Before the times of pac-man
and WOW, dice and card games were the most popular games to play. To this day they are also still some of the
most popular. Tabletop games were the
beginning of the gaming world, with the first ones dating back to ancient Egypt
during 3500-2700BC. In the US
tic-tac-toe was one of the first table top games with the simplest rules,
ranging to Dungeon and Dragons which has one of the most complicated set of
rules for table top games. D&D is one of the most popular tabletop games,
and has also helped keep the popularity of them alive.
D&D was first
published in 1974, and has been said to be the start of role-play games, based
off of war games. Players pick a
character and go on adventures that are usually in a fantasy-like setting. Majority of other table top games aren’t as complicated
as D&D however. Which is a reason
why tabletop games are so popular amongst so many different age groups. As children most of us grew up playing games
such as monopoly, checkers and scrabble, which are timeless. Another reason why tabletop games remain so
popular.
If you think about it, it's hard to imagine a world without video games. But as you said, tabletop games have been around since the time of the ancient Egyptians. As technology as rapidly increasing within the game industry such as virtual reality applications, it's mind-boggling to think what types of games we will be playing say, a hundred years from now. It's quite a marvel that games as old as 3500 BC, still have influence today. I wonder if games such as D&D or even Tic-Tac-Toe will have same amount of influence, 5000 years from now.
ReplyDeleteThese games really are ancient. I'm sure some Anthropology geeks here have heard of the Voynich Manuscript. If not, it's a 600 year old book, set up like an encyclopedia, or a medieval manuscript. It's written in an unknown language, with images of plants, stars and humanoid creatures. Some of the pages are set up like instructions and recipes. Scholars have been mystified by it ever since it has been found. A new theory about it is that it was a manual for a role playing game. Maybe when it's decoded, we can all play a game.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/b/b8/voynich_manuscript.png
Since I am a double major, studying History and Anthro, tracing the history of board games appeals to me. I had heard that many of these games were thousands of years old, but it blows my mind that we are still playing games created by the ancient Egyptians!
ReplyDeleteFrom an archaeological standpoint, just think how cool it would have been to have found, like, an ancient checker board in King Tut's tomb or something and be like, "OMG guys! The Egyptians played checkers too!!" I think that's the coolest thing about archaeology, finding actual evidence of history, just lying in the ground.
I think it's also fun that games seem to come in booms, like heydays. I have done like zero research on this but if I remember right, Monopoly came out in the 1940s or so, along with many famous board games that we know.
The next boom could be considered the 1980s or so when D&D became popular and tons of copycat like games. These games are still popular and being created today.
If my pattern holds true, I wonder what the next big boom of board games will be. OR MAYBE IT ALREADY HAPPENED. Electronic board games like online chess and stuff. I just blew my own mind.