Kulturkampf
Concept Design for a Board Game with Historical and Cultural
Learning Outcomes in the University Instructional Setting,
based on Three-dimensional Chess
Created by
Francis T. Kirkwood
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
Presented in the Program of the Centre of Chess Culture and Information,
Russian State Library of Science and Technology, at the
Crimea 2014 International Library Conference
Tuesday, 10 June 2014
Sudak, Republic of Crimea
1
Several parameters enter into the design of a board game that mirrors the complexities of
contemporary German culture in a university setting. Firstly, it must be multidimensional, in the
sense that it allows players to explore in some depth their knowledge of several distinct areas of
the culture: historical, political, economic, social, customary, ecological, the arts and literature,
education, science and technology, and finally the German special preoccupation with the Nazi
past. Secondly, the game must provide for significant group learning outcomes. This requires that
it be playable over an extended period of time (days, weeks) by up to eight teams in a learning
setting with research access to supplementary information resources (books, Internet). A seminar
room or game hall where the game can be left set up and returned to periodically by the players
would be ideal. Thirdly, the learning outcomes of the game should include both correct short
answers (factual or trivial) and acceptable in-depth answers (expository or analytical) to
culturally related questions, the latter to be adjudged if necessary by an arbiter (the course
instructor or an agreed “reference librarian”). Fourthly, to mirror cultural processes in real life,
the game’s progress should depend as much as possible on strategy and insight (a conscious
decision where to move and why), not just on chance (the roll of dice or the selection of
movement instruction cards). In other words, the game must exhibit and stimulate intelligence.
Existing board games which suit many of these parameters are few in number: one thinks
perhaps of Diplomacy1 or of the detective game Clue,2 or pre-eminently of the ancient war game,
chess.3 The two-person game of chess is based on strategic thinking rather than chance and
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluedo
3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
2
provides great flexibility of movement choice, but within a crowded game board (16 pieces per
side, making for an initial 50% occupancy rate on an 8x8 checkerboard square of just 64 tiles).
Chess therefore offers little room for an added feature of discovering cultural questions and
answers by landing on empty tiles.
The same is not true, however, of all of chess’s three-dimensional variants.4 The original
form of the three-dimensional game, Kubikschach or Cubic Chess, was invented by Lionel
Kieseritzky, a Baltic-German chess master born in the Russian Empire but living in Paris, and
was shown by him at the first international chess tournament in London in 1851.5 It apparently
allowed the two players to employ all the traditional pieces, with 3-D adaptations of their
possible moves, in an eight-level 3-D chess board of 8x8x8 = 512 movement cells, with an initial
cell occupancy rate of just 6.25%. The game remained a curiosity until 1907 when Ferdinand
Maack, a Hamburg chess master, developed the more compact and popular variant Raumschach
or Space Chess. In Maack’s version a five-level 3-D chess board is made up of 5x5x5 = 125
movement cells, the traditional starting places of the pieces are adjusted onto two levels, and
two extra pawns are added to each side as well as two unicorns that can zoom along 3-D
diagonals. At 20 pieces per side, Maack’s version has an initial cell occupancy rate of 32% and
vacancy of only 85 cells, which is still a bit crowded for our purposes.
In developing the game of Kulturkampf I have chosen to use the more spacious 8x8x8 version
of the 3-D chessboard first introduced by Kieseritzky. It allows enough room for the introduction
of additional players (up to eight teams of the traditional sixteen pieces, one per level, alternating
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_dimensional_chess ; see also Anthony Dickins, A Guide to Fairy
Chess, 2nd ed., Richmond, Surrey, England: Q Press, 1969, republished New York: Dover Books, 1971,
pp. 16-18.
5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Kieseritzky
3
between left and right sides for technical reasons having to do with the first pawn move in 3-D).
Even with eight players, with 16x8 = 128 pieces on the eight boards the initial cell occupancy
rate is only 25%, still leaving 384 empty cells, or 48 empty spaces per level.
Figure 1
Eight-level 3-D chess board schematic
Kieseritzky's Kubikschach (or Cubic Chess) 3-D gameboard, 1851. The format was later picked up by Dr.
Ferdinand Maack in 1907 when developing Raumschach. The levels were identified from bottom
upwards using Greek letters alpha through theta. According to David Pritchard`s Classified Encyclopedia
of Chess Variants, the 8×8×8 cell format is "the most popular 3-D board amongst inventors, and at the
same time the most mentally indigestible for the players [...] Less demanding on spatial vision, and
hence more practical, are those games confined to three 8×8 boards and games with boards smaller
than 8×8."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kieseritzky_Cubic_Chess_board.png
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Figure 2
Eight-level 3-D chess board mapped to 2-D round table ring
TOP
Θ
→
Η
→
Ζ
→
Ε
→
↓
↓
BOTTOM
Α
←
Β
←
Γ
←
Δ
←
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3D_Chess_Board.jpg
Figure 3
Three-level 3-D chess board with 2-player game in progress
Source: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/looking-to-buy-a-raumschachboard-and-pieces
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Figure 4
A more exotic Space Chess game from sometime in the future
Source: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/looking-to-buy-a-raumschachboard-and-pieces
The key to the game of Kulturkampf is the unique colour-coding of each the eight chess
boards and of the team of sixteen chessmen that has it as home base. The eight boards and teams
in the game correspond to the eight fields of knowledge identified by their colours as their
special subject areas. In Figure 2, for example, the top board, exceptionally hosting White, not
grey, chessmen, has as its special subject German history; the second board, hosting the Red
chess team, focuses on German politics; the third board, hosting the Orange chessmen, is
dedicated to the German economy. The fourth board from the top, home of Chess Team Yellow,
is devoted to German customs and behaviour. The fifth board in descending order from the top
(fourth up from the bottom) hosts the Green chess pieces and is devoted to environmental and
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ecological matters. The third board from the bottom, home to Chess Team Blue, is about the arts
and literature in contemporary Germany; the second board from the bottom hosts the purple
chessmen and has as its special subject education, science and technology. Final, the bottom
board is the home of the black chessmen and of the dark concerns of Vergangenheitsbewältigung,
the Germans’ attempt to come to terms with their Nazi past. Small signs or labels on each
board level serve as a reminder of its special subject focus.
The learning component of the game of Kulturkampf is associated with the 32 distinctively
coloured tiles of each of the eight chess boards. There are eight, colour-coded knowledge task
card files of 320 cards each (ten for each coloured tile on which a piece can land in each chess
board and subject area - the number is arbitrary; the instructor may create more as needed).
Whenever a chess piece belonging to a team is moved onto a particular colour of tile in the
course of the game the team leader receives a new knowledge task card in the corresponding
field. Questions on the cards come with answers or answer references and are either factual
(worth one point) or analytical (worth five points). An example of a factual question in the
historical sphere might be, “What position did Willi Brandt hold before he became leader of the
SPD and Chancellor of Germany?” (Answer: Mayor of West Berlin.) An example of an
analytical question in the sphere of the economy might be, “Account for the strength of German
economic influence in the Eurozone.” (Use of reference materials allowed, quality of answer to
be judged by the instructor.)
Positions of pieces at the beginning of the game, when eight of
sixteen pieces for each team will be on coloured squares on its home board, will result in each
chess team starting with an initial set of eight knowledge task cards in its special field of
expertise: five factual and three analytical, worth a total of twenty points. These and the cards
acquired in course of the game constitute a team’s cultural knowledge capital.
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The game proceeds like an ordinary game of chess, with the teams making moves in rotation
from White through Black, except that the moves can be three-dimensional. Note especially the
ability of a bishop or a queen to move any distance, or threaten, along any unimpeded diagonal
of the 8x8x8 cube, and the ability of the knights on horseback to jump around a corner vertically.
However, when the capture of a chess piece is attempted, special rules of engagement come
into effect, in accordance with the game’s cultural learning objectives. It is these rules of
engagement that make the game into a Kulturkampf, or cultural struggle. Basically, when a chess
piece is taken, the defending team can choose to say “Kulturkampf” before the next team’s
move, select a knowledge task card from its current portfolio, and demand that the attacking
team answer the question under the conditions stated on the card (such as “5 minutes, may use
Internet and textbook”). If the question is answered correctly by the attacking team, the piece is
lost and so is the knowledge task card to the enemy side. If the question is not answered
correctly, the capture is cancelled, the attacking team has to retreat, loses its turn, must grant
immunity to the piece in question for the next two moves, and must surrender two knowledge
task cards of its choice but of corresponding difficulty and value to the defending team.
Alternatively, a defending side that fears attack on a piece can, before the opponent’s move,
publicly offer the opponent a knowledge task card to buy protection for the next two moves.
A defending team may also at any time play any knowledge task card against a particular
enemy piece which has ventured onto its home board. If the enemy team answers the question
successfully, it acquires the card in question and maintains its piece’s position; if not, its piece is
bounced to the corresponding cell on the board of the task card in question, or on its own home
board, at the choice of the defender. The trading of knowledge task cards of equal value between
teams is also allowed, so long as the subjects of the questions are divulged to all players.
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If a team’s king is placed in checkmate by one or more opponent teams, that team and all its
pieces must retire from the game, but the game continues with the remaining chess teams still in
the field. All the knowledge task cards belonging to the defeated team go to the victor or victors.
If a team fails in a knowledge task and cannot pay the required forfeit, it is culturally bankrupt
and likewise must retire from the game.
The game of Kulturkampf ends in one of three ways:
1. A chess team checkmates or otherwise causes the withdrawal of all the other teams.
2. An agreed time limit is reached (such as the end of term). At that point the value of each
team’s portfolio of knowledge task cards is added up, with double weight being given to
its holdings from boards other than in its home sphere. This rewards teams that venture
further afield in the course of the game and acquire a wider variety of cultural knowledge
capital. The winner is the team with the most points.
3. Any team which is flush with cultural knowledge capital, other than the Black team,
demands a public reckoning to show that it has more points than all the other teams
combined, and so all holdings should be unified with its own. It does this by saying
“Bismarck”. If the reckoning is successful, it wins the game. If it fails to achieve
hegemony, all its cards and points go to the Black team, greatly increasing German
culture’s obsession with Vergangenheitsbewältingung as the game continues. However if
the Black team as a result of the Bismarck miscalculation or otherwise turns out to have
more points than all the others combined, its leader says “Hitler” and everybody loses.