About Board Games

A board game is simply an indoor game that is played between two or more people and involved placing counters on a designed board based on the specific rules of the game. There are no specific categories in which board games can be further divided but as you browse through the long list of board games you can see that there are some that involve strategy, others that are based purely on luck and then there are others that need a combination of both. There is always a goal or objective that needs to be achieved for the game to be completed. But this varies depending on the specific board game.

Some archaeologists believe that board games pre-date literacy levels and were played even before man could read and write. Some of the ancient board games include board games from the Jiroft civilization, Senet from the Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, Mehen from Predynastic Egypt, Go from China, Patolli from Mesoamerica, the Royal Game of Ur from the Royal Tombs of Ur and Pachisi and Chaupar from India. Some of the other board games that have been known to exist for many years include ancient blackgammon, Liubo, Latrunculi, Stanway Game, The board games as we known them started to develop in a big way around the 1980's and this genre grew tremendously post this time.

While the expertise required in the game is one way to categorize contemporary games, there have been some attempts at clubbing board games too. Some of the categories that have been created include abstract games like Chess, Checkers, Reverse and Abalone. Then there are also dexterity games like Pitch Car and Tumbling Dice, educational games like Arthur Saves the Planet, Shakespeare and the Bard Game, family games like Roll through the Ages and Birds on a Wire, race games like Parchisi, roll and move games like Monopoly or Life, trivia games, word games and war games too.

German style games have been popular for many years now. These games were relatively simpler than the war games that were more popular during the 1960's and 1970's. Typically most of the German board games have a theme that they are based on. They are not abstract and therefore one can easily relate to them. For example, Carcassonne requires the players to build a medieval landscape along with walled cities and monasteries and Puerto Rico expects the players to develop a plantation on an island. These games are meant to be played socially and therefore do not have a set number of people who can play the game like in the case of chess or bridge. In most cases, 2 to 6 players can play a German style board game at a time. Player elimination is not a standard and these are made for the international audience.

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