Battleship (game)
Encyclopedia
Guessing game
A guessing game is a game in which the object is to guess some kind of information, such as a word, a phrase, a title, or the location of an object.Many of the games are played co-operatively...
played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pencil and paper game which predates World War I. It was published by Milton Bradley Company
Milton Bradley Company
The Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States, and in 1987, it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
in 1931 as the pad-and-pencil game "Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy".
Description
The game is played on four gridsGrid (spatial index)
In the context of a spatial index, a grid is a regular tessellation of a manifold or 2-D surface that divides it into a series of contiguous cells, which can then be assigned unique identifiers and used for spatial indexing purposes...
, two for each player. The grids are typically square – usually 10×10 – and the individual squares in the grid are identified by letter and number. On one grid the player arranges ships and records the shots by the opponent. On the other grid the player records his own shots.
Before play begins, each player arranges a number of ships secretly on the grid for that player. Each ship occupies a number of consecutive squares on the grid, arranged either horizontally or vertically. The number of squares for each ship is determined by the type of the ship. The ships cannot overlap (i.e., only one ship can occupy any given square in the grid). The types and numbers of ships allowed are the same for each player. These may vary depending on the rules.
There are two typical complements of ships, as given in the Milton Bradley version of the rules:
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After the ships have been positioned, the game proceeds in a series of rounds. In each round, each player's turn consists of announcing a target square in the opponent's grid which is to be shot at. If a ship occupies the square, then it takes a hit. The player's opponent announces whether or not the shot has hit one of the opponent's ships and then takes a turn. When all of the squares of a ship have been hit, the ship is sunk. After all of one player's ships have been sunk, the game ends and the other player wins.
For the Salvo variation, each player may take as many shots in one turn as that player has ships remaining. The starting player announces all five shots, then the opponent announces which if any are hits. Each player has as many shots in each turn as that player has vessels afloat. Thus, each time a player's ship is sunk, that player has one fewer shot in all subsequent turns. In some versions (e.g. Sierra–Hoyle Board Games) the aircraft carrier has two shots.
Variations
Naval Strike is for the iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
; Naval Clash and Naval Combat are for Android; Advanced Mission is for the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, and ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
; Risk
Risk (game)
Risk is a strategic board game, produced by Parker Brothers . It was invented by French film director Albert Lamorisse and originally released in 1957 as La Conquête du Monde in France. Risk is a turn-based game for two to six players...
/ Battleship / Clue
Cluedo
Cluedo is a popular murder/mystery-themed deduction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, England in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, England. It is now published by the United States game and toy company Hasbro, which acquired its U.S...
is for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...
; Super Battleship
Super Battleship
Super Battleship is a naval simulator video game released for the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo in 1993. The game is strictly single player and is primarily a strategy game with some real-time elements.- Gameplay :...
is for the SNES; Battleship / Connect Four
Connect Four
Connect Four is a two-player game in which the players first choose a color and then take turns dropping their colored discs from the top into a seven-column, six-row vertically-suspended grid...
/ Sorry!
Sorry! (game)
Sorry! is a board game that is based on the ancient Cross and Circle game Pachisi. Players try to travel around the board with their pieces faster than any other player. Distributed by Parker Brothers, Sorry! is marketed for two to four players, ages six through adult...
/ Trouble
Trouble (board game)
Trouble is a board game in which players compete to be the first to send four pieces all the way around a board. Pieces are moved according to the roll of a die. Trouble was developed by the Kohner Brothers and initially manufactured by Irwin Toy Ltd., later by Milton Bradley...
is for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
; Monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
/ Boggle
Boggle
Boggle is a word game designed by Allan Turoff and trademarked by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro. The game is played using a plastic grid of lettered dice, in which players attempt to find words in sequences of adjacent letters.-Rules:...
/ Yahtzee
Yahtzee
Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley , which was first marketed by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games, such as Yacht and Generala. The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations...
/ Battleship is for the Nintendo DS.
Battleship has also been released on mobile phones, and there also have been multiple versions of Battleship released on the PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, such as Battleship Fleet Command.
In 1977 Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley , an American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company....
released a computerized Electronic Battleship, followed in 1989 by Electronic Talking Battleship.
In 2010 a new and updated version of Battleship was released. In the updated version, each player's board contains several island
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
s on which "captured man" figurines can be placed. Ships may only be placed around the islands, and only in the player's own half of the board. The board itself uses hexagonal tiles.
Battleship was also part of Hasbro Family Game Night for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
and Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
, as well as the Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade). These alter the rules, including the size of the grid (8×12 in the NES version, 8×8 in the Game Boy version), size of ships (it is common to feature a submarine that takes up only a single square) and special shot missiles for each ship (for example, in the NES version the cruiser has a 5-shot missile which strikes 5 squares in an X pattern on the grid in one turn. Submarine-tracking sonar and aerial reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
to spot ships are also features).
In Clubhouse Games
Clubhouse Games
Clubhouse Games, known in Europe as 42 All-Time Classics and in Japan as , is a compilation video game consisting of card, board, and parlor games developed by Agenda and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console...
for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, Battleship is known as Grid Attack. It is played on an 8×8 grid, and includes slight variations, such as 4-player gameplay, various ship sizes and shapes, as well as the option to makes the ships touch each other.
Iterations of Battleship appear as applications on numerous social networking services. For instance, RNASoft created Naval Attack based upon Battleship for Toshiba SPANworks; it was also used as a technology demo for Toshiba SPANworks' ImmediaNet SDK for WiFi based devices like laptop, PDAs, and Windows Mobile, and users could play across the platform.
A version known as Battlefield was made for DS.
A slightly different version of the game is played in India. Instead of announcing whether a shot is a hit or miss immediately, the players simply say how many of their opponent's three shots were hits, and if so on what kind of vessel. This allows for more strategy in game play and loosens the game's dependency on luck. A slightly different recording system is used in this variation as there is a new importance on what turn a player hit something on. The ships themselves are also slightly different: the Indian version uses two submarines (two spaces long), two destroyers (three spaces long), one battleship (five spaces long), and one aircraft carrier (five spaces arranged in a 'T' pointing in any direction).
Feature film
It was announced in 2009 there were plans for a feature film based on the game. Peter BergPeter Berg
Peter Berg is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is known for directing films such as Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, The Rundown, Hancock and Battleship. He also developed the television series Friday Night Lights, which was adapted from the film he directed. As an actor...
is in talks to direct for Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, with brother team Jon and Erich Hoeber writing the script. Peter Berg was announced as the director on 15 September. A release date of 5 August 2011 was originally set, but it was pushed back to 25 May 2012. The release date was later moved again, to 18 May 2012.
See also
- Battleship (puzzle)Battleship (puzzle)The Battleship puzzle is a logic puzzle based on the Battleship guessing game...
- Battleship (video game)Battleship (video game)Battleship is an NES and Sega Game Gear video game based on the board game of the same name.-Summary:The object is to sink the opponent's entire fleet without him sinking the player's fleet first. In this updated version, both the player and the computer get extra firepower from military aircraft...
- BattleFleet (game series)BattleFleet (game series)BattleFleet is a campaign-based naval warfare series and is a strategy series based on the well known game Battleship. It is developed and published by Strategy Lights Systems. BattleFleet is publicized alongside Guns Girls Lawyers Spies, Guns Girls Lawyers Dollars, and Fashion Tycoon - War Edition...
- Electronic Battleship: Advanced MissionElectronic Battleship: Advanced MissionElectronic Battleship Advanced Mission is a commercial variant of the classic game Battleship published by Milton Bradley. The objective, like all other versions of the game, is to sink your opponent's fleet of five ships....
- StrategoStrategoStratego is a board game featuring a 10×10 square board and two players with 40 pieces each. Pieces represent individual officers and soldiers in an army. The objective of the game is to either find and capture the opponent's Flag or to capture so many of the opponent's pieces that he/she cannot...
External links
- Battleship Official Hasbro Rules – Rulebook insert for Battleship (2002 version)
- http://www.seabattle.org/