Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Subway

Subway is a commercial game from the 1980s. It's recognisable as a game inspired by hnefatafl, but only just ...

The game board is reminiscent of an old LP  sleeve, and folds open to reveal the rectangular playing area. The game came with rules in Greek only, but a friend of mine was happy to translate these for me (thanks, Dia!).


This playing area is meant to represent a Scandinavian fjord, showing coastlines and a few islands. Present in this fjord are a number of submarines (including one Submarine Commander), being hunted by a flotilla of destroyers. The playing pieces representing these ships are small wooden discs, yellow for the destroyers and red/purple for the submarines. At the start of the game, the eight plus one submarines are situated in the centre in a typical hnefatafl formation, while the 16 destroyers are scattered throughout the fjord in a pretty random fashion.


Destroyers and submarines can only move one step at the time (usually orthogonally, but diagonally in a few places) and capture is by interception, as is the normal rule in hnefatafl. The aim of the destroyers is to capture the Submarine Commander, whereas the submarines win by eliminating all destroyers. This latter aim is made a bit easier by the existence of a few position on the board, which, when becoming occupied by a submarine, result in the elimination of a destroyer.



As I said at the start of this post, it's just recognisable as a hnefatafl-inspired game. There is the 'n + 1 vs 2n' number of pieces, the asymmetrical aims, and the capture of the 'king' winning the game for the attackers. But the defenders winning by escaping from the board is replaced by the need to eliminate all attackers. This, plus the few board position resulting in direct elimination of a destroyer, show how far the game has moved from traditional hnefatafl. Nevertheless, there are enough traces of hnefatafl left to warrant it being part of the collection.