Interesting facts about board games

2022-08-22 Curiosities

Interesting facts about board games

The global pandemic has pushed borders to discover new board games and blow the dust off long-forgotten, classic masterpieces. Games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Ticket to ride are all very familiar to us, but how much do you really know about your favorite board games? So, for your free time there are 11 interesting facts about board games. Here you will find many intriguing and fun details that you can use to impress your opponents, or maybe distract them at the most important moment.

The Candy Land game was created for quarantined children

The game “Candy Land” created in 1949 by the teacher. His goal was to brighten the day of children in San Diego’s polio wards. The children played it during short breaks between treatments.

Monopoly helped British prisoners escape from the Nazis

During World War II, the Germans allowed humanitarian groups to distribute certain care packages to soldiers imprisoned in their war camps. Because the Monopoly game was often part of those packages, the British Secret Service arranged with the game maker to hide a compass, map, and small tools in secret compartments built into the game board.

A jeweler produced a $2 million Monopoly set

Many have seen various luxury versions of classic board games. However, in 1988 San Francisco jeweler outdid them all. He created 2 million USD Monopoly set with gold board, diamond encrusted dice and houses and hotels decorated with rubies and sapphires.

The pieces in the Clue game were made of lead

The game “Clue” in 1947 patented by a Brit who created it to pass the time during World War II air raids. The original version of the game had parts made of highly toxic lead. It was later replaced by steel, and still later by tin.

Parachutists played Scrabble while falling from 13,000 feet

The board game Scrabble has many fans all over the world. But here are two of its fans who pulled off a truly impressive stunt to mark the game’s 60th birthday. in 2008 two skydivers played a short game after jumping out of a plane over Florida. Of course, so that the game pieces do not fall out along the way, they made a specially reinforced wooden board and sticky parts. Other extreme fans of this game have also played this game in the lion cage and alligator park.

The prototype of checkers board dates back to 3000 BC

Checkers fans can be proud to play a game that was also loved by the inhabitants of ancient civilizations. The prototype of the checkerboard dates back to 3000 BC. It was found during excavations in the Sumerian city of Ur, in present-day Iraq. Other versions of the game were found by the ancient Egyptians. However, checkers continued to evolve until it reached a version similar to today’s in medieval France.

The game “Risk” was created by an “Oscar” winner

Many people dream of creating a game that will be recognized worldwide. But for Albert Lamorisse, it was just a vacation project. The Frenchman created the game RISK (originally known as “La Conquête du Monde” or “The Conquest of the World”) while traveling with his family in the Netherlands. But he was far better known as a filmmaker, winning the Academy Award for the short film Red Balloon, which is still considered a classic.

“Snakes and Ladders” began as a moral lesson

The roots of this game go back to ancient India. The ladder was meant to represent rebirth, where the player ascended to higher life forms through good deeds, while the snakes sent players down to lower life forms due to evil deeds. When the 19th century towards the end the British took over the game, introducing Victorian ideals such as obedience and vices such as indulgence. In the 1940s, the game reached the United States and was renamed Chutes and Ladders, and the overemphasis on morality was toned down.

There are over 4 trillion ways to complete the Connect Four board

Someone went ahead and calculated that there are nearly 2 trillion ways to win a match-four game and over 700 million reach the draw. But assuming you’re playing the “perfect” opponent, there’s one way to guarantee victory: go first and play the center column.

A computer error hastened the chess master’s defeat

The story that shook the chess world happened in 1997. Garry Kasparov, considered one of the greatest chess players of all time, lost a game to an IBM computer. One of its designers has since admitted that the computer’s masterful move, which most likely led to Kasparov’s defeat, was the result of a programming error that engineers tried to fix.

Fidel Castro banned Monopoly

Although it had many ardent fans in Cuba, Monopoly was banned in 1959 when Fidel Castro seized power. The game, which was clearly driven by capitalist ideals, had no place in a socialist state, so all versions of it were ordered destroyed, including the Cuban version of Capitol, which featured the streets of Havana.