Twelve Hnefatafl Games for Your Mobile Phone: Tablut Free

Saturday, 17th September 2016

Designed for both iPhones and iPads, Tablut Free was released by Continental Laboratories and last updated in 2014.  It offers a single board size and a single set of rules, but its presentation is customisable.

Tablut Free offers the 9x9 board, as you'd expect from the name. It uses the rules by John C. Ashton, featuring Modern Innovations: Hostile Base Camps. These are like Tablut described on this site, but the king is not able to land on the attackers' landing squares.  This appears to be balanced when two beginners play, but once the attacking player has some experience the king's task becomes all but impossible.

Much work has gone into the presentation of this game.  The board and the set of pieces can each be chosen independently from a range of options (two boards and two sets of pieces in the free version).

The application is available free from iTunes, and a paid version exists that offers more than two difficulty levels, boards and piece sets for players to choose from.

Tomorrow I'll take a break from mobile games but on Monday I'll be back with another offering for Android phones.