Playing Traditional Board, Dice and Card Games

I love games of the past era, especially playing the traditional board, dice and some card games. With a passion!!

Years and years ago, my 1st games (that I can remember) were Ludo and Snakes & Ladders. Then I moved on to Dominos, and a West African game called Ayo (which is played by the Yoruba tribe of West Africa). A kind of strategy game using seeds, it is a variation of the Mancala  game, one of the oldest games in the world).

I tried a bit of card playing, but it just wasn’t me. Never could figure out how it works.  And solitaire? To me it seemed like a way to lay cards in a pretty fashion on the table! Plus cards are a bit too 'chancey' , so it didn’t find it challenging enough.

In my teenage years, Monopoly, which I found so exciting because it involved buying and selling properties basically, was my favourite. I'm sure my passion for this game fuelled my interest in Real Estate and the building industry. Well, maybe!

I loved scrabble (I still do) too, because it helped me with my spellings, and you can make deft spelling moves for very high marks.

By my late teens to my early 20's, I got hooked on Chess. I still play chess till today, though I miss having a real flesh and blood partner, since we all mostly play online or downloaded games, with an invisible opponent. With a real opponent, you can get mad at each other (it’s a war game isn't it?).

Do you remember?--those with silly joysticks that end up giving you muscle spasms on your arms, that is if you are lucky not to snap your wrists. What it did to me? Almost ran me crazy, pushing and shoving that thing, with so much brute force, my face all scrunched up in weird concentration. Plus I snapped them at the rate of 1set in 14 days.

Tetris caught my fancy until I smashed all my mobile phone buttons, or wore them out,  while vigorously punching away. My poor phone served me more for games than it did for telephone services. Plus I got a sore thumb.

Some familiar Games of the Past Era

The games of a past era are still very much around, and for those who love to play the good old games, many of these games now have modern and computerised versions. However, the topic is on the original traditional games.

The 'pre-electronic' era games.

Ludo

A very easy board game, Ludo is for 2 or 4 players. Players play by racing their tokens from start to finish, depending on dice rolling.

You must throw a six on the dice before you can make your first move from the home area and onto the starting square.

Subsequently, a player moves according to the dice throwing result, moving 1 to 6 steps at a time.

When a player throws a 6 the player may bring a new piece onto the starting square, or may choose to move a piece already in play.

If a piece falls on an opponents piece in the course of moving on the board, the opponents piece is captured (or pecked!) Opponent's captured token then goes back to the home or start position.

There exists the doubling rules where a token of the same colour lands on another of the same colour. In this case, it serves as a blockade against the other players. And he can decide to open up this blockade when he pleases, or when he has no other option but to move on.

On completion of a circuit of the baord, a token moves up the home colomn of its colour.

The player must throw the exact number to advance to the home square. The winner is the first player to get all four of their pieces onto the home square.

Ludo is a simplified version of a traditional Indian game known as Pachisi.

Dominoes

Dominoes are simple building blocks assembled in many ways to create a large variety of games that require great skill and strategy.

They are something of a generic game, like playing cards and dice and consist of playing blocks (or tiles as its also called), with black dots on a white background.

Dominoes are considered the national game of many Caribbean countries, and is particularly popular in Latin America

Snakes and Ladders is a classic  board game, mainly for children, but enjoyed by adults playing  games with kids.

The playing board is made up of a grid with numbers from 1 to 100, which varies from board to board but most commonly 8x8, 10x10 and 12x12.

Haphazardly on the board , ladders are drawn connecting two squares. There are snakes drawn on the board as well, which also connects 2 squares in the grid at different positions from the ladders.

This fun game plays up to 4 players and the goal is to get up to square 100 by getting around the snakes and trying to climb up the ladders to gain an advantage.

Each player has to try to prevent its opponents  from getting to the top, or 100, first. This can be done by using various power-ups, which can be used to an advantage, or to slow down the other players.

Snakes and ladders is also known by many as Chutes & Ladders.

Mancala, a group of games that originate from Africa, is in a way similar to Dominoes and Card games in that it’s a group of games which fall under a heading.

Also called Ayo, Oware, or Aware, this game is played on a board of sorts, with 2 rows, or ranks, with 12 holes and two store pits at each end used to hold the winnings.

There are variations to this board, as some can have more holes on either side or more rows, to create four rank Mancala boards.

Traditionally, the Mancala boards are not carved out very intricately. That is why they become smooth and worn by many many years of play.

Before this though, some games were played with holes dug in the earth, or carved out of stone.

The playing pieces were small stones, seeds or beans. These pieces are placed in or moved from hole to hole during play.

R.C Bell, in "Board and Table Games from Many Civilisations", describes how Aware has a traditional spiritual significance. It is played in a house of mourning to amuse the spirit of the dead before it is buried.

Objectives of Mancala games, is to capture more pieces (or seeds) than the opponent , leaving the opponent with no legal move, or to have your side empty first in order to win.

4-Player Mancala Strategy Game

How do you improve on a classic? This set takes the ancient African strategy game and makes two important upgrades: 1) while the traditional set allows for only two players, this set can be played with four and 2) the sturdy board folds up into a sleek storage case for the colorful glass playing pieces. Aside from the improvements, this family game is still among the finest ways to hone math and strategy skills while having fun. For 2 to 4 players

The monopoly game, one of the best selling board games in the world, is one game where you have the chance to wheel & deal your way to the top anyway you choose. It offers the thrill of getting rich quick and acquiring various properties along the way.

Named after the economic concept of the domination of the market by a single entity, it involves a bit of luck, with the rolling of the dice. This is a determining factor of the dice throw result, as it can allow a player to own key properties or lands on squares with high rents.

Also, the initial misfortune of going last is a significant disadvantage because one is more likely to land on property which has already been bought and therefore be forced to pay rent to the owner, instead of having the opportunity to purchase his own property.

The players are represented by tiny metal pieces moved around the perimeter of the board, depending on the throw of the 2 dice. They are a Wheelbarrow, Battleship. Horse with a rider, Train, a Thimble, Cannon, Boot, a Dog, aTop hat and an Iron.

The board has 40 spaces with 28 properties, 4 'go to jail' spaces at the corners of the board, a luxury tax space, an income tax space, 3 community chest spaces, and 1 free parking space.

Backgammon is a board game with an aspect of a little luck, but with a large scope of strategy.

A game for 2 people,  and a member of the 'tables game family',  it is known as one of the oldest board games in the world.

There a many variations of the game but they all share similar traits.

 With each roll of the dice a player must choose from numerous options for moving his checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the opponent

The objective of the backgammon game is to be the first to get your checkers off the board before your opponent does.  Players may raise the stakes during the game. There is an established repertory of common tactics and occurrences.

Backgammon has joined the class of computerised games where the software that has been developed is capable of beating human players.

Scrabble, a game of half luck and half skill is a word game in which 2 or 4 players form words from individual letters placing them on a board with a 15 x 15 grid.

Words are formed in crossword fashion, across this grid,   and the words spelt out on the boards must be found in a standard dictionary. However, there are permissible words for the game which can be found in "The official Scrabble Players dictionary". There is also the "Collins Scrabble Checker which can also be used to check if a word is acceptable.

There are 100 tiles, marked with a letter and a number, with the numbers ranging from 1 to 10. Common letters, especially vowels, are usually worth just a few points. Less common letters such as Q, Z and X, carry higher points and so gives higher scores if used to form any word. There are 2 blank tiles that carry no point, but can be used to substitute any letter. Once placed on the board, the choice remains fixed.

Within the grid are colours such as dark red, pink, dark blue and light blue. These coloured squares are premium spots where scores are multiplied, and can be doubled or tripled, letter or numbers.

The middle square is marked with a logo and counts as a double word square.

Chess is one of the oldest games of skill known to man, and has become the true game of the brain. Chess enhances the power of thought in people who play regularly, and is known to enhance and sharpen the intellect of young players.

Some historians date it as early as the 2nd century, but many believe playing a form of chess started as early as the 7th century. There are documented evidence to prove this.

Chess boards can be made from many diverse materials , ranging from exotic  natural woods, to  granite slabs, glass, and fine marble, to produce exquisite works of art.  

The board's grid is divided into 64 squares, arranged in an 8 by 8 fashion,  which traditionally, has  black and white as the most popular colours.

The chess pieces, 16 white and 16 black,  range from basic plastic pieces with  magnetic bottoms on the base so that they stick to the board,  to intricately hand carved works of art.

The pieces, arranged on the 2 ends for the 2 players, with 16 pieces per player,  consist of 1 King, 1 Queen, 2 Rooks, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights and 8pawns. Each piece has its own different moves

The King can only move 1 square at a time, in any direction

The Queen can move diagonally and in a straight line as well

The Knights can only move in an L-shaped fashion

The Bishops can only move diagonally

The Rook can only move in a straight line

The pawn can move in a straight line, but can only capture a piece diagonally forward, and only a square away.

The objective of the game is to checkmate your opponent's king , whereby the king is under direct attack, with no way to prevent it from attack on any further move.

Today, chess has come a long way since 1945, when Alan Turing used chess playing as an example of what a computer could do. In 1950 the first chess computers were born, and now the most popular chess games are either played individually against a hand held chess computer or played online either against a computer or across the internet with unseen opponents.

When it comes to playing cards, countless games exist, including families of related games. Some games have formally standardized rules, while rules for others can vary by region, culture, and person.

Cards are the main thing to play in any card game, and wining a card game primarily rests on mother luck.

At the beginning of a game, cards are distributed to each player by one chosen player. This act is referred to as dealing. This distribution could be clockwise , or anti-clockwise, depending on which part of the world you come from.

Before dealing out the cards, the player shuffles the cards, to put the cards into a random order. During the shuffle, the dealer holds the cards so that he or she and the other players cannot see any of the card faces.

Some card games revolve around wagers of money. These games are played mainly in casinos, or at gambling card games.

An example is Poker, where players bet against each other. In others like Blackjack, players play and bet against the house. Poker is one of the most universally-known card games in existence.

Some games can be played alone by 1 player. An example of this is Solitaire. Most Solitaire games begin with a specific layout of cards, called a tableau, and the object is then either to construct a more elaborate final layout, or, to clear the tableau and the draw pile, or stock, by moving all cards to one or more "discard" or "foundation" piles.

There are "trick-taking" games, based on playing multiple rounds, or tricks. Here, each player plays a single card from their hand, and based on the values of played cards one player wins or "takes" the trick.

The specific object varies with each game and can include taking as many tricks as possible, taking as many scoring cards within the tricks won as possible, taking as few tricks as possible, or taking an exact number of tricks. Bridge, Tarot card games, Spades and Hearts are popular examples of trick-taking card games.

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