Board game

A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects (game pieces) that are placed and/or moved in particular ways on a patterned board (game board), potentially including other components, e.g. dice.
Many board games feature a competition between two or more players, but there are growing numbers of single-player board games and cooperative board games as well. To give a few examples: in checkers (British English name 'draughts'), a player wins by capturing all opposing pieces, while Eurogames often end with a calculation of final scores. Pandemic is a cooperative game where players all win or lose as a team, and peg solitaire is a puzzle for one person.
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 gameplay varies greatly from game to game, but is not necessarily related to the number or complexity of rules; for example, chess or Go possess relatively simple rulesets but have great strategic depth.
Classical board games are divided into four categories: race games (such as pachisi), space games (such as noughts and crosses), chase games (such as hnefatafl), and games of displacement (such as chess).
Board games have been played, traveled, and evolved in most cultures and societies throughout history. Several important historical sites, artifacts, and documents shed light on early board games such as Jiroft civilization game boards in Iran. Senet, found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively, is the oldest board game known to have existed. Senet was pictured in a fresco painting found in Merknera's tomb (3300–2700 BC). Also from predynastic Egypt is mehen.
Hounds and jackals, another ancient Egyptian board game, appeared around 2000 BC. The first complete set of this game was discovered from a Theban tomb that dates to the 13th dynasty. This game was also popular in Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.
Backgammon originated in ancient Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago. Ashtapada, chess, pachisi and chaupar originated in India. Go (4th century BC) and liubo (1st century BC) originated in China. The board game Patolli originated in Mesoamerica and was played by a wide range of pre-Columbian cultures such as the Toltecs and the Aztecs. The royal game of Ur was found in the royal tombs of Ur, dating to Mesopotamia 4,600 years ago.
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. This game of petteia would later evolve into the Roman ludus latrunculorum. 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 400 AD. In ancient Ireland, the game of fidchell or ficheall, is said to date back to at least 144 AD, though this is likely an anachronism. A fidchell board dating from the 10th century has been uncovered in Co. Westmeath, Ireland.
In the United Kingdom, 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. 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. 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 and William Spooner's A Voyage of Discovery were popular in the British empire. Kriegsspiel is a genre of wargaming developed in 19th century Prussia to teach battle tactics to officers.
The board game Travellers' 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.
Margaret Hofer described the period of the 1880s–1920s as "The Golden Age" of board gaming in America. Board game popularity was boosted, like that of many items, through mass production, which made them cheaper and more easily available.
Different traditional board games are popular in Asian and African countries. 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. A board game of flicking stones (Alkkagi) became popular among people in South Korea after various Korean variety shows demonstrated its gameplay on television.
In the late 1990s, companies began producing more new games to serve a growing worldwide market. In the 2010s, several publications said board games were amid a new Golden Age or "renaissance". Board game venues also grew in popularity; in 2016 alone, more than 5,000 board game cafés opened in the U.S., and they were reported to be very popular in China as well.
Board games have been used as a mechanism for science communication.
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.
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. 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.
Luck may be introduced into a game by several methods. The use of dice of various sorts goes back to the earliest board games. These can decide everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, as in Risk, or which resources a player gains, as in Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a deck of special cards that, when shuffled, create randomness. Scrabble creates a similar effect using randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness. German-style board games are notable for often having fewer elements of luck than many North American board games. Luck may be reduced in favour of skill by introducing symmetry between players. For example, in a dice game such as Ludo, by giving each player the choice of rolling the dice or using the previous player's roll.
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.
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.
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.) allow play in real time and immediately show the opponents' moves, while others use email to notify the players after each move. The Internet and cheaper home printing has also influenced board games via print-and-play games that may be purchased and printed. Some games use external media such as audio cassettes or DVDs in accompaniment to the game.
There are also virtual tabletop programs that allow online players to play a variety of existing and new board games through tools needed to manipulate the game board but do not necessarily enforce the game's rules, leaving this up to the players. There are generalized programs such as Vassal, Tabletop Simulator and Tabletopia that can be used to play any board or card game, while programs like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are more specialized for role-playing games. Some of these virtual tabletops have worked with the license holders to allow for use of their game's assets within the program; for example, Fantasy Grounds has licenses for both Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder materials, while Tabletop Simulator allows game publishers to provide paid downloadable content for their games. However, as these games offer the ability to add in the content through user modifications, there are also unlicensed uses of board game assets available through these programs.
While the board gaming market is estimated to be smaller than that for video games, it has also experienced significant growth from the late 1990s. A 2012 article in The Guardian described board games as "making a comeback". Other expert sources suggest that board games never went away, and that board games have remained a popular leisure activity which has only grown over time. Another from 2014 gave an estimate that put the growth of the board game market at "between 25% and 40% annually" since 2010, and described the current time as the "golden era for board games". The rise in board game popularity has been attributed to quality improvement (more elegant mechanics, components, artwork, and graphics) as well as increased availability thanks to sales through the Internet. Crowd-sourcing for board games is a large facet of the market, with $233 million raised on Kickstarter in 2020.
A 1991 estimate for the global board game market was over $1.2 billion. A 2001 estimate for the United States "board games and puzzle" market gave a value of under $400 million, and for United Kingdom, of about £50 million. A 2009 estimate for the Korean market was put at 800 million won, and another estimate for the American board game market for the same year was at about $800 million. A 2011 estimate for the Chinese board game market was at over 10 billion yuan. A 2013 estimate put the size of the German toy market at 2.7 billion euros (out of which the board games and puzzle market is worth about 375 million euros), and Polish markets at 2 billion and 280 million zlotys, respectively. In 2009, Germany was considered to be the best market per capita, with the highest number of games sold per individual.
Some academics, such as Erica Price and Marco Arnaudo, have differentiated "hobby" board games and gamers from other board games and gamers. 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. A similar 2015 estimate suggested a hobby game market value of almost $900 million.
A dedicated field of research into gaming exists, known as game studies or ludology.
While there has been a fair amount of scientific research on the psychology of older board games (e.g., chess, Go, mancala), less has been done on contemporary board games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, and Risk, and especially modern board games such as Catan, Agricola, and Pandemic. Much research has been carried out on chess, partly because many tournament players are publicly ranked in national and international lists, which makes it possible to compare their levels of expertise. The works of Adriaan de Groot, William Chase, Herbert A. Simon, and Fernand Gobet have established that knowledge, more than the ability to anticipate moves, plays an essential role in chess-playing ability.
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.
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. Playing board games has also been tied to improving children's executive functions and help reduce risks of dementia for the elderly. 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 and the extent to which they are playable for people with disabilities.
Additionally, board games can be therapeutic. Bruce Halpenny, a games inventor said when interviewed about his game, The Great Train Robbery:
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.
There are several ways in which board games can be classified, and considerable overlap may exist, so that a game belongs to several categories.
The namesake of the board game, game boards would seem to be a necessary and sufficient condition of the genre, though card games that do not use a standard deck of cards (as well as games that use neither cards nor a game board) are often colloquially included, with some scholars therefore referring to said genre as that of "table and board games" or "tabletop games", or seeing board games as a subgenre of tabletop games.
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". 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).
The following is a list of some of the most common game categories:
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.