Posts Tagged ‘board games’
Ancient Lewis chess set
Currently, the oldest board game of the world is the Egyptian Senet, dated 3500 BC. Senet is mentioned in the Book of the Dead, the Egyptian funerary text which describes the afterlife believes of this ancient civility.
It was believed that winning players of Senet were protected by the tree most powerful gods of ancient Egypt: Ra, Thoth and Osiris.
The Senet is played on a bridge of thirty boxes, while on the back, a second plank of twenty boxes were used for another game called Tjau, but we don’t know with certainty the rules of the game.
King chess piece
Senet game board really similar to the chess one and for this reason many scholars think that this ancient Egyptian board game is the great-great-grandfather of the game of chess.
Four sets to play Senet, handmade carved in ivory, were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1333 BC.
Another ancient board game is the chess set of the Scottish island of Lewis, consisting of 78 pieces of Nordic origin made with Ivory and whale bones. The Isle of Lewis Chess Set is a really piece of games archaeology and dates back to the twelfth century (1150-1170 AD) and perhaps, it is the only examples to date of existing medieval chess. Read the rest of this entry »
heroScape the board game
For Christmas and News Eve holidays we shall meet the family: children and adults together around a big dining table. That’s a good occasion to play the best board games and party games for all the family. Certainly among the most classic games are always fun and Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble and bingo, where the legendary Grandma usually scoops the jackpot.
Do not despise even the Quiz Trivial Pursuit, in all the sauces and classic party games. In short, these are the classic board games to buy this Christmas, but if you look for the latest games releases, you can buy Heroscape and Settlers of Catan.
Heroscape and Settlers of Catan are two role plays / board games that bring fun to all family, adults in particular.
Heroscape is a game branded Hasbro and it’s a little bit pricey (around 60 pounds). But this board game is really fun to play an d will appeal to those who love heroes and monsters and the fantasy genre with special missions and quests to do. A Master will follow the whole story, managing the game with its beautiful miniatures and settings. Many cards and dice look very similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Read the rest of this entry »
Party games for adults and kids, such as board games and skill games, are increasing their presence online. There are many websites totally dedicated to the world of gaming, board games and skill games with reviews and advices for online buying.
If you have original gaming ideas you can also create your own party game with paper and pencil or amaze your friends with magic card tricks.
You can showcase your skills with party games kids and adults and thes are the top games to challenge your friends: Read the rest of this entry »
Old Monopoly edition
Who is Mr Monopoly and What are the real stories around the Monopoly board game?
Monopoly is considered, the father of all modern board games. Its popularity doesn’t know borders or language barriers and from its firsts years of life, it became the favourite board game of kids and parents.
There are so many stories and incredible facts around Monopoly that would be impossible talk about history of board games without making any reference to these events. Friends playing Monopoly in the most unusual ways and people attempting incredible records.
Here you can find some real stories and incredible facts that surround the Monopoly board game:
Read the rest of this entry »
Acropolis of Athens
Once, on the Acropolis of Athens ancient Greeks used to play board games. They used to roll the dice and play in the Parthenon, the great temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, protector of the city.
Ancient Greeks played Board games very similar to our checkers or chess, with game boards engraved on the floor.
The archaeologist Eleni Karakitsou reveals that during the work of restoration of the Parthenon were found about 50 boards carved on the stairways and the floor, but they used to be certainly more.
The famous image of Achilles and Ajax playing dice under the walls of Troy, painted on many Greek vases, prove that dices games were ancient Greeks favourite pastime .
Read the rest of this entry »
scrabble one of the most popular games in US
Scrabble is probably one of the most famous board games ever invented with over 100 million sets sold in all the world.
Today everyone knows Scrabble and have played this linguistic clever game once at least, but few people know the real story of its invention.
In fact not everyone knows that Scrabble before becoming a famous board game was first a commercial flop.
Year 1931; The city of Poughkeepsie, upstate New York, was facing the worst years of the great depression. This was the situation when an architect, Alfred Mosher Butts, lost his job and decided to devote himself to his biggest passion: board games and words. Soon Butts decided to invent a board game to play with words and improve the linguistic skills of the player. Towards the end of 1931 Butts had already developed the basic idea of the board game, which was initially called Lexico. This game was initially played without the board and players calculated their scores according to the length of the words formed. There were also reward points for words formed with less frequent letters (B, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y) and bonus points even higher for those containing unusual letters (J, K, Q, X, Z).
In 1933, Butts tied to register the trademark of is new board game but his request was denied. Similarly, when he proposed the new board game to the two top gaming company In United States, (Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley), he received only a polite refuse.
Read the rest of this entry »
the board and the pieces of Gomoku
Gomoku (五目並べ) is a Japanese traditional logic board game, related with the game of Gobang (which uses the same board and pieces), and it’s also know in English countries as Five in a Row.
The rules of the game of Gomoku are in fact different and much simpler than the Gobang game and for this reason it’s a board game played mainly by children. But despite its simples rulres Gomoku is a strategy and logic board game more complex and difficult than Tic Tac Toe (also called Nine Mens Morris) and the modern Connect Four. Read the rest of this entry »
Anti Monopoly board game
Ridley Scott announced his commitment into a new movie based on the Monopoly board game.
The script is not ready yet, so we can’t give you an overview of the plot, but we can tell you about the real story behind the invention of Monopoly.
A story of money, success, plagiarism and legal fights revealed to the pubblic only in the eighties after the so called Monopolygate: Read the rest of this entry »
A research show how online games growth is lead by skill games.
As part of a global study on the gaming sector, Ernst & Young presented the results of an investigation into the online gaming market.
The Market analysis shows how the online gaming sector registers an average growth of 13% per year.
The study confirms the acceleration of the development of online gambling and the rise of many skill games like Sudoku puzzles, strategy games, board games.
Internauts seem to fancy in particular chess and billiard and the more traditional card games.
In the first 6 months of 2009 59% of web users has played a skill game online.
On average, the total value of the online gaming market is around $ 5 billion per year; 150% more than in 2008. Of these 5 billion, 2.2 billion are due to skill games.
Several factors support the growth of online games.
First, the high propensity of everyone on the world to play a game, which is further emphasized by the situation of economic crisis.
Second the social networking tendencies that are transforming the web, that point even more trough interactive widgets and applications.
And what’s better than addicting game to retain visitors on the web pages?
For this reason many companies are investing on advert-games, those small applications on the web pages with interactive playable games promoting services or products.
I don’t know if it’s worth invest on the online gaming market, I’m not a financial consultant, but I do know that in a way or in another, both online and offline we will always play games to have fun and laugh together.
Hollywood board games top list
Posted on: September 23, 2009
- In: board games | children and parents | Curiosities | marketing | Party Games | toys
- 10 Comments
It’s clear now to everyone that board games are the new Hollywood frontier.
After the big success of super heroes entertainment movies and the renewed invasion of toys in the cinemas, now Hollywood is ready to hit on.
New adaptations are ready for the next year to hit the big screen with some of the legendary board games of the twentieth century.
All started with the success of Transformers, followed in these days by G.I. Joe, another historic brand of Hasbro the second largest toy manufacturer in the United States who has a deal with Universal Pictures to make movies based on its products: toys or games
For this reason Hollywood is ready to invest a lot of money for new big budgets movies based on board games.
Here there is the Hollywood board games top list: Read the rest of this entry »
Games for your mind 
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