Board Games

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by James H. Lloyd

Board games have been around for thousands of years. Some of the oldest games are some of the most popular, including chess and checkers. Backgammon dates back at least to the first century C.E. when the Roman Emperor Claudius played it. Chess probably had its origin in Persia or India, over 4,000 years ago. Checkers was played as early as 1400 B.C.E in Egypt. In the United States, board games have become deeply embedded in popular culture, and their myriad forms and examples in this country serve as a reflection of American tastes and attitudes. Major producers such as Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley have made fortunes by developing hundreds of games promising entertainment for players of all ages.

Success at many games is for the most part a matter of luck; the spin of the wheel determines the winner in The Game of Life. In fact, everything in life, from the career one chooses to the number of children one has, is reduced to spins on a wheel. Most games, though, involve a combination of problem solving and luck. In the game of Risk, opponents attempt to conquer the world. Although the final outcome is closely tied to the throw of dice, the players must use strategy and wisdom to know when to attack an opponent. In the popular game of Clue, a player's goal is to be the first to solve a murder by figuring out the murderer, the weapon, and the room where the crime took place. But the dice also have a bearing on how quickly players can position themselves to solve the crime. Scrabble tests the ability of competitors to make words out of wooden tiles containing the letters of the alphabet. Although luck plays a role, since players must select their tiles without knowing what letter they bear, the challenge of building words from random letters has made this challenging game a favorite of many over the years.

One of the most enduring board games of this century is Monopoly, the invention of which is usually attributed to Charles Darrow in 1933, although that claim has been challenged by some who contend that the game existed before Darrow developed it. The strategy of the game is to amass money to buy property, build houses and hotels, and ultimately bankrupt other players. One charming feature of the game is its distinctive metal game pieces, which include a dog, a top hat, an iron, and a wheelbarrow. Darrow named the streets in his game after streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he vacationed. Initially, he sold handmade sets to make money for himself while he was unemployed during the Great Depression. In 1935, Parker Brothers purchased the rights to the game. From this small beginning, the game soon achieved national even international fame. Monopoly continues to be one of the most popular board games, and a World Championship attracts participants from all parts of the globe each year.

Most board games are designed for small groups, usually two to four players. But some games are popular at parties. Twister is unusual because the game board is placed on the floor. Players step on colored spots. As the game progresses, competitors must step over and twist around other players in order to step from one colored spot to another on the game board. Trivial Pursuit, a popular game of the 1980s, pits players or groups of players against each other as they answer trivia questions under certain categories such as geography, sports, and literature. The game was so popular that it resulted in various "spin-offs," such as a version designed especially for baby boomers.

Television and the movies have done more to spawn new board games than probably anything else. When children flocked to see Flash Gordon serials at local Saturday matinees in the 1930s people saw the market for Flash Gordon merchandise including a Flash Gordon board game.

Television became the main source of inspiration for board games beginning in the 1950s. A TV series might only last a year or two, but if it was popular with children, related games would inevitably be developed. Cowboy shows produced games about Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, the Rifleman, and Hopalong Cassidy.

Astronauts replaced cowboys as heroes during the space race of the 1960s. Even before the space race, children played with the game based on the Tom Corbett TV show. Men into Space was a TV series known for its realistic attempt to picture what initial space travel would be like. A game with rocket ships and cards containing space missions and space dangers allowed the players to "travel into space" as they watched the TV show. As space travel progressed, so did TV shows. Star Trek, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, and Space 1999 all resulted in games that children put on their Christmas lists or asked for on their birthdays.

Games did not have to involve heroes. Every popular TV show seemed to produce a new game that was actually designed to keep people watching the shows and, of course, the commercials. The Beverly Hillbillies, Seahunt, Mork and Mindy, Gilligan's Island, The Honeymooners, The Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie's Angels, The Partridge Family, and Happy Days are only a few of literally dozens of shows that inspired board games. Many games were based on TV game shows such as The Price Is Right or The Wheel of Fortune, replicating the game show experience in the home. While the popularity of some of these games quickly waned as audience interest in the particular show declined, they were wildly popular for short periods of time.

Movies inspired the creation of board games in much the same way as television shows. The Star Wars trilogy has produced numerous games. One combined Monopoly with Star Wars characters and themes. The movie Titanic generated its own game, marketed in 1998 after the success of the motion picture. The duration of these games' popularity also rested on the popularity of the corresponding movies.

Comic strips also provided material for new board games. A very popular comic strip for many years, Little Orphan Annie came alive to children in the Little Orphan Annie's Treasure board game, which was produced in 1933. Children could also play with Batman, Winnie the Pooh, and Charlie Brown and Snoopy through board games.