Game History

Playing games has been all throughout history.  I’m not talking about video games though.  I’m talking about way before video games existed, and even the television! Video Game History is recent compared to what I’m going to write about.

One of the earliest known games is from ancient Egypt.  It was called Senet, which was dated supposedly back around 3500BC.  That’s really crazy thinking about ancient Egyptians were playing board games like we do today.

Another board game the ancient Egyptians played was called Ur.  Ancient games have stood against time and are still considered relevant today!  They are games that were played amongst each other where they had rules and outcomes that were agreed upon before playing.  The outcome is usually where one player is a winner and the other is a loser.

The players also defined certain rules that must be followed.  Rules are also called game mechanics.  Some common examples of game mechanics are, Luck, Diplomacy, Territory control, Resource Management, and Strategy.  Luck being a random chance or event from happening.  Diplomacy is how the players interact with each other.  Strategy is based off of player’s ability to plan their moves.  Resource management is about managing assets, and Territory control is about developing, controlling the game space.

A crucial aspect of any game is that it needs to define a goal or an outcome and once the outcome is reached it is usually considered a win.  An example of a goal can be to eliminate the player completely from the game, obtaining a goal or achieving some type of target.

By achieving the goal this can be enough of a reward for the winner of the game. For example, beating the opposing player in checkers brings the satisfaction of conquering the other player.  I’d say it’s a much safer then playing a game of Russian roulette.