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Battleship (game)

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Battleship (game)



 
 
The game Battleship is a guessing game
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....
 played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pencil and paper game and predates World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
 in this form. It was invented by Clifford Von Wickler in the early 1900s, but he never patented the game and it was soon published by Milton Bradley Company
Milton Bradley Company

The Milton Bradley Company is an United States 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, makers of Parcheesi and Scrabble....
 in 1943 as the pad-and-pencil game "Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy".

game is played on four square
Square (geometry)

In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular polygon with four equal sides and four equal angles . A square with vertices ABCD would be denoted ....
 grid
Grid

'Grid' may refer to:In 'entertainment and media':* The Grid * The Grid * Grid , the eighth original album by the Japanese band m.o.v.e.* ...
s, two for each player
Player (game)

A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
.






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Encyclopedia


The game Battleship is a guessing game
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....
 played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pencil and paper game and predates World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
 in this form. It was invented by Clifford Von Wickler in the early 1900s, but he never patented the game and it was soon published by Milton Bradley Company
Milton Bradley Company

The Milton Bradley Company is an United States 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, makers of Parcheesi and Scrabble....
 in 1943 as the pad-and-pencil game "Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy".

Description

Battleships
The game is played on four square
Square (geometry)

In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular polygon with four equal sides and four equal angles . A square with vertices ABCD would be denoted ....
 grid
Grid

'Grid' may refer to:In 'entertainment and media':* The Grid * The Grid * Grid , the eighth original album by the Japanese band m.o.v.e.* ...
s, two for each player
Player (game)

A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
. 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 ship
Ship

A ship is a large watercraft that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the ferry or cargo ships, fishing, cruise ship, Coast guard, and warship....
s and records the shots by the opponent. On the other grid the player records their 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 horizontal
Horizontal

Horizontal may refer*Horizontal plane, in astronomy, geography, geometry and other sciences and contexts*Horizontal coordinate system, in astronomy...
ly or vertical
Vertical

vetical means up and downAn object is in a vertical position when it is aligned in an "up-down" direction, roughly speaking perpendicular to the horizon or horizontal plane....
ly. The number of squares for each ship is determined by the type of the ship. The ships cannot overlap (i.e., at most 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:
Type of shipSize
aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a navy force to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations....
5
battleship
Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily armour warship with a main artillery battery consisting of the largest calibre of guns. Battleships were larger, better armed, and better armored than cruisers and destroyers....
4
destroyer
Destroyer

In navy terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a Naval fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-range but powerful attackers ....
3
submarine
Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
3
patrol boat
Patrol boat

A patrol boat is a small naval ship generally designed for coastal defense duties.There have been many designs for patrol boats. They may be operated by a nation's navy, coast guard, or police force, and may be intended for marine and/or estuary or river environments....
2
 
Type of shipSize
aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a navy force to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations....
5
battleship
Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily armour warship with a main artillery battery consisting of the largest calibre of guns. Battleships were larger, better armed, and better armored than cruisers and destroyers....
4
cruiser
Cruiser

A cruiser is a large type of warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. The first cruisers were intended for individual raiding and protection missions on the seas....
3
submarine
Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
3
destroyer
Destroyer

In navy terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a Naval fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-range but powerful attackers ....
2
After the ships have been positioned, the game proceeds in a series of rounds. In each round, each player has a turn. During a turn, the player announces a list of target squares in the opponents' grid which are to be shot at. If a ship occupies one of the squares, then it takes a hit. When all of the squares of a ship have been hit, the ship is sunk. After the target list has been given, the opponent then announces which of his ships have been hit. If at the end of a round all of one player's ships have been sunk, the game ends and the other player wins.

The number of target squares that a player may shoot at in a given turn is determined by the condition of the players' own ships at the beginning of the round. Each player has as many shots as he or she has vessels afloat in each turn. Thus each time a player's ship is entirely destroyed, that player has one fewer shot on all subsequent turns.

Variations


Electronic Battleship: Battleship Advanced Mission is for the Amiga
Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer....
, Atari ST
Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home computer/personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1985....
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer released by Commodore International in August, 1982, at a price of United States dollar595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes of Random-access memory with sound and graphics performance that were superior to IBM-compatible computers of tha...
, ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, the machine was launched as the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared with the black-and-white of its predec...
, Risk
Risk (game)

Risk is a commercial strategy game board game, produced by Parker Brothers . It was invented by French movie film director Albert Lamorisse and originally released in 1957, as La Conqu?te du Monde , in France....
 / Battleship / Clue
Cluedo

Cluedo is a mystery crime fiction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, United Kingdom in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E....
, for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance

The is a 32-bit Handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo; resembling Sega's 8-bit Game Gear. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color....
, Battleship / Connect Four
Connect Four

Connect Four is a two-player game in which the players take turns in dropping alternating colored discs into a seven-column, six-row vertically-suspended grid....
 / Sorry! / Trouble
Trouble

Trouble may refer to:* A problem* Trouble , a board game similar to Pachisi* Trouble , a mini-series by Marvel Comics* Trouble , a entertainment channel aimed at British and Irish teenage audiences...
 for the Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS

The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in 2004 in video gaming in Canada, the United States, and Japan....
, Monopoly
Monopoly

In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it....
 / Boggle
Boggle

Boggle is a word game designed by Allan Turoff and trademarked by Parker Brothers and Hasbro. The game is played using a grid of lettered dice, in which players attempt to find words in sequences of adjacent letters....
 / Yahtzee
Yahtzee

Yahtzee is a popular dice game made by Milton Bradley Company . The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations....
 / Baattleship for the Nintendo DS.

Battleship has also been released on mobile phones, there also have been multiple versions of Battleship released on the PC
Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities 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 United States board 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

Battleship was also part of Hasbro Family Game Night for the Playstation 2
PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is a History of video game consoles video game console manufactured by Sony. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation of video game consoles....
 and Wii
Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a History of video game consoles console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3....
. These alter the rules, including the size of the grid (8 x 12 in the NES version, 8 x 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 a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information. Militarily, its shorthand Australian, Canadian, and British form is recce , its American usage form is recon ....
 to spot ships are also features).

Iterations of Battleship appear as applications on numerous social networking services, such as Qeep
Qeep

qeep is a social network for mobile phones.A License-free software application software, qeep was first released in betaware in 2006. Though qeep was originally only available in German, its parent company released an English version in January 2008....
. RNASoft created Naval Attack based upon Battleship for Toshiba SPANworks which was also used as a technology demo for Toshiba SPANworks' ImmediaNet SDK for WiFi based devices like laptop, PDAs, Windows Mobile and users could play across the platform.

See also

  • Battleship (puzzle)
    Battleship (puzzle)

    The Battleship puzzle is a logic puzzle based on the Battleship . It and its variants have appeared in several puzzle contests, including the World Puzzle Championship, and puzzle magazines, such as Games magazine....
  • Battleship (video game)
    Battleship (video game)

    Battleship is an Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Game Gear video game based on the classic Battleship of the same name. The object is to sink the opponent's entire naval fleet without him sinking the player's fleet first....


External links

  • - Play Battleship online free
  • – an example of Battleships
  • – Rulebook insert for Battleship (2002 version)
  • - Combining Battleship with Morse Code