choose between three instructors to challenge in each dojo. Player can fight friends or a bot. Once the player is ready, he can enter the martial arts championship at Budokan!

Experience– In the start before entering the courtyard, it says “Identify this family crest”, which to me personally seems that as if some family member has told crest(player) to make a name for his family, maybe even train and take some revenge for the family. Which to me seems like a huge responsibility. Crest has to with out fail train and become a martial arts champion. We enter the four dojos one by and practice solo to make our selves perfect for the championship, even if that means practicing till our stamina gets completely depleted. At times the instructors are kind, they won’t hit back if they notice we have paused to take a breather. There is great curiosity in the player, as to which fighting style, he wants to choose for himself or for his opponent. The pride in winning the competition is great, which means crest is finally a martial arts master and has made a name for his family which was his mission.

Senet is an ancient Egyptian game found by archaeologists dating back to 3500 BC. Not many rules were created for the games. It was hard for the archaeologists to decipher these rules. There were six main rules. Senet is a game containing thirty blocks, with seven pawns for each player’s out of the two. Yes it is only a two person game.

The pawns of the players are placed alternatively till all seven pawns are used. The player has to roll a die or stick and based on the outcome move his pawn. Block numbers 26,27,28,29 have special characteristics if you will. So if the player lands on the block 26, he has to stop there even if he has got a greater dice roll. If the pawn lands on block 27 then the pawn is sent back to block 15 called the “House of re-birth”. On landing upon block 28 and 29 the pawn can move only if a 3 is rolled for block 28 and a 2 for block 29.

New Rules: We have made slight tweaks to the original rules to make it a bit more interesting.

For deciding who is to play first, the highest dice roll is considered to be player one. While the game if a dice is rolled and 6 shows up then the player has to skip his chance. Upon landing on block 26 or the “Falcon”, the player can move the opponents pawn to any block he wills as long as the pawn to be moved is between block 21 and 25. Player can do this just once per pawn arrival. Upon reaching the last block (30), the player has to roll a 1 and not any number to get his pawn out.

Shown above is the board layout of the game Senet.