What are board games and why are they needed? What are board games? Board games wiki

Types of Board Games

The number of board games that you can play today is simply huge. Board games have always been popular - this is a certain psychological aspect of human thinking that pushes us to this activity. But how can you choose an activity to your liking among all this variety? To do this, you need to understand the question of what types of board games exist and what classifications they are divided into.

All board games existing today, one way or another, are distributed according to four main criteria:

on player interaction
by topic
according to the internal game mechanism
by genre

Each of these main points has its own subcategories and, accordingly, its own characteristics. If you look deeper into them, you can always find the ideal game option for yourself.

Which type do you choose?

So, the first point concerns exclusively how the players will be positioned during the game and how they will have to interact in order to achieve victory. Therefore, this category can be divided into several relationship options:

Competitive type. This is a process where each player is solely responsible for himself, trying to defeat his neighbors in the game. In this situation, all participants are rivals, and only one will ultimately win.
Team or cooperative game type. Here, all participants are divided into teams, and each tries to beat the other, or all participants try to beat the game itself. Here you can play with the whole team, alternately introducing one or the other player. Or you can choose a leader who will perform all manipulations in the game on behalf of the entire team. A fairly large number of people can participate in such games and in the end, not just one player, but the whole team wins.
One against all. This is the type of game where all participants fight against one. He usually plays the role of a villain. There can be several such participants at once, but no more than three. In order to understand this kind of principle of the game, it is enough to recall the popular game “Mafia” today.

Game themes

The themes of the games also have their own variations. It depends on what world the people who decide to play this or that game plunge into. Different types of board games have different themes:

Realism - closeness to our world, real life situations and game moments
Classic fetazi - some elements of fairy-tale or magic, special abilities of players
Fantasy is the complete opposite of realism, original characters and unique action that takes place during the game

The mechanism of the game itself is a very important point that is worth taking a closer look at. It is the mechanics, or simply the rules of the game, that determine how exactly you will play it and who you will become in the process of this exciting action. The game mechanism refers to the number of combinations in the game and is responsible for its level of complexity. Here are some types of mechanisms that are the most sought after and popular in various types of games:

card mechanics (for example)
mechanics on dice or dice
social mechanics
mechanics that arrange objects and characters in the game space

These mechanisms can exist individually or interact with each other, making the game even more amazing and versatile.

Game genres

And finally, the types of board games also have their own classification according to genre. The genre is responsible for important moments in the game. This is the very meaning of games, what sensations it gives and how it plays out, and in addition, according to the genre classification, you can determine what goals this game pursues and what benefits it will bring to you, your children or friends. What genres are found:

Abstract games. This category is familiar to everyone. An example of such games are our favorite chess and checkers.
Social games. This is a very broad category of games that simulate life situations and teach you how to find a way out of them. An example of such games is “Mafia”.

These are the categories of games that are familiar to us since childhood. But board games don't stand still. They evolve, like everything around us. That is why today there are several classes of games that arose in modern times:

Wargames. These are games dedicated to war and strategy.
Ameritrash. A type of American game, which for the most part is designed for luck and fortune.
Eurogamers. Games in which players oppose each other, showing dexterity, endurance and cunning. There is some percentage of luck involved, but most of that luck is based on mistakes made by other players.

Board games are a popular pastime that has taken over the party scene among young people. What is it? Let's figure it out.

Some facts

A board game is a game the essence of which is to move chips or other special objects across a special field or simply pass them from hand to hand. Board games include cards, role-playing games, or otherwise “role-playing games,” dice, and games that require a special field.

This type of games dates back to the 4th millennium BC. Artifacts from those times have also been preserved - frescoes depicting people playing Seneca (something like modern chess). Oddly enough, not much has changed in board games since then. That is, the appearance, rules and other nuances, of course, were adjusted to modern times, but the essence itself remained the same.

Classification of board games

There can be very, very many ways to divide and classify board games, for example:

By the number of players. As already mentioned, either one person or a large company can participate.
By type of items involved. For example, cards, dice, soldiers, checkers and chess, and so on.
According to the method of dividing participants. Division into teams, each for himself, coalitions of participants.
By dynamics. Turn-based strategies - there is a certain sequence of moves and actions, dynamic games - the outcome of the game depends on the speed, reaction and thoughtfulness of each move.
By game type. Intellectual - chess, checkers, some types of card games. Gambling – where the outcome of the game depends on chance, for example, dice, roulette. Games in which the physical abilities of the participants are important - spillikins, towns.
According to its content. Abstract, that is, those where there is no connection with real life, for example, chess or cards. And simulation games, which include all role-playing, strategy and other games where parallels can be drawn with reality.
Also, board games can be divided by area of application:

leisure
communication
competitions
puzzles
educational games

Or special structures, playgrounds, fields, etc.

Story

The history of board games goes back at least 5,500 years. Modern studies of board games suggest that they had a common history. Thus, David Parlett, author of The Oxford History of Board Games, believes that everything, even the most modern board games, have ancient prototypes and, therefore, common roots.

4th millennium BC Senet is a checkers-type game used in Ancient Egypt, the oldest of the more or less reliably known board games today. Around 3000 BC, Backgammon is a checkers-type game that appeared in the Middle East and has survived to this day, although in a modified form. Not later than this time, dice were invented, which are part of backgammon and are used in many other board games. Chaupar is a checkers-type game common in India. Has a cross-shaped field. Cowrie shells were used as dice. A modification of this game called Pachisi is still very popular in Spain. And in Russia it was called “Don’t be angry, my friend.” 2nd millennium BC Go and Go-moku are checker-type games in which pieces do not move around the board, but are only placed and removed from it. They appeared in ancient China and have survived to this day, with minimal changes. 1st millennium BC Checker-type games in Europe - ancient Greek petteia ( petteia, pessoí, psêphoi, or pente grammaí) and ancient Roman latrunculi ( latrunculi ). 5th century Chaturanga, the first known chess-type game, appeared in India. VI-VII centuries Shatranj (Central Asian, Persian, Arabic) and Xiangqi (Chinese) - descendants of Chaturanga appeared and began to spread, respectively, from the Middle East to Europe and from China to the rest of Southeast Asia. VIII-X centuries In Europe, checkers of a modern type appear, in particular, Russian and Scandinavian ones. Beginning of the 2nd millennium AD Changi in Korea and the first versions of shogi in Japan. In Europe - the emergence of modern chess rules, the spread of the game throughout all European countries. 12th century The appearance of playing cards in the East. XIII-XIV centuries Penetration of cards, card games, and backgammon into Europe. The first surviving decrees of European secular rulers and spiritual leaders, prohibiting board games: dice, cards, chess, date back to the same period. Oddly enough, checkers fall out of this series; no one has ever banned them in Europe. XV century Completion of the evolution of chess in Europe. Subsequently, only minor cosmetic changes are made to the rules. 16th century The emergence of modern shogi in Japan. 18th century The game of dominoes was brought to Italy from Asia. 1723 An English checkers player of Polish origin, who remained in history under the nickname Pole, proposed increasing the checkers board to 100 cells and slightly changing the rules of the game - hundred-cell (Polish) checkers appeared. Widespread use and the absence of discrepancies in the rules of the game have made this version of checkers international. 1743 The Englishman Edmond Hoyle created the rules of modern backgammon. Around 1870, the game of mahjong appeared in China. By 1920, mahjong had become a national Chinese game and was known in Japan, Korea, and other countries of Southeast Asia. Having arrived in the United States in the early 1920s, it became quite popular and from there spread to Western Europe. The game of reversi was invented in Great Britain. The popularity of the game would fade away by the beginning of the 20th century. 1934 Charles Darrow created Monopoly, an economic strategy board game for two or more people. 1936 The modern classical rules of renju are formed. 1938 Scrabble by Alfred Butts 1957 Risk In Japan, under the new name "Othello", the long-forgotten game of reversi was revived and became quite popular. Since 1977, the World Reversi Championships have been held. Dungeons and Dragons - the first commercial tabletop role-playing game 1983 Talisman: The Magical Quest Game - one of the first board games in a fantasy setting. It went through several reprints. 1988 Michel Lalet and Laurent Lévi created Abalon, a two-player strategy board game. 1993 Magic: The Gathering of Richard Garfield - the first collectible card game. 1995 Klaus Teuber's Colonizers opened a series of numerous German-style games. 2004 Friedman Freese's Energy Network - a combination of economic strategy with a game of occupying territory. 2010 Pocket Battles by Francesco Sirocci and Paolo Mori - a tactical card game that simulates a battle between two armies.

Classification

There are different ways to classify board games.

By type of items used:

Games of miniatures Miniature games) - toy soldiers, "railroad"
Games with pencil and paper Paper and pencil game) - Tic-Tac-Toe , Battleship , Dots , Balda
Board games with a playing field - chess, checkers, backgammon, mill
Pattern and tile based games Tile-based game) - mahjong, dominoes
Role-playing games - mafia
Word games - contact

In turn, games of the listed types can be further subdivided according to the design features and game mechanism. There is no complete classification, but usually in each class there are several well-known games that differ in the mechanism, such that the rest can be considered as their variants. So, for example, games on special boards can be divided into games of chess and checkers type (the first - with unequal pieces, the second - with equal pieces), in checker type games, in turn, we can distinguish games with fixed ones (go, renju) and moving checkers, the latter are divided into checkers and backgammon, which include specific modifications of the corresponding games: Russian, English, Turkish, international checkers, long and short backgammon, corners and many others.

By number of players:

According to the degree of cooperation between players:

Every man for himself. All other participants in the game are the player’s opponents; he wins or loses alone. See antagonistic game. Examples: chess, preference.
Team to team. Players are initially grouped into teams, which can be two or more. Although each player participates in the game (that is, makes decisions and moves) individually, the competing parties are teams; a team wins or loses entirely, as a rule, victory or defeat is recorded either by the first loser (one of the team players lost - his team lost), or by the winner (one of the team players emerged victorious - his team won), or by some a single integral indicator (the winner is the team whose players scored the most points in total). The ability of team players to act together has a great influence on the result, despite the fact that in many games the rules prohibit players of the same team from communicating and negotiating during the game, so in order to win they need the ability to “read” the state of affairs of their partners during the game process. Example: bridge.
Coalition games. The game begins as a “every man for himself” game, but as the action progresses, players can independently form groups (coalitions) and act together. A coalition that defeats its opponents is either declared victorious in its entirety, or disbands and continues the game, in which players can play free-for-all or form new coalitions. Coalition board games are extremely rare, since it is difficult to achieve a balanced gaming mechanism in order to avoid a predetermined result - the obvious loss of a smaller coalition or an individual.
Cooperative games: players play for a common result - they win or lose together. Examples: Pandemic, Hanabi.

Many commercial card games are played by four players, pair against pair, but mahjong, with the same four players, is a “every man for himself” game. A typical coalition game is tripartite chess (which can also serve as an example of the difficulty of achieving balance in a coalition game).

By dynamics:

Step by step. Players make moves in a certain sequence specified by the rules. The player can think about the next move as much as he wants (in official competitions, time control can be practiced). The outcome depends on the correctness of the move, and not on the speed and speed of reaction. Example - Sid Meier's Civilization: A Board Game.
Dynamic. Moves are made at the request of the players. In them, the player may not have time to make a move, or rush to make a move. The outcome of the game depends not only on the correctness of actions, but also on reaction, speed of action and the correct choice of the optimal moment. An example is lotto, where several players can have the same cards, and the one who manages to be the first to announce this is in a better position.

The division into dynamic and turn-based games is not absolute; there are games with elements of both approaches. For example, Swedish chess - in them, the game in each pair is played according to a step-by-step scheme, but the dependence between the games played simultaneously in pairs adds a dynamic component to the game.

By the nature of the game:

Intellectual (logical, strategic) games. Games where the player's success is determined by his ability to correctly analyze the game situation and make the right move.
Gambling. Games in which the outcome is influenced by a random factor. The role of chance can be completely decisive (for example, a game of dice), but it can also be limited (preference, backgammon). In the latter case, the random factor complements the logical component of the game, and two new (compared to non-gambling logic games) elements appear in the actions of the players - to be able to make the most of a favorable opportunity and, if possible, prepare in advance for failure and mitigate its consequences. It can be noted that this particular definition of gambling is not generally accepted: sometimes only games in which the factor of chance plays a decisive role are classified as gambling, and those games in which, in the presence of a factor of chance, the winnings are largely determined by the skill of the player, are defined as a subclass intellectual games. According to this classification, for example, dice, roulette or points are classified as gambling games, while preference, poker and backgammon can be considered intellectual games.
Games for physical abilities. The result is influenced by reaction, speed of movement, coordination. Example - Sea battle.
Games with incomplete information - games in which at least one player, for at least a limited time, has information about the game that at least one of his opponents does not have (battleship), or a random factor influences the choice of move, its result or the order of moves . Such games include, for example, games with dice and the vast majority of card games (preference, poker, bridge, backgammon).

Abstract. Games that are not directly related to real life. Sometimes it is possible to draw some analogies between the game and real life situations, but the game is not a direct model of reality. So, the same chess was originally a model of a military battle, but by now the analogy between a chess game and a battle is purely conventional. Go can be interpreted as a model of competition for the development of a territory or market, but this is only a far-fetched analogy; there is no direct correspondence between moves on the board and certain actions in the real world. All card games are abstract.
Imitation. The game more or less reliably simulates a certain real process, situation, or event. All “economic” board games can be included in this category. This also includes games that simulate real events in a fictional world, for example, Warhammer 40000. In turn, simulation games can be further divided by topic:
- Economic competitive - modeling economic competition, struggle for the market, development of territory, etc.
- Economic management - modeling a certain management object (city, territory, country), which must be managed to achieve given socio-economic results.
- Military strategic - simulating a military conflict on the scale of the war as a whole, possibly simulating elements of the economy of the warring states. An elementary unit available for control in such games can be a military unit such as a regiment, brigade or division.
- Military tactical - simulating a military clash on the scale of a specific battle, a battle in a limited area. The minimum “control unit” here is usually a squad, platoon, company, specific combat vehicle, etc.
- And so on…

By area of use:

For leisure, entertainment
For communication, communication
Gambling, competitive
Puzzles to warm up your brain
Educational, training, education

In fact, this article goes more through the basics of the story rather than going into it, and is perhaps not as interesting as it might seem. And I don’t really like Wil Wheaton and the organization of “board game day” is his only merit, in my personal opinion. It is also quite possible that there are a huge number of errors in it that I have not noticed.

Royal Game of Ur, 2600 BC.

The board game industry has experienced explosive growth over the past few years.

In 2012, The Guardian called our time the "golden era of board games" in a story that year after year, the board game market has increased by up to 40%, becoming one of the most funded categories on Kickstarter.

The growing interest also inspired Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day to start a popular YouTube show called Table Top. This is a show that pits internet celebrities against each other at the gaming table, and each episode gets up to several hundred thousand views.

So how did something so archaic become so popular? And how did it all start?

The first board games

(5000 BC)

Some people have no idea that board games appeared in prehistoric times before the advent of writing. So what was the first board game?.. Dice! An integral part of most modern board games, they were the basis of mankind's most ancient games.

A set of 49 carved and painted pebbles was found during excavations at the 5,000-year-old Bashur Hayuk mound in southeastern Turkey. They are the oldest gaming components found by archaeologists. Similar examples have been found in Syria and Iraq and may indicate that board games originated in the Fertile Crescent. The Crescent includes the regions around the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East. Booze, papyrus, mints and calendars were also invented in the same region, also useful in organizing your gaming party.

Other early examples of game cubes were flat sticks with one side painted. These sticks were thrown together, and the number of sticks that landed with the colored side up determined the result of the throw. Mesopotamian cubes were made from a variety of materials, including phalangeal bones, wood, painted stones, and turtle shell.

Mesopotamian tetrahedral and stick cubes

Bone cubes of the 5th-3rd centuries. BC. from Greece/Thrace

Over time, cubes were made from a wide range of materials, such as copper, brass, glass, ivory and marble. The dice from ancient Rome are very similar to the six-sided dice we still roll today. There were also dice with cut corners (can be seen in the image above), giving additional options when rolling. They are very similar to the polyhedral dice used in Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games.

Board games are becoming royal entertainment

(3100 BC)

Board games became a popular pastime among the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. First of all, the game Senet. The game has been found in burials from the Predynastic and First Dynasty eras. Senet could be seen on the frescoes of ancient Egyptian tombs. By the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1550-1077 BC), the game had become something of a talisman for traveling to the world of the dead.

The ancient Egyptians had a strong belief in the concept of fate. The strong luck factor in Senet was believed to be closely related to this concept. There was a belief that successful players received the protection of the supreme gods of the Egyptian pantheon: Ra, Thoth and sometimes Osiris. Fields for Senet were often placed in graves along with other useful objects to aid in the dangerous journey through the afterlife. The game is even mentioned in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead.

But opinions differ regarding the gameplay itself. The Senet board is divided into 30 squares, arranged in three rows of ten. There are also two sets of pawns (about five per player, some other variations have more or less). Historians have speculated about the rules of the game, which were adopted by various companies to produce modern Senet sets.

Board games are associated with religion

(3000 BC)

With growing popularity among the nobility, board games were quickly adopted by the working class. And soon after that they began to be associated with religious beliefs. Mehen is such a game.

While the complete rules of the game have never been found, we can say for sure that the game depicts the deity Mehen. The cult of the Sun represented the god Mehen as a huge serpent, enveloping the Sun God Ra in a spiral (the game board itself depicts this moment).

At some point, perhaps even before the Old Kingdom, play and god began to become intertwined. The game has become something more than just a pastime. She became synonymous with the serpent god in text and thought. Tim Kendall, an expert on the history of ancient Egypt, believed that there was no way to know for sure (with currently known evidence) whether the deity was inspired by the game or vice versa.

Lion figurine from Mehen

No rules have been found for Mehen either, but there is a similar Arabic "Hyena Game" that has several similar characteristics. Therefore, the rules for the Hyena Game were adapted for the game of Mehen.

Each player starts with six marbles and one lion. The already mentioned stick cubes determine the player's step distance. Players start on the tail at the outer edge of the field and move towards the head of the snake in the center. Players compete to see whose balls reach the center of the field first. But when the ball reaches the center, the movement continues in the opposite direction, towards the tail. After this, lion figures come into play. This predatory figure was used to capture (eat) the opponent's balls.

The first evidence of humanity's most enduring game

(2650 BC)

It is common to think that backgammon has been the longest game of mankind, but in fact the Royal Game of Ur is much older.

It was assumed that this game was replaced by backgammon 2000 years ago. However, gaming enthusiast Irving Finkel discovered the rules of the game carved on an ancient stone tablet, and then saw a photograph of an identical game from modern-day India. Finkel then met a former schoolteacher who had played the same game as a child. This made the Royal Game of Ur a game that has been played longer than any other game in the history of the world.

The game was found near the Royal Tomb of Ur in Iraq, which is where it gets its name. A game set was also found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. In the Royal Game of Ur, each player had a set of seven black or white counters, as well as three four-sided dice.

The appearance of backgammon

(2000 BC)

In the Roman Empire there was a popular game called Ludus duodecim scriptorum. The name roughly translates to "game of twelve lines", most likely referring to the three rows of 12 notches found on surviving playing fields. The game Tabula is supposed to be the successor to this game, and both are very similar to modern backgammon.

Lined game field XII in the museum in Ephesus

The oldest game with rules identical to backgammon had a field with the same twenty-four points, 12 on each side. As in the modern version, players had 15 checkers and used six-sided dice. The winning conditions were to move all the player's checkers into the house and remove them from the board. The only difference was that three dice were used instead of two, and the checkers started moving behind the board. They crossed onto the field in the same way as checkers cross a bar in the current version of the game.

The popularity of backgammon increased in the mid-1960s, partly due to the charisma of Prince Alexis Obolensky, who became known as the "father of modern backgammon". He was one of the founders of the International Backgammon Association, which published an official set of rules. He also founded the World Backgammon Club, which developed a tournament system for the game in 1963.

Obolensky later organized the first large-scale backgammon tournament in March 1964, which attracted the attention of royalty, celebrities and the press.

The game became a craze and was played on college campuses, discos and country clubs. Adults and children across the country dusted off old boards and checkers. Tobacco, alcohol and automobile manufacturers began sponsoring tournaments, and even Hugh Hefner hosted backgammon parties at the Playboy Mansion. Backgammon clubs grew in popularity, competitions were held, and the largest was the world tournament in Las Vegas in 1967.

In order to restore the popularity of the game in the United States, the United States Backgammon Federation (USBGF) was founded in 2009. The board and committee members include many of the professional players, tournament founders and writers in the international backgammon community.

The influence of war has an effect on military strategy games

(1300 BC)

Ludus latrunculorum is an ancient Roman strategy game for two players. Mentions of it have been found since the time of Homer, and it is similar to chess. Certain sources of information suggest that this is a military tactical game. It is believed that the incessant wars in the 12th century. BC. influenced the themes of the games.

The game consists of many components and a field similar to a chess field. The field was called the “city”, and the figures were called “dogs”. The pieces had two colors, and the art of the game was to capture the opponent's piece between two of your own.

There is a theory that Ludus latrunculorum had an influence on the historical development of chess, in particular on the movement of pawns. When chess came to Germany, the terms "chess" and "check" (coming from Persian) appeared in German as "Schach". But the word "Schach" was already a German word meaning "robbery." Therefore, the medieval Latin name Ludus latrunculorum was often used to refer to chess.

Board games are becoming a part of childhood

(500 BC)

In ancient culture, board games were most often played by adults, and, having become deeply rooted in the culture, they were adopted by children. One of the first (not technically board) games aimed primarily at children was hopscotch. Yes, yes, she is much older than you might think!

The first mentions of the classics go back to Roman children in the five hundred years BC. There are different rules of the game around the world, but the basic principle remains the same. The first player throws something to mark (a pebble, a coin, or a bag of beans) into the first square. The mark must fall exactly within the square, without touching the lines or flying out of bounds. The player then jumps through all the squares, missing the one with the mark on it.

The game was first mentioned in English-speaking countries in the late 17th century, usually under the names scotch-hop or scotch-hopper. The Oxford English Dictionary's etymology of the game's name states that it is a formation of the words "hop" and "scotch," meaning "a cut line or notch."

The influence of board games on Eastern culture

(400 BC)

Despite the fact that board games existed in Asian society long before the 4th century. BC, most of them were variations of Middle Eastern games. Lubo was a game that did not fit into this pattern (the next one after it was Go), being invented exclusively by the Eastern world.

Two players took part in the game. Each of them had six game pieces, which moved point by point on a square playing field with a characteristic symmetrical pattern. Movement was determined by rolling six dice.

Lubo was incredibly popular during the Han Empire, but after that it was no longer popular. It is believed that its popularity has been eclipsed by another game, Go. Lyubo, meanwhile, was forgotten. Knowledge about the game has recently expanded thanks to fields for Lubo found by archaeologists in ancient tombs.

Liubo sets were often funerary objects in Han Dynasty burials. The playing fields were made of different materials - stone tiles, carved wood - and sometimes they were small tables with attached legs, in addition to which were bronze chips. A characteristic feature of the Lubo fields was a specific design carved or painted on the surface.

In many of the game sets found, not all elements were preserved. Since some parts consisted of organic material - wood, for example - they could rot. However, in 1973, an entire perfectly preserved set of the game was found!

The set included the following elements:

1 varnished wooden game box (45 × 45 × 17 cm);
1 varnished wooden playing field (45 × 45 × 1.2 cm);
12 cube-shaped ivory game pieces (4.2 × 2.2 × 2.3 cm), six black and six white;
20 smaller ivory game pieces (2.9 x 1.7 x 1 cm);
30 ivory counting sticks (16.4 cm long);
12 ivory cube sticks (22.7 cm long);
1 ivory knife (22 cm long);
1 ivory scraper (17.2 cm long);
1 eighteen-sided die containing numbers from 1 to 16 and letters representing "victory" and "defeat".

As with most ancient board games, not even a set of rules has been found, but there are assumptions about this:

“Two people sit opposite each other behind the playing field, the field is divided into twelve lanes with two ends and an area called “water” in the middle. According to ancient rules, players use twelve chips, six of which are black and six are white. The game also includes two fish chips that are placed in the water.

Players take turns rolling the dice and moving their pieces. When a chip reaches a certain position, it is placed on its edge - this position is called an "owl". She can then enter the water and eat the fish, which is called "fish pulling".

Each time a player draws a fish, he receives two tokens. If he pulls out two fish in a row, he gets three more (for the second). If a player has already drawn two fish in a row but still has not won, this is called a double draw of a pair of fish.

The first player to receive six tokens wins.

The game of hnefatafl and the birth of chess

(400)

Hnefatafl belongs to the ancient Germanic and Celtic strategy board games using a chessboard and two armies of unequal sizes.

Although the size of the board and the number of pieces varied from version to version, all maintained a clear 2:1 proportion in the number of pieces on different sides, the smaller of which had a king piece in the center of the field. The king's task was to escape off the board while superior forces tried to capture him. The attacking side had the advantage at the start of each game. It is believed that this type of power arrangement was inspired by the successes of the Viking raids.

Hnefatafl spread everywhere the Vikings traveled, including Iceland, Britain, Ireland and Lapland. In Northern Europe alone there are several versions of the game...

Hnefatafl received an offshoot called "chaturanga". Chaturanga is an ancient Indian strategy game that appeared in the Gupta state around the 6th century. AD Then, in the 7th century, it was adopted under the name shatranj in Sasanian Persia, and as a result it passed into late medieval Europe as chess.

Chaturanga set

The game of chaturanga was played on an 8 × 8 board without checker markings, called ashtapada. The board sometimes had special marks, the purpose of which is still unknown.

The game soon acquired its European form - chess, using the same 8 × 8 square board. Early traces of chess can be found in Sasanian Persia in the six hundred AD. Theories are being made that Muslim merchants entered European ports and brought with them ornamental pieces of chess kings, which they carried with them for good luck, before the game was completely introduced there.

The game could have come to Western Europe and Russia along three routes, the earliest of which existed in the 9th century. By the year one thousand AD. it spread throughout Europe. Brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors, it was described in the famous 13th-century manuscript Libro de los juegos, describing shatranj, backgammon and the game of dice.

Around the 1200s, the rules of Shatranj began to change in southern Europe, and around 1475, several radical changes brought the game into what we know it today. These modern rules for basic movement were adopted by Italy and Spain. Pawns were able to move two squares on the first move, and bishops and queens received their now famous abilities. The queen replaced the old figure of the vizier at the end of the tenth century and by the fifteenth had become the most powerful unit. Therefore, modern chess began to be called “queen’s chess” or “mad queen’s chess.” These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe. Rules taking into account stalemate situations were approved only in the late 19th century. Thus, the chess we play today was the result of changing the rules of another game.

During the Age of Enlightenment, chess was seen as a means of self-development. Benjamin Franklin even wrote an article on “The Moral Values of Chess” in 1750. In it, he stated the following:

“The game of chess is not just idle entertainment. With its help, you can acquire or strengthen a number of very valuable mental qualities that are useful in human life and serve in all cases of life. After all, life is like a chess game; in life we also strive to win something and at the same time enter into a fight with rivals; in life there is such a huge variety of good and bad events, which are to some extent the result of our prudence or lack thereof.”

Soon after this, chess was introduced into schools, along with the first chess clubs. Although it is not an official Olympic discipline, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognizes chess as a sport. They even have their own Olympics, held every two years as a sporting competition. Many countries also have national chess organizations.

First evidence of mancala

(700 AD)

Mancala is usually called a specific game, but, nevertheless, it is an entire genre. These games are often called "seed games" or "seed and capture games", which describes the gameplay itself. The word "mancala" comes from the Arabic word "naqala", meaning "to move". More than 800 variants of mancala are known and almost 200 invented games have been described. But some of these names may mean the same game, while one game may have several names.

Most of these types of games have similar gameplay. Players begin by placing a certain number of seeds, varying from game to game, into each hole on the course. Players can count their stones to plan their game. A turn begins by removing all seeds from a hole, "seeding" the seeds (placing one in each adjacent hole), and capturing based on the state of the field. This is the basis for the English phrase count and capture, often used to describe gameplay.

Mancala courses, made from a variety of materials, had a number of holes arranged in rows, usually two by four. The material could be clay and other malleable substances. Sometimes they played by digging holes in the ground or carving them in stone. The holes could be called “deepholes,” “holes,” or “houses.” Sometimes the fields had large depressions called “barns” to accommodate the game pieces.

The game pieces used were seeds, beans, stones, cowrie shells, halves of balls and other small uniform marks that were placed and moved between holes during the game.

The goal of most games with two or three rows of holes is to capture more stones than your opponent. In games with four rows, you often need to leave your opponent unable to make a legal move, and sometimes capture all the pieces in your front row.

At the beginning of the turn, the player chooses a hole with seeds that will be sown across the field. The selection is often limited to the holes closest to the active player and the holes with the fewest seeds.

In a stage known as sowing, all the seeds from a hole are dropped one by one into subsequent holes, spreading them throughout the field. This action is called sowing not only because mancala games were often played with real seeds. Placing the seeds one at a time in different holes reflects actual sowing. A game can only have one seeding round.

Early evidence of the game comes from pottery field fragments and stone cuttings found in the Axum region of Eritrea, as well as Yeha (in Ethiopia). According to archaeologists, they belong to the 6th and 7th centuries. The game was also mentioned by George Abba in his 14th century text. "Secrets of Heaven and Earth", written in the Ge'ez language. George refers to a game called karkis, a Ge'ez term used to define gebta (mancala) and sant'araz (modern centeredge, Ethiopian chess).

Proposed fields for mancala

The similarity of some aspects to agricultural activity and the lack of need for specialized parts suggest that the game may be older than civilization itself; unfortunately, too few examples of the game older than 1,300 years have been found.

"The Landowner's Game"

(1903)

What? Have you ever heard of “The Landlord's Game”? It was created by Lizzie Megae, one of the first American creators of board games. The playing field consists of a path marked out in squares with a number of properties purchased by players. The field had two iron roads, two energy companies, a prison, and a corner with the sign "Working the Earth Provides a Paycheck" that gave players $100 every time they crossed it... Sound familiar?

Megae invented and patented the Landowner's Game in 1904, with the goal of demonstrating in practice the taking of land with all its consequences. She based the game on the economic principles of Georgeism, developed by Henry George, to show how taxes enrich property owners and empty the pockets of tenants.

She knew that some people had a harder time understanding why this happened and what could be done about it, and that the Georgist ideas, implemented in the form of a game, could be much more visible. Maggie also hoped that while children were playing the Landlord's Game, it might arouse their natural suspicions of injustice, causing them to be more vigilant in adulthood.

In 1935, Magie sold her patent for the Landowner's Game to the Parker brothers, who turned it into the modern Monopoly game. This game, which led the Parker brothers to enormous success, was initially rejected by them.

After their success with Monopoly, they created Risk, Sorry, Trivial Pursuit and many others.

Lizzie Magie sold her patent for the original game for $500.

Oscar of board games

(1978)

Spiel des Jahres is a German title meaning "game of the year". It is considered the most prestigious award for board and card games and is awarded by a jury of German game critics.

The goal of the Spiel des Jahres is to reward the best examples of game design, while also promoting top quality games on the German market. It is believed that the existence of the award and its popularity is one of the main drivers of the quality of board games developed in Germany.

A Spiel des Jahres nomination could raise a game's average sales from 500 to 3,000 copies to 10,000, and the winner could expect sales of 300,000 or 500,000 copies.

There are the following criteria for evaluating games:

Game concept: originality, playability, value.
Rule structure: composition, clarity, accessibility.
Structure: box, field, rules.
Design: functionality, quality of execution.

List of Spiel des Jahres winners

The award contributed to the popularity and growth of games such as Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Hanabi and Dixit. It is also generally considered to be responsible for the popularity of the Eurogame genre.

Eurogame is a class of board games in which the element of luck is minimized, the players' influence on each other is not direct, and the focus is on economics and strategy.

The influence of the "Colonizers" in the United States

(1995)

Settlers of Catan was one of the first Eurogames to reach popularity outside of Europe. Over 24 million games in the series have been sold, translated into more than thirty languages.

In Colonizers, players compete to build the most successful colony on an island called Catan (clever, huh?). The playing field representing the island consists of hexagonal tiles with different types of terrain.

On a player's turn, he rolls dice (and more) to see if the land he occupies produces resources used to build roads, cities, and settlements.

By building settlements and purchasing cards, players receive victory points. Unlike many other games, Colonizers encourages the player to go beyond the rules, allowing them to create their own agreements by trading resources with each other.

The popularity of Settlers in the United States earned it the title "the board game of our time" by The Washington Post. She also appeared in the 2012 US documentary Going Cardboard, which detailed the game's impact on the American gaming community.

The game was created by Klaus Teuber, who worked as a dental technician near the industrial city of Darmstadt in Germany in the 1980s. Teuber developed board games in his basement in his spare time. According to him, he did this to take his mind off work.

Teuber, 62, is still baffled by the popularity of his own creation. He never suspected that Colonizers would become such a successful game.

Almost all board game designers, even the most successful ones, most often have a primary profession other than creating games. Teuber became one of the few who make a living from this.

When he appears at important gaming events, Teuber is greeted like a rock star.

For many players, myself included, Colonizers became a gateway to the world of Eurogaming. Before Colonizers, the conversation about board games was limited to Sorry, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Battleship - games that did not arouse much interest among anyone.

Colonizers was a major catalyst for the sudden popularity of board games in the United States. They gave people an interest in games that used a radically different set of rules and mechanics.

Kickstarter gives people the opportunity to fund new games

(year 2009)

With the market growing thanks to games like Carcassonne, Colonizers, Alhambra and Ticket to Ride, people wanted more. However, creating and delivering board games to the market is not that easy.

As already mentioned, many game designers have full-time jobs and creating games is a hobby for them. They usually don't even make enough profit to justify making the game, let alone release a couple of expansions.

At least that was the case before Kickstarter.

And if you've been living under a rock on a desert island located in a cave on another planet, Kickstarter is a global crowdfunding platform that helps bring the most daring and creative projects to life.

Originally conceived for music and films, Kickstarter has spawned more than 200,000 projects, including music, shows, comics, digital products and, of course, board games. The platform has raised more than $1.5 billion for various projects, and sponsors have received tangible rewards in exchange for their contributions.

Kickstarter revolutionized the board game market by giving avid gamers a chance to pitch their ideas to like-minded people. The gaming community got a chance to bring their ideas to life. You won't believe how much money some of the game projects have raised.

The Conan crowdfunding campaign launched on January 12, 2015, with the goal of raising $80,000. The full amount was raised in five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. In total, the project raised $3,327,757.

And this doesn't just apply to board games. Dwarven Forge has raised $2,140,851 for a project to produce terrain models for role-playing games.

As of this writing, you can sponsor 213 board game projects on Kickstarter. This is a good indicator of how far the board game community has come.

Board games are getting an annual world event

(year 2013)

We are finally returning to one of the strongest accelerators of the growth of interest in board games - TableTop. TableTop is a board game web series created by Wil Keaton and Felicia Day. In each episode, Wil plays board games with popular TV and internet personalities.

TableTop started as a show on the Geek & Sundry Youtube channel and quickly became the most popular show there. The TableTop concept started with Wil Wheaton (an avid board game fan) reviewing games. But then Wil realized that the best way to show how good these games are is to show their gameplay. And if you look at the success of the show, he managed to do it.

TableTop saw such growth that by season three, the show's creators launched a crowdfunding campaign in an attempt to become independent. The campaign raised triple its original goal of $500,000. They recently announced that they will use the additional proceeds to launch a web series, Titan's Grave: The Ashes of Valcana.

Titan's Grave will be a multi-episode show focused on a single tabletop role-playing game. Geek & Sundry have teamed up with Green Ronin Publishing (creators of role-playing games including Dragon Age) to create a new game engine used for their RPG.

TableTop has become a resonating force in the board gaming community. Its mission is to introduce board games to newbies who are confused about board games. Many people still think of Monopoly and Risk when they think of board games. The popularity of TableTop has changed that. The show became so popular that games participating in it could instantly see an increase in sales. When Tsuro was on the show, demand for it was so high that the publishers ran out of stock of the game. The game was unavailable in Europe for a while as production tried to cover requests from the US. Game creators called this the "Wheaton effect."

How is the popular Youtube channel connected to the annual event? In 2013, Wil and Felicia hosted an international board game day where they played on stage with guests from previous episodes. The following year, the event became a global celebration in more than 80 countries. The next Board Game Day was held on April 11, 2015, and gaming stores around the world held various events and promoted their participants. The players finally got their global holiday.

What to expect in the future?

Through the efforts of many, a friendly community has been built on the Internet and in real life, where people share opinions, strategies, thoughts and even techniques for painting miniatures for board games. But despite its rapid growth, this community is just nascent. Continue to host board game parties and events to introduce new people to the fun of board games. There will be so much more!

Board games, if you're not in the know, are games that are played at a table. "Fool" and other card games - board games. Chess too. Activity, popular in all countries, is of course here. We decided to figure out why board games are needed, who plays them and where to get them in Khabarovsk

Board games do not require players to actively move around. Only if you don’t play forfeits and you didn’t get the task “jump on one leg 10 times.” The items used in a board game literally fit on the table. Well, sometimes we play them on the floor. This also counts.

The history of board games goes back at least 5,500 years. The oldest known game - the progenitor of all modern chip and checkers games - is Senet.

According to legend, it was invented by the ancient Egyptian god of knowledge Thoth in order to win from the moon deity Khonsu a few extra days for the goddess Nut, on whom the sun god Ra had placed a curse. Then there were 360 days in a year, and the goddess could not give birth on any of them. Thoth won this game - of course, he invented this game. God won five days for the goddess Nut, after which the solar year became 365 days, and the lunar year only 355, and people received a new game and five extra days in the calendar. Scientists honestly tried to understand how to play senet, but no one found the exact rules. Apparently Khonsou didn’t understand, and that’s why he lost. And now we work five more days every year.

Backgammon appeared around 3000 BC. e. The first known chess-type game, chaturanga, was invented in India in the 5th century AD. e. Playing cards originated in the East in the 12th century. In short, humanity has been playing board games for a long time, and games were considered a luxury and were available only to the upper strata of the population.

But everything that was once the property of only elite culture eventually becomes mass culture. It is impossible to determine exactly when everyone started playing games. This happened gradually - and now, cards, chess and checkers are in almost every home.

Board games in Russia

For us it all started with spillikins. Our great-great-grandfathers also played them, and their great-great-grandfathers, most likely, too. This is a game where you put some small identical objects (sticks or toys) into one pile, and the players take turns pulling out one object at a time, trying not to destroy the pile. After whose move the pile crumbled, he lost.

Then someone came up with "Goosey", a game that in the 19th century transformed into "Journey". It was played on a specially made board, along the middle of which a winding line was drawn.

“On both sides there are lines drawn in circles: geese, an inn, a prison, numbers. Whoever puts the checker on the goose first has the right to move forward and backward. And the rest of the players, with fewer points, can only go forward, enter the inn, where they pay for the stay; whoever enters the dungeon leaves the game,” writes Russian ethnographer Alexander Tereshchenko in his work “Life of the Russian People.” Whoever reaches the end first wins. Here is an illustration of the already modified game.

In the 19th century, board games with a historical background began to be made: there were many strategic games dedicated to the Russian-Turkish war, a large number of children's board games, with the help of which children studied history, languages, and the alphabet. They were made according to the good old lotto principle.

During the Soviet period, board games first acted simply as one of the leisure options, and then acquired additional propaganda and educational functions. Only the best gaming publications, aimed at raising a worthy citizen of the Soviet country, went on sale. The most popular in the eighties were “Adventures on the Moon” (where you have to save heroes in outer space who got into all sorts of troubles) and “The Old Castle” (where you have to find a way out of a maze in a castle). In the nineties, everyone played “Manager”: inflation, privatization and the introduction of large denomination banknotes into circulation - all the “delights” of the world economic life of that time are on your table. “Western” was also popular - also an economic game, but here, in addition to seriousness, there were a lot of jokes. Either the players get into a shootout, then they spend all their money on prostitutes, or they sell drugs. Realistic.

Then we forgot about games for a while. And in 2008, Mosigra appeared. The future team of the future - it should be noted, the largest in Russia - began its business by selling a batch of the game "Jackal". This is a strange strategy in which there is a field and chips, but no dice, the chips are placed in random order and generally God knows what’s going on.

The pirated “Jackal” was popular back in the eighties all over the world, so entrepreneur Dmitry Kibkalo made the right decision: the circulation sold out. At first, the team distributed games via the Internet, but then they realized that the client wanted to look at the game before buying, and opened a real store. After this, Mosigra became popular in other cities of Russia, and then outside the country.

At the moment, there are two major players in the board game market in Russia - Mosigra and Hobby Games. Both stores order games from abroad and translate them, as well as making their own. Among them there are modifications of well-known games that can be played for years, and all sorts of “one-day games”.

Mikhail Stroev

Director of the Khabarovsk Hobby Games store

“Purely subjectively, board games are becoming an increasingly popular form of entertainment. If only because our number of clients is growing every month. Sometimes I see people playing in public places. Managers of children's camps, cafes, pizzerias, holiday homes and development centers buy games from us. That is, of course, board games are increasingly penetrating the lives of Khabarovsk residents. But, if we take a comparative level, then we are still in the Stone Age. Let’s say that in Germany it is considered normal to have a cabinet for board games at home, and board game conventions attract tens of thousands of people.”

Classification

In fact, there are many classifications. You can't list everything. The main Khabarovsk tabletop artist Mikhail Stroev helped us compose this one, but it is also conditional. One game can be found in several types, and this is normal, because now such games have been invented that it is impossible to attribute them to one type.

1. Party games. These are fun and as simple as possible games that do not require players to delve into the rules for a long time. Association games (Alias, Imaginary, Activity and others), reaction games (Svintus), role-playing games (Mafia).

2. Card games. This includes the well-known “Fool” and the lesser-known Magic: the Gathering. Each player has his own deck with spells, resources and creatures that he calls onto the battlefield to fight for him. The game is a collectible game, that is, every year new cards are released for it, you can exchange them, collect a certain type of cards, and so on. Maybe card Pokemon will soon appear on the few board game counters in Khabarovsk. Remember these?

3. Abstract (or logical) games. Chess, checkers, backgammon and various kinds of puzzles.

4. Strategies. Here, manufacturers around the world are walking in earnest. There are both quite simple ones (Carcassonne, for example), and difficult ones. For example, “Game of Thrones” based on the series of the same name can take several hours to delve into.

5. Games with miniatures. This includes all soldier games, railroad games and other toy games. The most striking representative of the currently popular board games is Warhammer 40,000. Grown-up guys glue soldiers and armored vehicles of the future, then paint them in their own colors and, God willing, someday get to a gaming table measuring 1.8 by 1.2 meters. The landscape is placed there and one or another mission is played out.

6. Role-playing.“Mafia”, in theory, should settle here. This also includes, in principle, all games in which you are assigned some role during the game. In short, all strategies and many more of the games listed above can be included here.

Who needs board games in Khabarovsk

In this business, like in any other, there are two sides: the seller and the buyer. If there is demand, there will be supply. But there are still more offers in our city.

“We are not the first to open a specialized tabletop store. In 2010, a friend of my friend tried himself in this field, but lasted literally six months and closed.”

Mikhail Stroev

Director of Khabarovsk Hobby Games

And this “comrade of a comrade” was not alone in his aspirations. There are a lot of shops on the Internet that sell boards “in between times”, purchasing small quantities. If we talk about more serious entrepreneurs, then in Khabarovsk, in addition to Hobby Games, there are several more board game stores. “Khabigra”, which has a real store, and in their “dead” VKontakte group there are almost 594 subscribers, “Game Market”, there are 59 games on the site, sold only via the Internet. “Igruccio” is the most unpopular, judging by the number of responses on social networks. That's all we could find. Why don’t such “shops” last long in our country?

Success does not come because most Khabarovsk residents simply do not know that their leisure time can be spent this way.

Most people still think that board games are limited to chess, backgammon and various card games. At best, they are familiar with Monopoly, some with Alias. With the advent of online stores for board games, people began to get acquainted with other games and saw that they are not only the ones we are all used to.

“We undoubtedly have fans, I think there are about a hundred people in the city. The main clients are young people under 35 years old. 68% men, 32% women. Older people rarely come to us and they are usually interested in classics like lotto, chess or backgammon. They can be understood: the older a person is, the less he experiments.”

It turns out that we don’t have that many board game lovers. Then how to make money from this? Does it even make sense to sell board games in our city? It only makes sense in one case: if you are selling not casually, but in all seriousness. You look for clients, good premises, invest in advertising, collaborate with establishments that need these games - in general, you bother.

“For this reason, I left the office of the governor of the regional government. Some relatives are still perplexed as to how it was possible to give up a career as an official.”

Why play board games?

HLEB - for interesting leisure time. Therefore, so that you can now close your browser and gather a group to play, we are talking about the advantages of board games:

they develop various skills, from communication to analytical thinking and logic;
they awaken emotions in us, make us laugh and rejoice;
there are a lot of them, you can choose any one to suit your taste;
they are universal: they can be played anywhere and anytime;
they will brighten up your wait on the train and on the plane;
they will tear you away from the TV and computer;
they will bring you closer to your loved ones;
This is a great gift for any holiday.

“A board game is a great excuse to meet with friends more often. Today, when we spend 16 hours a day at the computer with a break for sleep, live communication is becoming more and more in demand.

Especially for HLEB readers, the Hobby Games store gives a promo code by which you can get a 10% discount when purchasing board games in the store, in the Joy Stores shopping center (1st floor near the side entrance) from 10:00 to 22:00.

Promo code: "BAZINGA". Imagine that you are a brilliant sociopathic physicist, make a bug and get a discount. The promo code is valid until December 11.

Play more often.

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