List of fictional games

Fictional games are games which were specifically created for works of fiction, or which otherwise originated in fiction.

In his foundational academic work on this topic, Stefano Gualeni defines Fictional Games as "playful activities and ludic artefacts conceptualized as part of fictional worlds",^[3][4] and emphasizes that - as elements of a work of fiction - their purpose is to trigger the imagination of the audience and cannot actually be (or at least were not originally meant to be) played.^[3][4]

Many fictional games have, however, been adapted into real games by fans or

Fictional Games tend not to be presented in a detailed and formally complete manner by their authors. Within the respective works of fiction, they are typically defined just clearly enough to achieve their intended narrative functions.[3]^[4]

Billiards games

• Dom-Jot - Star Trek: The Next Generation, a game similar to bumper pool
  played on an irregularly-shaped table

• Iain M. Banks
• The Blackening - a trivia game based on African-American history and culture, featured in the movie of the same name.
• Cones of Dunshire - a convoluted strategy game invented by Ben Wyatt on Parks and Recreation
• Cyvasse - a strategy game in
  George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which appears to be a combination of Chess and Battleship^[5]
• Dejarik or Holochess - a variant of chess played in the Star Wars setting^[5]
• Gatlopp - a drinking game from the film Gatlopp: Hell of a Game
• Gungi - a strategy game in the Hunter × Hunter manga and anime. It is played on a non-checkered gameboard with 81 squares arranged in a 9×9 grid, and has 13 different types of pieces and several stacked constructs.
• Andrew Looney
  ; an example of a fictional game that now exists as a real-world one
• Jetan - a chess-like strategy game from the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel The Chessmen of Mars
• Jumanji - a magical board game from the book and movie of the same name, later released in a variant as a real game
• Kadis-kot - a board game first seen in the Star Trek: Voyager
  episode "Infinite Regress"
• Liar's Lament – a board game first seen in the Pretty Little Liars episode "Playtime"
• Pai Sho - a strategy game first seen in the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Waterbending Scroll" (S1E9); an example of a fictional game that now exists as a real-world one through various fan-made game versions (the 4 major variants are Skud-, Ginseng-, Vagabond- and Adevăr Pai Sho) and an official version by Nickelodeon
• Stars and Comets - in Andre Norton novels
• Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild, in which pieces move invisibly; Discworld
• Sazou - A game similar to Chess played on Draconia and Gallifrey in Doctor Who.
• Survivor - a two-player game in Return to Zork. The game is asymmetric, and the Zork player character must ultimately win two games, one as each of the Survivor players, to complete Return to Zork.
• Tadek - a strategy game in the Farscape episode "The Flax" that involves building holographic columns while pushing game pieces around a board; the game can be used for gambling^[5]
• Tak - a strategy game in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, later developed into a real game.
• Three-Cornered Pitney - unplayable board game invented by
  Mad Magazine
• Three-Dimensional Chess - a strategy game first seen in the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before ", later developed into a real game
• Thud
  - a chess-like game of Trolls and Dwarves appearing in Terry Pratchett's novel of the same name
• Wizard's chess - a variant of chess in the Harry Potter universe
  , featuring magically animated, intelligent pieces
• Zathura - a Jumanji-like game from the book of the same name and the film Zathura: A Space Adventure.^[6]