Group work with Rob: Batteships

Today with Rob we looked into the game Battleships. A very simple game in which you place ships on a grid and try to destroy your opponents ships. After playing one game we were told to then change the game in a single way by adding or removing a rule.

Our first change was that once you hit an enemy ship you received an extra turn. So if you hit a five block long ship you could possibly have 6 turns in a row. This helped speed the game up but it was still hard finding the ships with the amount of open water.

Next we added more ships in to try and fill the water but we found the game progressed to fast and was too easy to win. So we enlarged the grid to make it more open. This way we found that the bigger ships fitted in better and the game went at a steady pace. This could of just been luck obviously as there is no way of telling where other ships are.

Some of the other rules added by other ships I thought were very good. The idea of a “torpedo” which can take out a whole column or row I though was a brilliant idea and makes the game much more interesting. Also, having an “Admiral” which would be one block and once this was hit the person would win. This then helps if a person is losing badly then they could come back and win, unfortunately it raises the unlikely issue of playing a one shot game. This then could make the game frustrating for other players.

The images posted are mine and Joe’s first round games and the additional rules are written on the bottom.