Hnefatafl: Tablut Online - New Game Release

Hnefatafl: Tablut Online

Hnefatafl is an ancient board game that dates back more than 1,000 years. This strategic game even predates chess, which is based on Hnefatafl and was originally referred to as Skak-Tafl. Hnafatafl was played by the Scandinavian Vikings as far back as 400 A.D. The Vikings carried the game to Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Britain, Whales and as far east as the Ukraine. Many of these locations and others adapted their own variations of the Hnefatafl game. Five of these games are playable in Tablut Online, they include; Tablut, Hnefatafl, Ard-Ri, Tawlbyund, and Alea Evangelii.

Features:

• Unlock up to seven different game boards and game variations. Game boards range in size from 7x7 to 19x19 with pawn layouts variations. Game variations are based on real games played throughout history.
  
• Play against others over the Internet, a computer opponent, over a local network, or against another person on the same computer.
  
• Simple game play and emphasis on strategy, makes Tablut ideal for both beginners and advanced players.
  
• Optional modes of play include game timers, move timers, rules for tie breaking and more.

A free trial version will be available in December 2003

For more information, please visit, http://www.saknet.com/tablut or
email mythic@saknet.com

Looks interesting and visually appealing. Wish you the best of luck with this.

I agree.. looks nice, has appeal, I hope this gets out there as it looks like it could be qute the game.

Regards,
Ayrus

Something different, clean look, multiplayer capable (if I saw that right).
Looks like a good product.

I like it, i really like it!

Excellent board design!
The match settings screen looks bad (landscape and castle in the background). If it's a static background you might consider rendering it instead using Bryce or some such.

Hi everybody, you may recognize me by my old login name "richdig". I have been working with Mythic on Tablut Online and have created the art and graphics for the game including the gameboards. I just wanted to offer some historical info that some may find interesting about the artwork that you will see in Tablut. One of my goals was to give the game an authentic look and feel that worked with the game's history. There was actually quite a bit of research done on the gameboards and game pieces. All of the materials that I created were based on items that would have been used to build real gaming sets in ancient times. The simplest ancient gameboards were simply scratched onto a piece of wood or stone but more ornate boards and pawns like those in the game were made from ivory, amber, precious metals, and bone, just to name a few. All of the designs and carvings I used were inspired by historical sources and then created by hand. If anybody is interested in finding out more about ancient Tablut boards, just let me know.

@Marco: It looks like a still scene, but Mythic actually created an animated background for the settings screen

Really nice idea, I like the viking theme.
I hope the playing Ai of the computer is as good as the board/style looks.

Try to give even more viking athmospere (in later versions)
by placing the gameboard into a 3d viking "pup" or on a battlefield,
maybe some little story-elements like: if you beat the computer in this game you´ll win the war against Denmark or so.

Really great job Rich. Is this project the one you had been doing way back when I mentioned that PBS Viking site? I know it probably doesn't tie into the game but one thing I had thought when I first heard about this was that it might be interesting to have a link from the game to a 'More About Vikings' page with links to some of the many cool resources and some more info. Hmmm.... actually might not be a bad idea from a promo perspective as it might generate search engine hits from those searching for viking info and garner some links from some of the many viking sites out there.

Anyway rare and well done.

The AI was was all customed programmed by Mythic and is....well, I'll just say Impressive I've been playing against the early alpha AI for quite a while, and on the hard setting the AI wins most of the time

Burt, this is the same project. Those links you gave me were actually very useful because it contained some new info. The rest of the internet is surprisingly lacking in detailed/in depth content on Viking/Norse/Celtic/etc history. If you do a search for Tablut, for example, the search engine will return plenty of hits. But once you get to the sites, you find that it's basically the same articles printed over and over and you get the same thing for a lot of the Viking, etc websites (not much different from everything else on the net though) You have to dig pretty deep at library, university, and archaeology sites to find something useful and going to actual libraries and museums here in the US still doesn't offer much either.

What impresses me most is the originality of your project.
This is a beautiful example of the use of 3DGS system IMO!

It's also quite original considering most people/post are concerned with FPS or RTS or RPG and such.

Finally, being a board game afficionado, I would gladly pay to play this game!!! GLADLY!!!!

Great Job!!!

Looks great...nice change of pace.

Hey this looks really great, sorry for being picky but one thing I noticed was in the second shot the viking guy says select but its spelled with two L's.
Anyway it sounds interesting and boardgames are fun.

Hey,

First of all, awsome looking game! Now down to buisness, I am looking for a game to feature in the newest issue of A5E (if you recall, I had around three issues a while back but I ran into other commiments, now I want to get it started again). I was wondering if you would do me the honor of allowing me to feature this game.

What I need for a feature is the game in some playable form (beta or demo, full is best but not required), screenshots of the game and an interview with the creator/creators.

I look forward to hearing back from you!

Loler

Thank you all for your positive comments!

Marco, the background will most likely change. While the water and sky does look nice animated in the game, the castle and landscape lacks detail. I expect a new background for the final release.

Crossy, thanks for the spell check.

Rich, thanks as always for keeping my posts active while I hack away in my dungeon .

Loler, I am interested. I expect a beta to be ready this week and I am sure that we could arrange an interview with myself and Rich. Please forward your email address to me at mythic@saknet.com

To all who are interested, expect a playable trial version in 2-3 weeks.

Lol no problem thats all I'm really good for.
I'll definatley have to play this

Another spellcheck

It's "Tries" not "Trys".

Hey shut up thats my job
lol

Thanks for the info, I will be sure to add 'spell check' to the dev. checklist.

What are the battles the game is based on?

The battles are not based on specific battles. The game variations and boards are based on the various civilizations that played the game. The pawns range from bone to amber and marble materials. The boards are also divers in materials and design.

double post

@agreenknight
Type the name into Google, this will give you a lot of sites about this historic, viking game.

One of my favorite Projects here in the Forum

That game looks really good. I'm looking forward to try it. How will work the multiplayer game ? Will you use a dedicated server ?

Remi,

The multiplayer mode will use a dedicated server. There is also a built in Lan multiplayer mode for playing over a local network. There will also be instructions for setting up your own dedicated server for Internet or Lan play.

Here is a new screen shot of the improved menu. The trial version is on schedule for release in about 10 days. We should have a more solid date next week.

That is some professional looking shiz-nat!

Soooo, when can we buy??

real great stuff!

look realy nice


good luck

The release will be delayed until April. We have decided to include a few new features that will be worth the wait. A full feature list including the new enhancements will be listed in the forum and on the Tablut Online website soon.

@Mythic I remember seeing 'battle chess' games a long time ago. I'm not sure what types of animation are in the current game but I thought that might be a cool feature for some future version of your game if it isn't in there already. Basically a sort of 3D game-like view so that a move on the board game, or perhaps in a playback mode, will show the game token moves replaced with viking models so you'd see the moves as a 3D battle.