Board game

Board games are tabletop games that typically use pieces. These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.

Many board games feature a competition between two or more players. To show a few examples: in

There are many varieties of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, such as checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as Cluedo. Rules can range from the very simple, such as in snakes and ladders; to deeply complex, as in Advanced Squad Leader. Play components now often include custom figures or shaped counters, and distinctively shaped player pieces commonly known as meeples as well as traditional cards and dice.

The time required to learn or master

Ancient

Classical board games are divided into four categories: race games (such as

• 
  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
• 
  Han dynasty glazed pottery tomb figurines playing liubo, with six sticks laid out to the side of the game board

European

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.^[17] This game of petteia would later evolve into the Roman ludus latrunculorum.^[17] 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.^[18] In ancient Ireland, the game of fidchell or ficheall, is said to date back to at least 144 AD,^[19] though this is likely an anachronism. A fidchell board dating from the 10th century has been uncovered in Co. Westmeath, Ireland.^[20]

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

• 
  Achilles and Ajax playing a board game overseen by Athena, Attic black-figure neck amphora, c. 510 BCE
• 
  Box for Board Games, c. 15th century, Walters Art Museum
• 
  An early

  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

American

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.^[16]

Margaret Hofer described the period of the 1880s–1920s as "The Golden Age" of board gaming in America.^[26] Board game popularity was boosted, like that of many items, through mass production, which made them cheaper and more easily available.

Chinese, Arabic, and Indian

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 many regional variations. In India, a community game called Carrom is popular.^[27]

Modern

In the late 1990s, companies began producing more new games to serve a growing worldwide market.^[28][29] In the 2010s, several publications said board games were amid a new Golden Age or "renaissance".^[28][30][31] Board game venues also grew in popularity; in 2016 alone, more than 5,000 board game cafés opened in the U.S.,^[32] and they were reported to be very popular in China as well.^[33]

Board games have been used as a mechanism for science communication.^[34]

Luck, strategy, and diplomacy

Some games, such as chess, depend completely on player skill, while many children's games such as Candy Land and snakes and ladders require no decisions by the players and are decided purely by luck.^[35]

Many games require some level of both skill and luck. A player may be hampered by bad luck in backgammon, Monopoly, or Risk; but over many games, a skilled player will win more often.^[36] The elements of luck can also make for more excitement at times, and allow for more diverse and multifaceted strategies, as concepts such as expected value and risk management must be considered.^{[citation needed]}

Luck may be introduced into a game by several methods. The use of

Another important aspect of some games is diplomacy, that is, players, making deals with one another. Negotiation generally features only in games with three or more players, cooperative games being the exception. An important facet of Catan, for example, is convincing players to trade with you rather than with opponents. In Risk, two or more players may team up against others. Easy diplomacy involves convincing other players that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against. Advanced diplomacy (e.g., in the aptly named game Diplomacy) consists of making elaborate plans together, with the possibility of betrayal.^[38]

In perfect information games, such as chess, each player has complete information on the state of the game, but in other games, such as Tigris and Euphrates or Stratego, some information is hidden from players. This makes finding the best move more difficult and may involve estimating probabilities by the opponents.^{[citation needed]}

Software

Many board games are now available as video games. These are aptly termed digital board games, and their distinguishing characteristic compared to traditional board games is they can now be played online against a computer or other players. Some websites (such as boardgamearena.com, yucata.de, etc.)^[39] allow play in real time and immediately show the opponents' moves, while others use email to notify the players after each move.^[40] The Internet and cheaper home printing has also influenced board games via print-and-play games that may be purchased and printed.^[41] Some games use external media such as audio cassettes or DVDs in accompaniment to the game.^[42][43]

There are also

While the board gaming market is estimated to be smaller than that for

Some academics, such as Erica Price and Marco Arnaudo, have differentiated "hobby" board games and gamers from other board games and gamers.[59]^[60] A 2014 estimate placed the U.S. and Canada market for hobby board games (games produced for a "gamer" market) at only $75 million, with the total size of what it defined as the "hobby game market" ("the market for those games regardless of whether they're sold in the hobby channel or other channels,") at over $700 million.^[61] A similar 2015 estimate suggested a hobby game market value of almost $900 million.^[62]

Research

Board games serve diverse interests. Left: kōnane for studious competition. Right: kōnane for lighthearted fun.

A dedicated field of research into gaming exists, known as game studies or ludology.^[63]

While there has been a fair amount of scientific research on the psychology of older board games (e.g.,

Linearly arranged board games have improved children's spatial numerical understanding. This is because the game is similar to a number line in that they promote a linear understanding of numbers rather than the innate logarithmic one.^[66]

Research studies show that board games such as Snakes and Ladders result in children showing significant improvements in aspects of basic number skills such as counting, recognizing numbers, numerical estimation, and number comprehension. They also practice fine motor skills each time they grasp a game piece.^[67] Playing board games has also been tied to improving children's executive functions^[68] and help reduce risks of dementia for the elderly.^[69][70] Related to this is a growing academic interest in the topic of game accessibility, culminating in the development of guidelines for assessing the accessibility of modern tabletop games^[71] and the extent to which they are playable for people with disabilities.^[72]

Additionally, board games can be therapeutic.

Playing games has been suggested as a viable addition to the traditional educational curriculum if the content is appropriate and the gameplay informs students on the curriculum content.[74]^[75]

Categories

There are several ways in which board games can be classified, and considerable overlap may exist, so that a game belongs to several categories.^[16]

H. J. R. Murray's A History of Board Games Other Than Chess (1952) has been called the first attempt to develop a "scheme for the classification of board games".^[76] David Parlett's Oxford History of Board Games (1999) defines four primary categories: race games (where the goal is to be the first to move all one's pieces to the final destination), space games (in which the object is to arrange the pieces into some special configuration), chase games (asymmetrical games, where players start the game with different sets of pieces and objectives) and displace games (where the main objective is the capture the opponents' pieces). Parlett also distinguishes between abstract and thematic games, the latter having a specific theme or frame narrative (ex. regular chess versus, for example, Star Wars-themed chess).^[76]

The following is a list of some of the most common game categories:

Glossary

Although many board games have a

See also

References

Further reading

• Austin, Roland G. "Greek Board Games." Antiquity 14. September 1940: 257–271
• ISBN 978-0-671-06030-5
  .
• ISBN 978-0-671-06030-5
  .
• ISBN 978-0-671-06030-5
  .
• ISBN 978-0-486-20739-1
  .
• Fiske, Willard. Chess in Iceland and in Icelandic Literature—with historical notes on other table-games. Florentine Typographical Society, 1905.
• ISBN 978-1-84169-336-1
  .
• Golladay, Sonja Musser, "Los Libros de Acedrex Dados E Tablas: Historical, Artistic and Metaphysical Dimensions of Alfonso X's Book of Games" (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2007)
• Gordon, Stewart (July–August 2009). "Saudi Aramco World : The Game of Kings".
  Saudi Aramco World. Vol. 60, no. 4. Houston: Aramco Services Company. pp. 18–23. Archived from the original
  on 20 July 2009.
• Grunfeld, Frederic V. (1975). Games of the World.
  ISBN 978-0-03-015261-0
  .
• Midgley, Ruth, ed. (1975). The Way to Play. Paddington Press Ltd.
  ISBN 978-0-8467-0060-9
  .
• Mohr, Merilyn Simonds (1997). The New Games Treasury. Houghton Mifflin Company.
  ISBN 978-1-57630-058-9
  .
• ISBN 978-0-19-827403-2
  .
• ISBN 978-0-87817-211-5
  .
• ISBN 978-0-19-212998-7
  .
• ISBN 978-0-14-005682-2
  .
• ISBN 978-1-86019-021-6
  .
• Rollefson, Gary O.
  , "A Neolithic Game Board from Ain Ghazal, Jordan", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 286. (May 1992), pp. 1–5.
• ISBN 978-0-09-153340-3
  .
• Schmittberger, R. Wayne (1992). New Rules for Classic Games. John Wiley & Sons Inc.
  ISBN 978-0-471-53621-5
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Board games.

• Board Games at
  Curlie
• BoardGameGeek
• BoardGameTheories
• International Board Game Studies Association