51 Fun Facts About Board Games

1. The earliest known board game is Senet from ancient Egypt, dating back to around 3100 BC.
2. The game of chess we know today has been played since the 15th century, but its origins date back even further to India in the 6th century.
3. Monopoly, one of the most popular board games, was originally called “The Landlord’s Game” and was created to demonstrate the negative aspects of private monopolies.
4. There are over 3,000 different versions of Monopoly.
5. The longest game of Monopoly ever played lasted 70 straight days.
6. Scrabble was created during the Great Depression by an unemployed architect named Alfred Mosher Butts.
7. The highest possible scoring word in Scrabble is ‘OXYPHENBUTAZONE,’ potentially earning 1778 points.
8. Catan, previously known as “The Settlers of Catan,” has sold more than 22 million copies worldwide since its creation in 1995.
9. Clue, or Cluedo, was invented during World War II air raids as a way to pass the time.
10. The game of Risk was invented by French film director Albert Lamorisse in 1957.
11. Backgammon is one of the oldest known board games, with origins dating back nearly 5,000 years to Mesopotamia.
12. Twister was deemed too controversial when it was released in 1966 because it was the first game to use human bodies as playing pieces.
13. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible color combinations on a standard 3×3 Rubik’s Cube.
14. The Game of Life was invented by Milton Bradley in 1860 and was originally called The Checkered Game of Life.
15. Dungeons & Dragons was first published in 1974 and is credited with being the first true role-playing game.
16. The longest recorded game of Carcassonne included 10,007 tiles.
17. Ouija boards were so popular in 1891 that they were outselling games like Monopoly.
18. Tic-tac-toe has been played since the Roman Empire and was originally called Terni Lapilli.
19. Snakes and Ladders, originally from ancient India, was used to teach morals and lessons about karma.
20. The world’s largest chess piece, a king, is located in St. Louis, Missouri, and is 20 feet tall.
21. The game Operation buzzes because of a very simple electric circuit, and the buzz kicks in when the circuit is completed.
22. The most expensive board game ever is a custom-made version of Monopoly valued at $2 million, with a gold board and diamond-studded dice.
23. The word “checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the King is defeated.”
24. Go is a board game from China that’s over 2,500 years old, making it one of the oldest games still played to this day.
25. Candy Land was created by Eleanor Abbott while she was recovering from polio.
26. The highest score ever recorded in a competitive game of Scrabble is 1,049 points.
27. In 2004, Canadian astronaut Gregory Chamitoff brought the game of Scrabble to the International Space Station.
28. Chutes and Ladders is based on an ancient Indian game called Moksha Patam, which was a morality lesson about karma and destiny.
29. Uno was invented in 1971 by a barbershop owner named Merle Robbins to solve a dispute his family had over Crazy Eights.
30. There is a world championship of the game Pandemic held annually.
31. Risk is often used in education to teach geography and strategy skills.
32. The Spirograph, although not a board game, is a popular toy that creates geometric shapes and was originally developed as a drafting tool.
33. The popular game Connect Four is a “solved game,” meaning its outcome can be predicted from any position, assuming perfect play.
34. Chinese Checkers was not invented in China but in Germany, where it was called Stern-Halma.
35. The term ‘board game’ didn’t enter the English language until the late 19th century.
36. Ticket to Ride, a popular modern board game, was inspired by the short story “Around the World in 80 Days.”
37. The game Mousetrap, which features a convoluted contraption, was inspired by cartoons of Rube Goldberg.
38. Yahtzee was created by a Canadian couple who enjoyed playing the game on their yacht.
39. The dots on a pair of dice are called “pips.”
40. In the Victorian era, board games were considered educational tools focused on moral and social virtue.
41. The Guinness World Record for the most players in a single board game is 922 during a game of Carcassonne in 2015.
42. Guess Who? is played in over 28 countries and has been translated into 26 languages.
43. Boggle was invented by Allan Turoff in 1972 and is played with a plastic grid of lettered dice.
44. The initial prototype for the popular game Battleship was made with pen and paper.
45. In 2013, the word ‘Selfie’ was added to the Scrabble dictionary.
46. Trivial Pursuit was created by two members of the Canadian Press Club who realized their Scrabble set was missing pieces.
47. The popular cooperative board game, Shadows over Camelot, involves players taking on the roles of Knights of the Round Table to save Camelot.
48. The first version of Pictionary was made using a borrowed dictionary, pencils, and a yellow legal pad.
49. A standard deck of playing cards was initially a game board used for various types of games.
50. The game Agricola, based on farming, is considered one of the inaugural games of the ‘worker placement’ genre.
51. The board game Dominion introduced the ‘deck-building’ genre of games, where players construct their decks during the gameplay.

Originally posted 2023-09-21 20:43:40.

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