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Board game

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Games

   A board game is a game played with counters or pieces that are placed
   on, removed from, or moved across a "board" (a premarked surface,
   usually specific to that game). Simple board games often make ideal
   "family entertainment" since they are often appropriate for all ages.
   Some board games, such as chess, go/weiqi, xiangqi, shogi, or oware,
   have intense strategic value and have been classics for centuries.

   There are many different types of board games. Many games simulate
   aspects of real life. Popular games of this type include:
     * Monopoly, which simulates the real estate market
     * Cluedo/Clue, which simulates a murder mystery
     * Risk, which simulates warfare

   Other games only loosely, or do not at all, attempt to imitate reality.
   These include:
     * abstract strategy games like chess, checkers or go
     * word games, like Scrabble
     * trivia games, like Trivial Pursuit.

   A new genre of board games, DVD games, was introduced into the
   marketplace in 2002 with the launch of the first edition of Scene It?
   (now distributed in the mass market channel by Mattel), and have
   spawned their own game category.
   A shelf full of board games, including Risk, Monopoly and Trivial
   Pursuit.
   Enlarge
   A shelf full of board games, including Risk, Monopoly and Trivial
   Pursuit.

History

   Senet is believed to be the oldest board game
   Enlarge
   Senet is believed to be the oldest board game

   Board games have been played in most cultures and societies throughout
   history; some even pre-date literacy skill development in the earliest
   civilizations. A number of important historical sites, artifacts and
   documents exist which shed light on early board games. Some of these
   include:
     * Senet has been found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of
       Egypt, c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively . Senet is the oldest
       board game known to have existed, having been pictured in a fresco
       found in Merknera's tomb ( 3300- 2700 BC) .
     * Mehen is another ancient board game from Predynastic Egypt.
     * The Royal Tombs of Ur contained, among others, the Royal Game of
       Ur. They were excavated by Leonard Woolley, but his books document
       little on the games found. Most of the games he excavated are now
       housed in the British Museum in London.
     * Buddha games list is the earliest known list of games.

Timeline

     * c. 3500 BC - Senet found in Predynastic Egyptian burials; also
       depicted in the tomb of Merknera.
     * c. 3000 BC - Mehen, board game from Predynastic Egypt, played with
       lion-shaped game pieces and marbles.
     * c. 3000 BC - Ancient backgammon set, found in the Burnt City in
       Iran
     * c. 2560 BC - Board of the Royal Game of Ur (found at Ur Tombs)
     * c. 2500 BC - Paintings of senet and han being played made in the
       tomb of Rashepes
     * c. 2000 BC - Drawing in a tomb at Benihassan depicting two unknown
       board games being played (depicted in Falkner). It has been
       suggested that the second of these is tau.
     * c. 1500 BC - Liubo carved on slab of blue stone. Also painting of
       board game of Knossos.
     * c. 1400 BC - Game boards including alquerque, three men's morris,
       nine men's morris, and a possible mancala board etched on the roof
       of the Kurna temple. (Source: Fiske, and Bell)
     * 548 BC The earliest written references to go/weiqi come from the
       Zuo Zhuan, which describes a man who likes the game.
     * c. 500 BC - The earliest reference to chaturaji or pachisi written
       in the Mahabharata.
     * c. 500 BC - The Buddha games list mentions several types of board
       games.
     * c. 200 BC - A Chinese go/weiqi board pre-dating 200 BC was found in
       1954 in Wangdu County. This board is now in Beijing Historical
       Museum. .
     * 116- 27 BC - Marcus Terentius Varro's Lingua Latina X (II, par. 20)
       contains earliest known reference to latrunculi (often confused
       with ludus duodecim scriptorum, Ovid's game mentioned below).
     * 79- 8 BC - Liu Xiang's (劉向) Shuo yuan, contains earliest known
       reference to Xiangqi.
     * 1 BC- 8 AD - Ovid's Ars Amatoria contains earliest known reference
       to ludus duodecim scriptorum and the smaller merels.
     * 220- 265 - Nard enters China under the name t'shu-p'u (Source: Hun
       Tsun Sii).
     * c. 400 onwards - Tafl games played in Northern Europe.
     * c. 600 The earliest references to chaturanga written in Subandhu's
       Vasavadatta and Banabhatta's Harsha Charitha
     * c. 600 - The earliest reference to shatranj written in
       Karnamak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Papakan.

   Board games first became widely popular among the general population
   early in the 20th century when the rise of the middle class with
   disposable income and leisure time made them a receptive audience to
   such games. This popularity expanded after the Second World War, a
   period from which many classic board games date. Computer games are
   closely related to board games, and many acclaimed computer games such
   as Civilization are based upon board games.

   Many board games are now available as computer games, including the
   option to have the computer act as an opponent. The rise of computers
   has also led to a relative decline in the most complicated board games,
   as computers require less space, and the games don't have to be set up
   and cleared away. With the Internet, many board games can now be played
   online against a computer or other players (like the classic board
   games available on Yahoo, Lycos and other big Internet sites). Some web
   sites allow play in real time and immediately show the opponent's
   moves, while most use e-mail to notify the players after each move (see
   the links at the end of this article).

   The modern board game industry is rife with corporate mergers and
   acquisitions, with large companies such as Hasbro owning many
   subsidiaries and selling products under a variety of brand names. It is
   difficult to successfully market a new board game to the mass market.
   Retailers tend to be conservative about stocking games of untested
   popularity, and most large board game companies have established
   criteria that a game must meet in order to be produced. If, for
   instance, Monopoly were introduced as a new game today, it might not
   meet the criteria for production.

Luck, strategy and diplomacy

   One way of defining board games are between those based upon luck and
   strategy. Some games, such as chess, have no luck involved. Children's
   games tend to be very luck based, with games such as Sorry!, Candy Land
   and snakes and ladders having virtually no decisions to be made. Most
   board games have both luck and strategy. A player may be hampered by a
   few poor rolls of the dice in Risk or Monopoly, but over many games a
   player with a superior strategy will win more often. While some purists
   consider luck to not be a desirable component of a game, others counter
   that elements of luck can make for far more complex and multi-faceted
   strategies as concepts such as expected value and risk management must
   be considered. Still most adult game players prefer to make some
   decisions during play, and find purely luck based games such as Top
   Trumps quite boring.

   The third important factor in a game is diplomacy, or players making
   deals with each other. A game of solitaire, for obvious reasons, has no
   player interaction. Two player games usually do not have diplomacy, as
   cooperation between the two players does not occur. Thus, this
   generally applies only to games played with three or more people. An
   important facet of Settlers of Catan, for example, is convincing people
   to trade with you rather than with other players. In Risk, one example
   of diplomacy's effectiveness is when two or more players team up
   against others. Easy diplomacy consists of convincing other players
   that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against.
   Difficult diplomacy (such as in the aptly named game Diplomacy)
   consists of making elaborate plans together, with possibility of
   betrayal.

   Luck is introduced to a game by a number of methods. The most popular
   is using dice, generally six sided. These can determine everything from
   how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, how their
   forces fare in battle, such as in Risk, or which resources a player
   gains, such as in Settlers of Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a
   deck of special cards that when shuffled create randomness. Scrabble
   does something similar with randomly picked letters. Other games use
   spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness.
   Trivia games have a great deal of randomness based on which question a
   person gets. German-style board games are notable for often having
   rather less luck factor than in many North American board games.

Common terms

   Carcassonne tokens, or meeples
   Enlarge
   Carcassonne tokens, or meeples

   Although many board games have a jargon all their own, there is a
   generalized terminology to describe concepts applicable to basic game
   mechanics and attributes common to nearly all board games.
     * Game board (or board) — the (usually quadrilateral) surface on
       which one plays a board game; the namesake of the board game,
       gameboards are a necessary and sufficient condition of the genre
     * Game piece (or token or bit) — a player's representative on the
       game board. Each player may control one or more game pieces. In
       some games that involve commanding multiple game pieces, such as
       chess, certain pieces have unique designations and capabilities
       within the parameters of the game; in others, such as Go, all
       pieces controlled by a player have the same essential capabilities.
     * Jump — to bypass one or more game pieces and/or spaces. Depending
       on the context, jumping may also involve capturing or conquering an
       opponent's game piece. (See also: Game mechanic: capture)
     * Space (or square) — a physical unit of progress on a gameboard
       delimited by a distinct border (See also: Game mechanic: Movement)

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_game"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
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