Jotunheim

Making Your Own Copy of Jotunheim

Components

• 24 ground blocks (preferably brown)
• 40--48 blocks (preferably white)
• 10--18 caps (preferably white; need to be able to rest on the board and should be different from ground blocks)
• board (optional but recommended; it is helpful to see the shape of the board after ground blocks are removed and ideally you have a frame that is level with ground blocks)
• 2 sets of pieces in different colours, each containing
  • 1 prize (large meeple or Chess king)
  • 2 rescuers (regular meeples or pawns; 3 for Einherjar and Norns)
• 1 rescuer in a third colour or alternative design for Hel (preferably blue or black; a rook)

Once you've got physical components then you only need the rules document, which contains a list of powers (see the support files section, below). You can make things fancier by printing out the powers cards. I print two copies and sleeve both of them around an unwanted card from another game. This can be turned into a standee so both players can read the power rules (I use bases that match piece colour).

Example Sets

Poker chips are the fastest way to get playing. I recommend that you use chips with two-colour edges or different colours of chips for each height so that there will be no confusion. The nice thing about round pieces is that it will be easier to excavate.

Scrabble sets are also an easy option. Put them letter-side-up for ground blocks and use glass beads for caps. Stacking checkers are nice but will require 3 to 4 sets (about $5 each at popular department stores).

Various eurogames can be used. Torres provides lots of stacking pieces. They lack colour differentiation but it is easy to slide the board apart to excavate. Combining GIPF series games will make a beautiful set -- TZAAR (for blocks), GIPF (for more blocks) and ZERTZ (for the caps).

I've made my copies of Jotunheim by painting copies of Upwords and sculpting the cap pieces. I use Nerf darts to aid removing the ground pieces, but plan to drill holes in ground pieces from one of the sets with large pieces. I use two sizes of meeples for my pieces with art on the larger prize. You can usually get Upwords at thrift stores and it makes the best sets. Ideally you want a 10x10 set. If you get the current (small, 10x10) size then larger meeples only fit diagonally but the game will be more portable.

Ideal Version

A commercial version would look like a sliced-off branch of Yggdrasil. Blocks should be about half pawn height (caps could be taller) and ground blocks should be inside the board (theme, faster setup/take down, no need for cardboard or grid overlay). Using a different colour for ground blocks makes the excavate rule easier to understand and accumulating snow on top may help explain the game. I tried mixing ice-style blocks and tree-style ones, but it just caused confusion. (I wanted to reconfigure into sides, Heimdall endzones, checkerboards, etc.)

Playing Against an AI

Download ai ai.zip from the Ai Ai website.

Unzip the file (on a Mac, you can double-click to unzip).

In a file browser you can double-click the JAR file. You can also run the file from the directory on the command line using

java -jar 'ai ai.jar'

You need Java 8 or higher to run AiAi (shouldn’t be a problem).

From the ‘Game’ menu select ‘Start Jotunheim game...’. You will be presented with a random balanced power combination but can select something else.

Suggested First Match-ups

I find that alternative victory conditions focus the minds of new players, so I suggest giving one of the players such a power for a first game. Powers that make the prize slippery should wait a couple games.

Gleipnir vs Einherjar, Svadilfari, Thor's Goats (later: Gungnir, Hoenir)

Naglfar vs Odin's Ravens, Skadi, Sleipnir, Surt, Svadilfari, Thor (later: Gungnir, Jormungand, Sigyn)

Gungnir vs Einherjar, Skadi, Svadilfari, Thor's Goats (later: Gleipnir, Naglfar, Ratatosk, Sigyn)

Bifrost vs Odin's Ravens, Sleipnir, Thor, Valkyries (later: Hoenir, Jormungand, Sigyn)

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Gord!, for inspiring Jotunheim through his great game Santorini and for his support.

Kyle Maitland has done a huge amount of playtesting and contributed ideas for several of the powers.

Stephen Tavener's AiAi makes the computer implementation possible. Without that it would be impossible to balance the powers nearly so well. In addition to providing the platform, Stephen's collaboration with me on the AiAi Santorini implementation translated into benefits (and code) for the Jotunheim implementation.