The history of board games totals no less than five and a half thousand years. Most modern studies suggest that this story was shared. That is, even the most modern board games have ancient prototypes, which means that they have common roots.
Oldest games
The story of the emergence of board games begins, apparently, in India, China and Mesopotamia. There were the oldest dice options. Each player must roll a certain number of dice (from one to five). The result of the throw determines the winner or loser. Until the end of the game, any number of throws may be made.
Dice, similar to today's bones, were found during excavations of settlements five thousand years ago. The instrument for the game was made of stone or bone. Sometimes these were small pebbles or irregularly shaped, on the sides of which glasses were indicated by thread.
Dice continue to exist to this day, however, they are mainly used as an auxiliary element for many board games and modeling the effect of randomness.
No less popular version of the bones - flat wooden sticks, which were painted on one side. The sticks were taken in the palm of your hand and thrown onto a flat surface, and then the number of those that fell with the painted side up was counted. So it was possible to get a random number from zero to an infinite maximum, which was determined by the number of sticks used.
A well-known game that has not survived to this day is Senet. The story of the creation of the board game became known in the nineteenth century from drawings in Egyptian tombs. It is likely that the ancient Egyptians played Senet in the fourth millennium BC. Some researchers identified the find as a variation of chess, but it soon became clear that this was a fallacy. Senet is a game more like checkers.
The story of the emergence of board games in the Middle East began, possibly with backgammon. This game has been preserved in a modified form. The popular royal game, Ur. It was discovered that this entertainment is still in use in India.
Board Games in China
In the second millennium BC, board games appeared in ancient China, some of which are forgotten, while other people continue to play at the present time. An amusing - mysterious game has sunk into oblivion, which is known only thanks to single references in documents and individual finds of archaeologists. Lubo was a gamble with divinatory practices, which makes her truly unique.
Much more popular are go-moku and go, Tibetan go. These are games like checkers, but the chips do not move around the board, but simply are put out or removed from it. It is still unknown whether Tibetan Go is the forerunner of the game or only its local version.
Middle East and South Asia
The history of board games is closely connected with India and the Middle East, because it was there that a huge number of entertainments were created, which have many analogues and imitations around the world. In India, dominoes appeared at the end of the first millennium, and of the less well-known, one can call chaupar - a game like checkers, in which the chips moved around a cross-shaped board. A variant of this game, Pachisi, is currently popular in Spain, and in Russia it was known earlier under the name "Don't get mad, my friend."
The most famous for this region are variants of modern classic chess. About the fifth century, chaturanga appeared in India - the first chess game in history. The theory is widespread that initially four players played chess. Now this statement has not been fully proven, and the question of what form of chess appeared before the others remains open.
Southeast Asia
The games of this region were borrowed from India. So, in the first millennium BC, dominoes were brought to China. About fifty different games were created on the basis of knuckles in the Middle Kingdom, and the set of knuckles itself was changed and expanded. New chess options have also appeared, for example, the Japanese game of shogi, Korean changi, Thai makruk, Chinese xiangqi and the like. The classic shogi, which is played in modern Japan, was first recorded in the sixth century by the emperor Go-Nara.
One of the most famous Southeast Asian games is Mahjong. It appeared around 1870 in China, but was distributed only in a limited part of the country. Then the popularity of the game increased dramatically. By 1920, mahjong was considered a national game in China; it was also distributed in Korea, Japan and other countries of the region.
Europe and America
In Europe, bones and some variations of checkers were common, of which little is known. The only authentically known European game is the Scandinavian khnefatafl - checkers on a checkered field. More precisely, it was a series of similar games. In the Russian documents of the third century AD, the “Tavlya heroic” and “Tavlya Germani” are mentioned - these are the Russian names for henna oil. Chips for this game during archaeological excavations were found on the territory of Kievan Rus: in Kiev, Chernigov, Pskov and Novgorod.
In the tenth century, prototypes of chess were brought to Europe from Central Asia, Alkirk - a game like checkers, considered an ancient version of modern checkers, cards and card games, backgammon. By the way, many rulers forbade board games. But no one in Europe has ever banned checkers.
Board Game Boom
Already at the end of the twentieth century, the history of board games began to arouse interest among researchers and the public. New versions and options have appeared. So, in 1974, the first commercial role-playing game “Dungeons and Dragons” arose. And 1983 was marked by the creation of the board game "Talisman" - one of the first in the environment of fantasy. The “colonialists” of Klaus Toiber were the first in a series of numerous games in the German style, and the Energy Network (Friedman Frieze) combined a game for occupying the territory and an economic strategy.
In Russia
The history of board games in Russia began in the time of Ancient Russia. Little information has been preserved about the ancient stage, but in the Soviet Union people massively played table hockey and football, playing cards, dominoes and lottos, which are called Russian. An interesting theory, but, in fact, a lotto was created in Italy. But the famous "Mafia" was invented in Moscow in 1986, mostly students played it.
The history of board games is ongoing. The twenty-first century has already marked a new round of interest in such entertainment, so no one knows what awaits this industry in a few years. A lot depends on not only the creators of the games, but also all those who are not indifferent to this type of leisure. So, if there are those interested (that is, demand), then there will be creators of exciting board games.