How Much Do You Know About Board Games?
This game, created by designer Klaus Teuber in 1995, helped kick off the modern board game boom.
- Catan, formerly known as Settlers of Catan, has sold more than 20 million copies. It's credited with creating a new market for European board games or "designer games."
What is the world's oldest board game (that we still know the rules for)?
- Backgammon can be traced back over 5,000 years to Ancient Mesopotamia. Other games are almost as old, such as Chess, Go and Pachisi.
What was the original name of Monopoly in 1906?
- The Landlord's Game was created by Lizzie Maggie, who intended to use the game to teach people (partly) about the evils of monopolies. Parker Brothers took the game thirty years later and turned it into Monopoly as we know it today.
What game was widely considered too hard for AI, until a Google program beat the world champion in 2017?
- Go has a lot more possible moves than Chess, meaning it can require more creative thinking. There are more possible Go outcomes than there are atoms in the universe.
Which defunct game company created the first board wargames?
- Wargames were a popular tool for military education in Germany, dating back hundreds of years. They were turned into miniatures games by the early 1900s. The first board wargame was Tactics, made by Avalon Hill in 1954.
What was the first roleplaying game, published in 1974?
- Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson made the roleplaying genre with D&D in 1974, based on their previous experience making tabletop wargames. It made a big splash, and remains hugely popular today.
Where is the world's largest board game fair held?
- More than 200,000 people attended the most recent Essen Game Fair, making it by far the largest game gathering in the world. Germany is well-known for its excellent board games and the culture surrounding them.
Which of these major board game awards is voted on by fans on the internet?
- The Golden Geek awards are granted by popular consensus on the board game review forum BoardGameGeek.
Board games are more popular than ever. What was the global value of the board games market in 2018?
- Lots of people have claimed we're in the middle of a board game golden age, as more games become more popular around the globe. The industry was worth about $1.2 billion in 1991, and has increased by more than six times since.
A popular murder mystery game is known in the US as Clue. What is its original name, by which it's still known in the UK?
- Cluedo is a pun on "Clue" and the Latin "Ludo," or "I play". It was renamed for the American market, where the name change has stuck ever since.
