Board game

Classical board games are divided into four categories of game: race games (such as Pachisi), space games (such as Noughts and Crosses), chase games (such as Hnefatafl), and games of displacement (such as chess).[2]

Board games have been played, traveled, and evolved[3] in most cultures and societies throughout history. A number of important historical sites, artifacts and documents shed light on early board games such as Jiroft civilization gameboards[4] in Iran. Senet, found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively,[5] is the oldest board game known to have existed.[6] Senet was pictured in a fresco found in Merknera's tomb (3300–2700 BC).[7][8] Also from predynastic Egypt is Mehen.[9]

Hounds and jackals, another ancient Egyptian board game, appeared around 2000 BC.[10][11] The first complete set of this game was discovered from a Theban tomb that dates to the 13th dynasty.[12] This game was also popular in Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.[13]

Backgammon originated in ancient Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago.[14] Ashtapada, Chess, Pachisi and Chaupar originated in India. Go and Liubo originated in China. Patolli originated in Mesoamerica played by the ancient Aztecs and The Royal Game of Ur was found in the Royal Tombs of Ur, dating to Mesopotamia 4,600 years ago.[15] The earliest known games list is the Buddha games list.

• 
  Senet, one of the oldest known board games
• 
  Hounds and Jackals (Egypt, 13th Dynasty)
• 
  Men Playing Board Games, from The Sougandhika Parinaya Manuscript
• 
  Royal Game of Ur, southern Iraq, about 2600-2400 BCE
• 
  Patolli game being watched by Macuilxochitl as depicted on page 048 of the Codex Magliabechiano
• 
  Tomb models of two men playing a game of liubo, Han dynasty
• 
  Han dynasty glazed pottery tomb figurines playing Liubo, with six sticks laid out to the side of the game board

Board games have a long tradition in Europe. The oldest records of board gaming in Europe date back to Homer's Iliad (written in the 8th century BC), in which he mentions the Ancient Greek game of Petteia.[16] This game of petteia would later evolve into the Roman Ludus Latrunculorum.[16] Board gaming in ancient Europe was not unique to the Greco-Roman world, with records estimating that the ancient Norse game of Hnefatafl was developed sometime before 400AD.[17] In ancient Ireland, the game of Fidchell or Ficheall, is said to date back to at least 144 AD,[18] though this is likely an anachronism. A fidchell board dating from the 10th century has been uncovered in Co. Westmeath, Ireland.[19]

The association of dice and cards with gambling led to all dice games except backgammon being treated as lotteries by dice in the gaming acts of 1710 and 1845.[20] Early board game producers in the second half of the eighteenth century were mapmakers. The global popularization of Board Games, with special themes and branding, coincided with the formation of the global dominance of the British Empire.[21] John Wallis was an English board game publisher, bookseller, map/chart seller, printseller, music seller, and cartographer. With his sons John Wallis Jr. and Edward Wallis, he was one of the most prolific publishers of board games of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. John Betts' A Tour of the British Colonies and Foreign Possessions[22] and William Spooner's A Voyage of Discovery[23] were popular in the British empire. Kriegsspiel is a genre of wargaming developed in 19th century Prussia to teach battle tactics to officers.[24]

• 
  Achilles and Ajax playing a board game overseen by Athena, Attic Black-figure Neck Amphora, ca. 510 BCE
• 
  Box for Board Games, c. 15th century, Walters Art Museum
• 
  An early games table desk (Germany, 1735) featuring chess/draughts (left) and nine men's morris (right)
• 
  'Game of Skittles', copy of 1660-68 painting by Pieter de Hooch in the Saint Louis Art Museum

In 17th- and 18th-century colonial America, the agrarian life of the country left little time for game playing, although draughts (checkers), bowling, and card games were not unknown. The Pilgrims and Puritans of New England frowned on game-playing, and they often viewed dice as instruments of the devil. When Governor William Bradford discovered a group of non-Puritans playing stool-ball, pitching the bar, and pursuing other sports in the streets on Christmas Day, 1622, he confiscated their implements, reprimanded them, and told them their devotion for the day should be confined to their homes.

In Thoughts on Lotteries (1826), Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Almost all these pursuits of chance [i.e., of human industry] produce something useful to society. But there are some which produce nothing, and endanger the well-being of the individuals engaged in them or of others depending on them. Such are games with cards, dice, billiards, etc. And although the pursuit of them is a matter of natural right, yet society, perceiving the irresistible bent of some of its members to pursue them, and the ruin produced by them to the families depending on these individuals, consider it as a case of insanity, quoad hoc, step in to protect the family and the party himself, as in other cases of insanity, infancy, imbecility, etc., and suppress the pursuit altogether, and the natural right of following it. There are some other games of chance, useful on certain occasions, and injurious only when carried beyond their useful bounds. Such are insurances, lotteries, raffles, etc. These they do not suppress, but take their regulation under their own discretion.[25]

The Mansion of Happiness (1843)

The board game Traveller's Tour Through the United States and its sister game Traveller's Tour Through Europe were published by New York City bookseller F. & R. Lockwood in 1822 and claim the distinction of being the first board games published in the United States.[15]

As the U.S. shifted from agrarian to urban living in the 19th century, greater leisure time and a rise in income became available to the middle class. The American home, once the center of economic production, became the locus of entertainment, enlightenment, and education under the supervision of mothers. Children were encouraged to play board games that developed literacy skills and provided moral instruction.[26]

The earliest board games published in the United States were based upon Christian morality. The Mansion of Happiness (1843), for example, sent players along a path of virtues and vices that led to the Mansion of Happiness (Heaven).[26] The Game of Pope and Pagan, or The Siege of the Stronghold of Satan by the Christian Army (1844) pitted an image on its board of a Hindu woman committing suttee against missionaries landing on a foreign shore. The missionaries are cast in white as "the symbol of innocence, temperance, and hope" while the pope and pagan are cast in black, the color of "gloom of error, and ... grief at the daily loss of empire".[27]

Commercially produced board games in the mid-19th century were monochrome prints laboriously hand-colored by teams of low-paid young factory women. Advances in papermaking and printmaking during the period enabled the commercial production of relatively inexpensive board games. The most significant advance was the development of chromolithography, a technological achievement that made bold, richly colored images available at affordable prices. Games cost as little as US$.25 for a small boxed card game to $3.00 for more elaborate games.

Game of the District Messenger Boy (1886)

American Protestants believed a virtuous life led to success, but the belief was challenged mid-century when the country embraced materialism and capitalism. In 1860, The Checkered Game of Life rewarded players for mundane activities such as attending college, marrying, and getting rich. Daily life rather than eternal life became the focus of board games. The game was the first to focus on secular virtues rather than religious virtues,[26] and sold 40,000 copies its first year.[28]

Game of the District Messenger Boy, or Merit Rewarded, published in 1886 by the New York City firm of McLoughlin Brothers, was one of the first board games based on materialism and capitalism published in the United States. The game is a typical roll-and-move track board game. Players move their tokens along the track at the spin of the arrow toward the goal at the track's end. Some spaces on the track will advance the player while others will send him back.

In the affluent 1880s, Americans witnessed the publication of Algeresque rags to riches games that permitted players to emulate the capitalist heroes of the age. One of the first such games, The Game of the District Messenger Boy, encouraged the idea that the lowliest messenger boy could ascend the corporate ladder to its topmost rung. Such games insinuated that the accumulation of wealth brought increased social status.[26] Competitive capitalistic games culminated in 1935 with Monopoly, the most commercially successful board game in U.S. history.[29]

McLoughlin Brothers published similar games based on the telegraph boy theme including Game of the Telegraph Boy, or Merit Rewarded (1888). Greg Downey notes in his essay, "Information Networks and Urban Spaces: The Case of the Telegraph Messenger Boy", that families who could afford the deluxe version of the game in its chromolithographed, the wood-sided box would not "have sent their sons out for such a rough apprenticeship in the working world."[30]

Margaret Hofer described the period of the 1880s–1920s as "The Golden Age" of board gaming in America.[15] Board game popularity was boosted, like that of many items, through mass production, which made them cheaper and more easily available.[31] Although there are no detailed statistics, some scholars suggest that the 20th century saw a decline in the popularity of the hobby.[31]

Outside of Europe and the U.S., many traditional board games are popular. In China, Go and many variations of chess are popular. In Africa and the Middle East, mancala is a popular board game archetype with a lot of regional variations. In India, a community game called Carrom is popular.[32]

The number of board games published by year (1944–2017), as listed on BoardGameGeek. Expansion sets for existing games are marked in orange.

The late 1990s onwards have seen substantial growth in the reach and market of board games. This has been attributed to, among other factors, the Internet, which has made it easier for people to find out about games and to find opponents to play against,[31] as well as with a general increase in leisure time and consumer spending on entertainment.[33] Around the year 2000 the board gaming industry began significant growth with companies producing a rising number of new games to be sold to a growing worldwide audience.[34][35] In the 2010s, a number of publications referred to board games as having a new Golden Age, though some board-gamers prefer to call it a 'renaissance', as The Golden Age is both predefined and a common term.[34][36][37] Board game venues are also growing in popularity; in 2016, over 5,000 board game cafés opened in the U.S. alone.[38] Board game cafés are also reported to be very popular in China.[39] Board games have also been used as a mechanism for science communication.[40]