Lizzie Magie: America’s First Lady of Games

Board Games Before Ur?

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Despite many discoveries and proposals for rules for the ancient board game known as the Royal Game of Ur (RGU), no mathematical analysis has yet been performed investigating those rules. In an attempt to fill that gap, this paper presents an initial mathematical analysis of the RGU from an introductory point of view. The paper deduces the overall complexity of the RGU using a state-space and game-tree complexity analysis, allowing the RGU to be compared to the popular games Checkers, Backgammon, Ludo, Chess, and Go. The paper builds upon the fundamental laws of combinatorics and probability to improve the understanding of the game: what patterns should you expect, what moves increase your chance to win, and what moves should you avoid. The paper also presents theorems to predict the probability of future dice rolls and piece movements within the game, allowing basic inferences to be made about strategy in the RGU. The game is further examined by analysing three different influences when determining the best move: advancement and attack (beneficial to the player), and captures (detrimental to the player). These influences are used to deduce explicit equations for the advantage gained by playing each possible move from a position, which allows the formalization of a strategic algorithm to play the RGU.
</abstract>

Mathematical analysis of the Royal Game of Ur

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Playing of sedentary games with dice and playing board games have had a major role in the Indian culture since at least 3000 BCE. This is shown by archaeological sites and early literary references in the Rig-Veda, Mahabharata and other texts. Some of these games have survived in the form of boards, game pieces, dice and cards. Apart from actual sets, the traces of board games can also be found in Hindu rock cut temples. These sculptures and paintings appear across the medieval period. The list is exhaustive. The game play also finds its presence on numerous temple floorings, carved or inscribed. Why would somebody carve these board games on these spaces? Interestingly, throughout history, some board games have increased its popularity, and some have disappeared from artistic expressional record. How did one board game overtake the other in terms of its popularity in the later phases of history? What made these games socially acceptable and popular? Where were these games played? What was the space context? The paintings dominantly show royal houses, court rooms as spaces. Were there special pavilions used for game playing by Indian royals? In India board games were traditionally played at ground level. With growing European influence in the subcontinent in the 18th century, local elites adopted the western custom of elevated furniture for board games. Did this change the space context?The paper thus tries to evolve parameters to analyze the impact of board games on spaces and would throw light on the “space context” with reference to Indian board games tracing it to the contemporary time.</abstract>

Culture of Sedentary Play in India – The Space Context

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Glückshaus is a relatively modern version of the larger family of Games of Seven (games played with two six-sided dice and a stake board with fields usually numbered 2-12, often with an emphasized 7.). This paper looks at various historical versions of the game and shows how the modern Glückshaus version and its pecularities (e.g. a missing field for the number 4) came about when the dice game was combined with a stake board for a card game</abstract>

The Game of Seven: Glückshaus and Related Dice Games

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The ways new games typically develop might be viewed as a continuum ranging from very gradual “evolution” based on mutations introduced to a single progenitor during play or recall, to sudden “intelligent design” based on a purposeful and original combination — or even invention — of ludemes independent of any particular lines of transmission.This paper argues that two proprietary 20th-century games, C.A. Neves’s Fang den Hut! and Lizzie Magie’s The Landlord’s Game, were developed in a different way, a bit outside the typical continuum. It analyzes the games’ general typologies, and specific ludemes, concluding that both games are modern adaptations of traditional Native American games encountered, not through play or even contact with players, but through the seminal ethnographic publications of Stewart Culin. Specifically, Fang den Hut! derives from Boolik via <italic>Games of the North American Indians</italic>, and The Landlord’s Game derives from Zohn Ahl via <italic>Chess and Playing-Cards</italic>.</abstract>

Board to Page to Board

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Traditional Maldivian chess rules are presented and their similarity to pre-19th century Turkish chess is discussed, with musings on the potential role of Ottomans in spreading the “new game” invented in Europe – but played in their own manner – throughout the Muslim world and beyond. 
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Maldivian Chess (Raazuvaa)

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Merels (also called Nine Men‘s Morris) comprises a family of traditional board games with ancient roots. Between medieval and modern times, merels saw an interesting onomasiological shift: Several European languages took up a new name for the game. This new name is sometimes claimed to have originated in German, but the details surrounding this naming practice are still unclear. There are mainly two German groups of names for this game, the older names based on the number 9 <italic>(Neunstein, Neunten Stein, Neunermal</italic> etc.) and the younger based on the German word for “mill” <italic>(Mühle, Mühlspiel, Mühleziehen </italic>etc.). Relying on philological evidence (partly pulled from lexicographical data) this paper outlines the evolution of German terms for merels, focusing on the naming practices from the 15th to 17th century. Possible motivations of the name <italic>Mühle</italic> are discussed. 
</abstract>

German Names for Merels

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Ludus Regularis is a board game with dice, from the 10th century, which came to our knowledge through literary sources. The rules of the game were kept by the historian Balderic, in the 11th century, in a book edited in 1615 by Colvener: Chronicon Cameracense et Atrebatense, and reedited in 1834 by André Le Glay, in Paris: Chronique d’Arras et de Cambrai. 
By studying the probabilities involved in the dynamics of the game Ludus Regularis, it is possible to advance that the author’s concerns were mainly centred on presenting a game that followed Catholic doctrine. 
Ludus Regularis is a carefully conceived game, using dice commonly inaccessible to members of the clergy, in a context of deep Christian religious symbolism. 
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<italic>Ludus Regularis</italic>: The Clergy Game

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Characterised by the presence of multiple depressions or pockets in a variety of arrangements, and, in some cases, the presence of a single, double, or triple ‘start line’ carved into horizontal stone surfaces, marble lanes in their variety of forms open a window onto ancient play that few have looked through. Thought to be a playing surface for some kind of throwing or rolling game which involved the use of glass or ceramic spheres, Roman marble lanes have received comparatively little attention in the recent upswing of scholarship on ancient play, partially as a result of the relative dearth of textual and iconographic sources discussing or depicting their usage, but these playing surfaces nevertheless represent a major corpus of ludic material. This contribution summarises past work on marble lanes before exploring the limited textual and iconographic source material related to playing with marbles. It offers a tentative new typology by which to categorise marble lanes and a non-exhaustive list of these playing surfaces recorded at archaeological sites around the Mediterranean. It then moves onto a discussion of the game/games that may be played on these boards, arguing that the wide variations in the different layouts for marble lanes may indicate that they were used not for one tightly-defined game, but more likely facilitated the playing of a loosely connected family of games, with implicaitons for how we think about communities of play in the past. 
</abstract>

Reassessing Roman and Late Antique ‘Marbles Lanes’: One Game or Many?

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The first profound ludemic studies are being done at the moment. Some projects are exploring the ludemic approach in video games and historic games. However, contemporary games known as modern board games are still underexplored. In this paper, the number one games, according to Board Game Geek since 2000, are analyzed according to a systemic approach. The authors propose exploring the game system and other dimensions of each game in order to find design patterns that help support a ludemic approach. By addressing ludemes, the authors seek to contribute to understanding the success of modern board games in an age of video game domination. 
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Finding Ludemes in Modern Board Games: Analyzing the Top Number One Games of Board Game Geek  

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>A great deal of the literary evidence surrounding the ancient Greek board game pente grammai has to do with its central and proverbial ‘holy line’. Although it seems that the goal of the game was to reach this holy line, the proverb always refers to ‘moving away from’ this holy line not toward it. But why would players move away from the line which is the goal? This paper argues that there was a strategic element to the game: just like in modern backgammon and in Zeno’s ‘table’ game from late antiquity, in pente grammai a player could knock an opponent’s ‘blots’ (azuges) off the board. This explains why a player might make the odd move of leaving the holy line: the aggressive and risky act might bring an advantage if the opponent has left a number of vulnerable pieces exposed. At the end, a possible reconstruction of the game is offered.</abstract>

Pente Grammai and the ‘Holy Line’

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
A late 5th century BC funerary altar from the necropolis of Krannon (Central Greece) depicts a bearded man and a boy on either side of a board with five lines carved on a block. The fact that the man is seated and the horizontal position of the board reveal important information about Greek education and the history of Greek numeracy. This paper analyses the iconography of the relief, the link between the <italic>Five Lines</italic> game (<italic>Pente grammai</italic>) and abaci, examines the possible identification of the man as a “pebble arithmetician”, of the boy as a student, and suggests a new reconstruction of the reckoning system operated on an abacus composed of five horizontal lines. A special practical function is proposed for the half-circle at one end of the abacus. This five lines pattern and the related material, especially counters, are considered from a wider perspective, a system of cultural practices associated with boards and counters throughout the Greek world.
</abstract>

Game Board or Abacus? Greek Counter Culture Revisited

Some Misconceptions About Ancient Roman Games

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
A particularly beautiful marble statue of a boy, a dedication unearthed in Lilaia, Phokis, and on display in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, is an opportunity for us to explore the connection between the boys’ games and the jeopardy in their outcome. Both the expression on the boy’s face and the way he holds an astragal and a goose demand multiple levels of reading. These are related to the intent of the dedication in the first place, the identification of the games requiring an astragal or involving a goose, as well as to the choice of these specific playthings for the particular imagery. Why is he holding a single astragal, and in such a particular way? Why is the goose included in the picture, and what species of <italic>Anatidae</italic> is this? The apparent originality of the motif and of the work, in comparison with other well-known Hellenistic representations in stone or terracotta, dictated our research into the milieu of artistic and symbolic quests of that period, and also a reflection on the choice of the artist to designate a child as the owner of the playthings within a particular spatial and temporal context, perhaps associated with healing frοm a life-threatening fever.
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The Knucklebone and the Goose: Playing and Jeopardy for the Boy of Lilaia

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
In the sanctuary of Kition-<italic>Kathari</italic> (Cyprus), a building with benches, identified as a temple (“Temple 4”), is characterized in its centre by a hearth pit next to a trapezoidal stone construction, constituting “Altar E”. The platform’s surface comprises a series of little cup-holes. Once labelled “table of offerings”, it has recently been interpreted as a gaming table. Besides clay gaming stones, this area has yielded knucklebones as well as several deposits of incised scapulae linked with divination practices. This Cypriot context gives us the opportunity to explore and also to put in light the influences and interactions between different regions of the Eastern Mediterranean at the turn of the 1st millennium BC.
</abstract>

Games and Oracular Practices Around the Hearth: The “Table of Offerings” from the so-called Temple 4 at Kition-<italic>Kathari</italic> (Cyprus)

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> A note by A. Chernevski in the 1877 Shakhmatny Listok described two chess variants played in Samarkand, present-day Uzbekistan. One, the “Bukharan game”, is a slightly modified version of shatranj, similar to Rumi chess as described in Murray’s History of Chess. The other, the “Persian game with a queen” resembles to some extent the Persian chess described in 1846 in the Chess Player’s Chronicle but differs from it in several important aspects. Chernevski’s information, which includes recorded games by native players, is absent from later sources on chess history. A summary of Chernevski’s report is provided, with a discussion of several other historical chess variants, and various errors that have crept into their description in the literature.</abstract>

A Note On Chess In 19th Century Turkestan

Board Game Studies Journal

BGSJ – Board Game Studies Journal is a single peer-reviewed journal for historical and systematic research on board games.  Its object is to provide a forum for board games...

BGSJ – Board Game Studies Journal is a single peer-reviewed journal for historical and systematic research on board games.  Its...

Board Game Studies Journal

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