The History of Games

The history of games goes back thousands of years. The earliest game in the Museum's collection dates from the 16th century. Games have rules and the main objective of any game is to win, whether it is played by individuals or teams. Some games are also designed to be used as learning tools.
Board Games
The strategy game and the race game are the two main types of board game. The race game appears in all sorts of guises: educational, moral, competitive and fun. A race game involves two or more players competing against each other in order to win.
Race games can be simple or complex. The simple ones require a single playing piece that is moved along a set track on a playing surface from start to finish, for example Snakes and Ladders.Strategy games are usually played by two people and require at least some degree of skill. These can be subdivided into several different categories: war games that involve capturing, such as Chess and Draughts; hunting or chasing games, such as Fox and Geese and Chinese Chequers; and alignment games, such as Nine Men's Morris and Connect-4.
Cards
While standard playing cards have been around for centuries, children's card games have only appeared relatively recently. Happy Families, for example, was first published in the 1860s.
Playing cards are thought to have originated in China around the 7th century and were introduced into Europe in the late 1300s. They were and continue to be used for gambling, games of skill and fortune telling. Playing cards aimed specifically at children did not appear until the 18th century. Unlike adult playing cards, children's cards generally have pictures on them, are educational, and were often published by the same companies that made board games.
While standard playing cards have been around for centuries, children's card games have only appeared relatively recently. Happy Families, for example, was first published in the 1860s.
Playing cards are thought to have originated in China around the 7th century and were introduced into Europe in the late 1300s. They were and continue to be used for gambling, games of skill and fortune telling. Playing cards aimed specifically at children did not appear until the 18th century. Unlike adult playing cards, children's cards generally have pictures on them, are educational, and were often published by the same companies that made board games.
Outdoor Games
The Museum's collection of table and outdoor games includes marbles, a game played in ancient Egypt and Subbuteo, a football game, invented in the mid 20th century.
People in ancient Egypt and pre-Christian Rome played marbles and the game has been played in England for at least four hundred years. From the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th, Germany was the centre of the world marbles trade. Originally, as their name suggests, they were made from chips of marble, later, cheaper versions were made from baked clay or glass.
Names given to marbles vary considerably from town to town and country to country. English children talk of taws (the actual marbles) and the varieties, commoneys, stoneys, potteys and the best marbles, allies, which were made from alabaster. American children know their marbles as kabolas, steelies, jumbos, milkies, and peewees in descending order of size.
There are three basic types of outdoor marble games: circle games, chase games and hole games. In a circle game, marbles are knocked out of a circle or some other space in which the boundaries have been set. In a hole game the goal is to shoot marbles into some sort of opening. In a chase game, players have alternate turns shooting at their opponents' marbles. The skilful marbles' player must have a steady hand, accurate aim and plenty of practice. To propel a marble it should be balanced in the recess of a bent forefinger, the thumb is put behind the forefinger. The player then holds his hand on or close to the ground, takes aim, and flicks his thumb sharply forward to shoot the marble at its target. The player may squat, or kneel on one or both knees to obtain the best aiming position. Any forward movement of the hand while shooting the marble is forbidden.
The British and World Championship is held at Easter every year at the Greyhound pub in Tinsley Green in Sussex. Only one particular game is played which is a variation on the circle game.
Puzzles
The jigsaw puzzle has been one of the most consistently popular toys for more than two hundred years and played with by both children and adults. The jigsaw puzzles that we know today were not created until the introduction in the 1870s of the jigsaw itself, a machine with which an irregular pattern could be cut. Dissected puzzles were the forerunners of jigsaws. They were very simply made by placing a picture on a piece of wood, usually mahogany, and cutting (dissecting) it into shapes. Some pieces might interlock, but most of the puzzle was just pushed into place. The puzzle pieces would have come with a box, usually with a guide picture on the lid.
A Londoner named John Spilsbury is credited as the first person to make a dissected puzzle as a toy for a child. John Spilsbury was apprenticed to Thomas Jefferys of St Martin’s Lane, London, in 1753, and in 1763 he was listed as an ‘engraver and map dissector in wood, in order to facilitate the teaching of geography.’ He died in 1769, and although part of his business continued, the company stopped making dissected maps. Established manufacturers of board games were quick to take up this new toy. As well as maps, other popular themes included history, significant events, biblical stories and industrial and agricultural processes.
Maze games
The best known maze games are the simple ones where the aim is to guide a small ball through a maze enclosed in a box. The ball usually has to be rolled from one end to another or from the outside to the centre. This type of toy has been around since the end of the 19th century and some early examples used mercury instead of balls. The Silver Bullet and Trench Football are larger types of this game and have the added hazard of holes along the path of the ball, which have to be avoided. These games were both made during World War I, a fact that is emphasised in their design. In Trench Football the names of German commanders, including the Kaiser Wilhelm II who is in goal, appear next to the holes. The Silver Bullet, also called the Road to Berlin, has the names of German towns.
Maze games continue to be popular and many are produced very cheaply. One of their modern incarnations is the video game, with Pacman being one of the most famous examples.
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