This game used to be easier

So, on Monday Firstborn challenged me to another game of Battleship. Only this time, he set out to correct one of the game's more notable oversight. "We have to include the Fourth Dimension," he said. "You should be able to move your ships."

And I thought, Oh, no. But, I rallied myself and asked: "Okay, how is this going to work? On your turn, instead of firing, you can move one of your ships?"

He thought about that, then agreed. "And the spot you move to has to be touching the spot it was at."

We moved some ships around on the board to demonstrate. When we were both in agreement, I moved to the next consideration: I put a couple of white "miss" pegs around the ship. "What happens if your opponent has already fired around the ship? Let's say that you can't put your ship where your opponent has already fired."

Firstborn tried to argue that you should be able to move over those spots, but I held firm: "No, because you have to be touching the spot where you started." We moved the ship around some more until we were both in agreement.

Then we sat down on the floor in his room, and played Battleship: Our Mobile Edition.

The Good: It's playable. And it adds a whole new element to the game. Boy howdy, does it add a whole new element to the game. If the game has gotten boring and you want to add some challenge, this is the way to go.

The Bad: The ability to move boats makes the game run quite a lot longer, because you basically have to block off sections of the board to make sure that your opponent's boats aren't there and can't get there. Towards the end, we both found ourselves quite low on pegs, and I had started cannibalizing pegs from areas where I knew Firstborn's boats couldn't possibly be.

The Ugly: We had decided that you could move your ship even after it had been shot. That made the game considerably more complicated - I found myself, on several occasions, firing at the same spot a second time to make sure that Firstborn's ship couldn't move back there. There were also moments where I'd call a shot, and Firstborn would inform me that I'd already shot that boat in that spot... twice. So, for future efforts, I'd recommend a rule where once a boat has been hit, it can no longer move. Trying to track things after I'd shot them was one of the most brain-breaking portions of the new rules, at least for me.