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A short history of board games
Boards and pieces show up almost as soon as cities do. Kings were buried with games. Roman soldiers scratched grids into fortress stones. Vikings played a chase game with unfair sides, and someone in every century since has said “one more, then bed.”
This shelf follows the whole thread — the tomb games of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the spread of chess and Go along trade routes, the medieval table, the slow editing of rules across centuries, and the last two hundred years that carried board games from parlors to phone screens.
Articles on this shelf
- Senet, Ur, and the oldest games in the world
The games people were buried with — and what happened when modern players tried the reconstructed rules.
- How chess and Go conquered the world
Two games, two directions, a thousand years of travel along silk roads, monasteries, courts, and coffeehouses.
- Games of the medieval table
Tafl, morris, tables and the ancestors of draughts — what ordinary people actually played between feasts.
- How game rules evolve
Rules are edited by centuries of players. How the queen got fast, how castling appeared, and why games drift.
- What archaeologists learn from ancient games
Dice in legion camps, boards in tombs, graffiti grids on temple steps — play as evidence of everyday life.
- From parlors to phones: the last 200 years
Mass printing, the family classics, the hobby explosion, and the screen in your pocket — how we got here.
While you wait for the next article: Oustwit is free for Android and iOS, and the rules take a minute to learn.