Wonderful Old Games are WONDERFUL!
What do you think about when someone mentions “Old Games”? Do you think about your childhood and those games that you used to play with your family and friends, games such as “hide or seek” or tag? Other people might recall some special types of sports games or tournaments that were played in years gone by. In this particular article we will be focusing on the classic card and board games, and providing a bit of background history of these games…
Board games are those games that are played on some sort of a game board (naturally enough). The first known board game was the Egyptian game of Senet, which existed around 3500 B.C. As the years passed, European cultures started to embrace the concept of the board game as well. In this modern era of marketing and advertising, there are a number of various board games that families and friends can play. The latest version of these classic board games is “online play”, in which you can play the same game, but via the internet, with someone on the other end of the world.
Let’s examine the world of strategy board games. Strategy games are those games that require a considerable amount of strategy in order to win. Examples of strategy board games are chess and checkers. Luck board games are those games that just require a good “roll of the dice”, and almost no strategy. Games such as Chutes and Ladders and Sorry fall into this category. Many games, such as Monopoly and Risk, require a bit of luck and strategy. Keep in mind, if you don’t have a good strategy, any sort of luck you may have will go completely out the window.
Classic board games are those games that have stood the test of time, and are just as popular today as they were years ago. Risk and Battleship are two examples of such games. Other examples are: Life, Clue, Monopoly and Sorry. Minor adjustments may have been made to these games over the years (such as the introduction of online game play), but the basic rules and strategy and game play remains the same.
Old games that revolve around a pack of cards have been around for years and years. It is not known when the first deck of cards appeared on the scene, but it’s very likely that the Chinese invented them between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D. It was around this time that they started to shuffle money around.
Around the 15th century we see the format of the English playing cards appear on the scene. We have documentation that in an Act of Parliament, domestic card makers were complaining about the importation of foreign cards into the market, thereby cutting their profits.
Playing cards were originally both created by hand and painted by hand. This was very time and labor intensive, and meant that a deck of cards were very expensive to purchase. Since few people owned them, few people got to play card games. Popular old card games of this time period were: hearts, bridge, poker, and rummy.
Learn more about Classic Old Games. Stop by William Gentry’s site where you can find out all about some wonderful old games and how can they enrich your life.
