古代游戏（中国篇）

一:角力型游戏:力量游戏  
 1.角抵:是一种类似现在摔跤、拳斗一类的角力活动。通过非常简单的人体相搏来分出胜负输赢。  
 2.相扑:角抵在宋代变为相扑，相扑虽然主要是靠力量来战胜对方，但有时也要讲究一定的技巧。  
 3.拔河:拔河古称"牵钩"，相传起源于春秋时楚国一带。中划一条界线。一声号令后，两队人马拉住竹索使劲往自己一方拔，一直拔到另一方拉过界线为止。拔河时一边还要敲着大鼓，以振奋人心。  
　4.斗禽:斗禽包括斗鸡、斗鸭、斗鹅、斗牛、斗马、斗蟋蟀、斗鸟、斗鱼等等，这类游戏虽然不是由人直接参与争斗，但却是以动物之间的相斗、角力为内容的游戏活动.  
 4--①斗鸡:把两只性情凶猛的公鸡放在一起，它们就会激烈地斗啄咬起来，一直斗到一方败下阵来为止。两鸡相斗后是鸡冠流血，无力啼叫。如果两鸡相斗之久，各显疲惫之态，还要用水喷醒，使其清醒振奋，重新投入战斗。  
 4--②斗牛:斗牛游戏过去在浙江金华一带非常盛行，其胜负视牛力之大小，牛术之优劣，耐性强弱而定。如一方体力不支，或受伤逃奔，则胜负已分。斗牛人立即抄住牛角，将两牛分开，由牛主人牵牛出场。  
 4--③斗鸟:鸟类动物体形一般都较小，但是其性情却也十分凶猛，善争好斗的鸟类不计其数，八哥、画眉、鹪鹩、鹌鹑等等都十分喜好相斗.

二:竞技型游戏:通过一些特定的技巧和方法来进行竞斗较量。 
 1.投射:起源于上古时期。  
 1--①击壤:是最原始的一种.只有瞄得准，力量用得得当，才能击中目标。  
 1--②投壶:是一种由射箭演变而来的投射游戏形式。投壶者站在离壶一定距离的地方，把箭投向壶中，以中壶口的箭数或中箭的状态来决定胜负，赢者得筹，负者饮酒。起源于先秦时期。  
 1--③其他射箭游戏:如射柳、射兔、射鸭、射鼓、射粉团、射香箭、射天球、九射格等等，　　　　　　　　　　　　  
 2.球戏:产生于先秦时期.  
 2--①蹴鞠:汉魏和唐宋时期得到极大发展的就是蹴鞠，汉代皇室中的蹴鞠规模很大，有专门的球场，四周还有围墙和看台。较为正规的蹴鞠比赛分为两队，双方各有十二名队员参加，以踢进球门之球数的多少决定胜负。平民百姓的蹴鞠活动大多是两三个人自己随便踢踢玩玩，而且也只能是在路旁小巷中进行。到了唐宋时期，蹴鞠的形制有了很大的改变，蹴鞠的技术也有了很大的提高。到了清代时期，蹴鞠又和溜冰结合在一起，出现了一种"上蹴鞠"的活动。玩时双方数十人分位而立，各有统礼，扎一彩球并将其抛起，众人群起而争，边滑边踢球，互相追逐嬉戏。  
 2--②击鞠:即马球.出现于唐代时期,游戏者必须乘坐在骑乘上击球.击鞠的球场，球具和玩法上也都与蹴鞠有所不同。其球场形制一般是在一端立双桓置板，下开一孔为门，门上挂有网囊，也有的是在两端各立一门。游戏者分成两队，每人手中拿一根头部弯曲如偃月的球杖，骑在马上用球杖争球，抢得球后还要把球击入球门中的网囊中，谁击入网内的球多谁便算赢。到了宋代时，击鞠之戏常常被用于宫廷表演。  
 2--③:与击鞠相类似的"步打"也叫"步击"、"捶丸"，起自唐代，流行于宋元。其游戏方法是：在旷地上画一尺见方的球基，离球基六十至百步处，作若干球窝，旁树彩旗。游戏者轮流持木棍从球基将球击入球窝，很像现代流行的高尔夫球。  
 2--④木射:有点类似现在的保龄球。"木射"起源于唐代，又名"十五柱球戏"。其玩法是在场地一端竖立十五根笋形平底的木柱，在每根木笋上用红黑颜色各写一字.红黑相间，作为目标。用木球从场的另一端滚去，命中红笋者为胜，中黑者为负。  
　3.秋千在我国晋代时期就已开始流行.掌握绳索的惯性，利用绳索的前后摆动，荡出各种各样的姿势。最为普遍的形式是在木架上悬挂两绳，下系横板，游戏者在板上或坐或立，摆动秋千，让身体随着秋千的摆动而上下起落。中国古代的荡秋千还有一些技巧性较强，难度较大的方式。如"纺车秋千"玩时要在两个柱架上开孔设置四块横板，呈幅射状，板上共坐四人，由他人帮助转动，然后利用惯性反复起落，如同纺车转动。"推磨秋千"玩时要在柱架上装轴，上系四绳，绳末各有一环。游戏之人各抓一环，绕柱旋转。"磨担秋千"则如跷跷板游戏，板上左右各坐一人，以互落互起为戏。荡秋千之戏到了唐宋时期非常普及,特别是在妇女、儿童中广泛盛行。宋时军队中还出现了一种"水秋千"的形式，届时在船上立起秋千架，敲起大锣大鼓。荡秋千之人将秋千高高飞起，到了秋千与架顶相平的高度时，突然飞身跳起，翻筋斗掷身投入水中。  
　4.踢毽子:是我国古代较为盛行的游戏形式。毽子古称"抛足戏具"，是一种用鸡毛插在圆形底座上做成的游戏器具。早在汉代时期毽子游戏已经出现，到了六朝和唐宋时期盛行于民间，特别是在儿童中十分普及.如"里外廉、拖枪、耸膝、突肚、佛顶珠"等等，都是一些踢毽子时常用的技巧。到了元明清时期，毽子游戏仍很盛行.

三:斗智型游戏:主要是指人类的概括、判断、推理等思维活动.  
 1.七巧板:它一般是用一块正方形的薄板裁成大小、形状不同的几何图形七块，然后将这七块板按不同方式拼合起来，组成人物、动植物、住房建筑、山亭楼阁、船桥车马、花卉鸟虫等各种图案。七巧板源于唐代的"燕几"。"燕几"也叫"骰子桌"，是一种古人在宴会上用的桌子，这种桌子一套共有六张，大小形状各不相同。在宴席时，人们将这些桌子摆成各种图案，以增加宴会的欢乐气氛。后来，燕几从六几变为七几，易名为"七星"，这就是七巧板的雏形。后又经人们改制，将燕几桌改为纸板，于是真正的七巧板就出现了。  
　2.益智图:相传为清光绪年间儿童叶庚创制。他根据民间流传的七巧板，取《易经》中"一画、二仪、四象、八卦"合起来的数目，将拼板改为十五块。这十五块小板，可以拼合成各种人物、动物和其他形状。由于比七巧板增加了板块数，因此圆缺方长，尖斜曲直诸形皆可拼出。  
　3.围棋:先秦时期围棋已在社会上流行，到了汉魏唐宋时期，围棋得到了很大的发展，直至元明清几代，围棋还是一直盛行不衰。围棋的着法和规则十分复杂，它主要是通过做眼、点眼、打劫、围、断等多种技术和战术吃子和占有空位，制胜对方，通常分为布局、中盘、收官三个阶段，每一阶段各有重点着法。结局时将实有空位和子数相加计算，多者为胜。  
 4.象棋:由于在形制和方法上都要比围棋简单，因此其普及程度要比围棋高得多。象棋的棋盘由九道直线和十道横线所组成，构成九十个交叉点、棋子共三十二枚。这种棋戏由唐代时的宝应象棋演变而来，至宋时已基本定型.

四:猜射类游戏:主要通过游戏者对某些事物的形状、大小、颜色、数量等方面的猜测、揣度来决出胜负，是依靠人的判断、推理来进行活动的。  
 1.射覆:就是在瓯、盂等器具下覆盖某一物件，让人猜测里面是什么东西.汉代时期皇宫中已经流行射覆游戏。射覆所藏之物大都是一些生活用品，如手巾、扇子、笔墨、盒罐等等.  
 2.藏钩:指在汉代皇宫中盛行的用玉钩来作为射覆之物的游戏活动.  
 3.谜语:其主要的表现形式，是运用语言文字上的各种特点，将一些事物的意义或形象隐藏起来，供人揣度和猜测。早在春秋时期，谜语的雏形已经出现。至唐代时，社会上除了出现大量的事物谜和文字谜以外，还出现了大量的诗谜，如"敲诗"、"打诗宝"、"诗钟"等等。到了宋代，由于元宵灯会的盛行，又产生出"灯谜"这种独特的猜谜形式。灯谜是将谜语贴在花灯上，让人一边赏灯，一边猜谜的游戏方式。  
 4.酒令:酒令的真正兴盛是在唐代。唐代的酒令名目已经十分繁多，如有历日令、罨头令、瞻相令、巢云令、手势令、旗幡令、拆字令、不语令、急口令、四字令、言小字令、雅令、招手令、骰子令、鞍马令、抛打令等等，代以后，酒令游戏仍然盛行不衰，其名目也越来越多。这些酒令中有很大一部分是猜射性的，它们或猜诗，或猜物，或猜拳，总之，它们都是以猜测某些东西的方式来决定胜负，然后进行赏赐或罚酒。酒令中最为通俗，也最为热闹的方式是猜拳，也叫"划拳"、"豁拳"、"拇战"。它是由两人同时伸了几个手指，并同时喊猜所伸手指的合计数的一种游戏方式。如手指数被一方猜中，另一方便算输，需罚酒。猜拳中喊出的数目都有一定的口彩，而不仅仅是只有几个干巴巴的数目字。如"一品香"、"二相好"、"三元及第"、"四季发财"、"五京魁首"、"六六顺"、"七巧"、"八仙过海"、"快得利"、"满堂红"（或"金来到"）等等。这些酒令词都有讨吉利的涵义。

五:博戏类游戏:主要特点就是游戏的胜负结果要以钱财来兑现。在游戏活动中获胜的一方，可以获得由负者一方支付的一定数量的财产钱物，因此这种游戏方式实质上是一种具有赌博性质的活动。  
 1.骰子:骰子最早产生时形状各异，上有各种刻纹，后来则统一为正方形或长方形，上刻一、二、三、四等点数，并以红、黑颜色相区别。中国古代的绝大多数博戏活动，都要通过掷骰来进行，有些博戏是直接用掷骰的方式来决出胜负，也有一些博戏则是要通过掷骰与行棋、打牌的结合才能决出胜负。这些游戏活动都有一个共同的特点，那就是"悬于投"。　  
 1--①六博:六博本有大博和小博之分，大博用骰六枚，称为"箸"，小博用骰二枚，称为"茕"。在比赛的时候，双方互掷骰子，行棋步数则主要根据博彩而定。  
 1--②樗蒲和双陆:也要经过掷骰子来决定行棋程序。樗蒲所用的骰子共有五枚，有黑有白，称为"五木"。它们可以组成六种不同的排列组合，也就是六种彩。掷到贵彩的，可以连掷，或打马，或过关，杂彩则不能。双陆中的骰子为二枚，棋子称为"马"。行马时，可以根据两枚骰子的不同点数分别行两马，也可按两枚骰子点数之和独行一马。如掷得三和五，合为八点，可一马走三步，一马走五步，也可一马走八步。有的双陆还规定"归梁"后要将马出尽。两枚骰子之和在六点以上者出二马，不足六点者不得出马。  
 1--③五木、投琼和彩战等:是不通过行棋而直接依靠掷骰子来分出胜负的博戏方式，如流行于东晋时的"五木"，流行于唐代时期的"投琼"、"彩战"等形式就是如此。如"五木"本是樗蒲行棋时的一种掷骰活动，但后来"五木"逐渐变成为一种独立的游戏。玩五木时不需要进行复杂的行棋，只要掷出骰子便可决定胜负。唐代"投琼"、"彩战"之戏的形式与五木十分相仿。随着双陆的盛行，双陆中的骰子在唐朝时也开始从双陆中游离出来，由于它的排列组合比五木复杂，有趣得多，因此它很快就取代了五木，成为唐后一千余年中最为流行的博戏方式。双陆中的骰子原为两颗，唐中期以后，发展为六颗，它们的总体原则是，以同色（又称"浑花"，全部为一种点数）为贵，驳杂为贱。在同色中，又以红色为贵。各彩都有特殊的名称，　  
 2.骨牌:产生的时间约在北宋宣和年间，故亦称作"宣和牌"。骨牌实际上是由骰子演变而来的，它的每扇牌面上都由两个骰子面拼成.如明清时期盛行的"推牌九"、"打天九"等等，都是一些非常能够引起人们兴趣的游戏方式。  
 2--①推牌九:主要是用骨牌点数的不同组合来比大小，以此决出胜负.一般是轮流做庄，庄家将牌砌好，用骰子掷出点数，然后按顺序将牌分配到每个参赛者手中，由其他人的牌来与庄家比大小。如比庄家大的庄家赔注，比庄家小的庄家吃注。  
 2--②打天九:玩法与推牌九相似，也是以骨牌的点数组合来比大小，可四人玩，也可三人玩。玩时先掷骰然后以所掷点数依次抹牌打牌。牌类有文牌、武牌之分。文牌又可分为大牌（天、地、人、和）、长牌（长三、长五、长二）、短牌（幺五、幺六、四六、虎头）三种。同类牌中的大牌可以打小牌，但不同类的牌则不能互打。武牌也同样。但文牌和武牌之间则不能相打。打天九还可用骨牌副子相打。最大的是"至尊"，以下是一文一武合成的副子，这种玩法最后还要有一轮"结"，能"结"才算获胜。  
 2--③麻将:麻将原属于马吊牌系统，其牌式主要有"文钱"、"索子"、"万贯"等。打麻将一般需四人成局，轮流做庄。庄家用骰子掷出点数，确定抹牌始处，然后各家开始抹牌和打牌。麻将的主要法则是将自己手中的牌尽快凑成规定的牌式组合，以便能够"和"。其中最基本的牌式组合有两种，一种称为"坎"，由三张同色同数的牌组成，另一种称为"成"，由三张同色连数的牌组成。只要将自己手中的牌全部凑成"坎"和"成"，便可将牌摊出，称为"和"，这样就算获胜。  
 3.叶子戏:纸牌古称"叶子"，最早出现在唐代。到了明清时期，已非常盛行。叶子戏主要有两种。  
 3--①马吊牌:绘有钱索、铜钱和人物形象的马吊叶子，就是所谓的"马吊牌"，一般共分四门，分别为"文钱"、"索子"、"万字"、"十字"。前两种给有铜钱或钱索图形，后两种则绘有水浒人物宋江、武松、鲁智深等形象。打马吊以四人为局，每人为一垒，四人轮流抹牌，每人八张，余八张为中营，类似现在的压底牌。用掷骰来选出"主将"（即庄家），他可以支配中营的八张牌，其他三人则联合为一家与主将斗。斗牌的原则是以大击小，牌的大小以"十字"、"万字"、"索子"和"文钱"为序，只有"文钱"一门是以小管大。马吊叶子在明代时期十分流行，到了清初，又变为"默和牌"。它只剩"万子"、"索子"和"文钱"三门，其基本打法是四人成局，每人抹牌十张，以三四张同门之牌连为一副，三张同色之牌也连为一副，三副牌俱成者为胜，这已经与麻将的玩法非常接近了.

Timeline of Games and Toys

4000 B.C. - 1760 

4000 B.C. A Babylonian board game is played that was probably an ancestor of chess and checkers. 

3000 B.C. First game resembling backgammon is played in Ancient Sumeria. Games similar to backgammon had probably been played by Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans for thousands of years. 
Stone marbles are first used in Egypt. Much later, glass marbles are popularized in the United States in the 1800s. 

2000 B.C. Egyptians begin to play a game that resembles modern-day checkers. 

1000 B.C. Kites appear in China. They have probably been flown since before recorded history. The first three-dimensional kite is invented in the 1890s by Lawrence Hargrave in Australia. 
Stone yo-yos begin to be used in Greece.

c. 300 B.C. Children in ancient Greece often play with horse-shaped figures with wheels. According to Greek legend, attacking Greek warriors hid inside an enormous hollow wooden horse to gain entrance to the city of Troy and end the Trojan War, around the early 12th century B.C. 


200 A.D. The first iron skates are used in Scandinavia. 

600 An ancestor of chess begins to be played. It evolves from an Indian game called Chaturanga. In the 15th century, modern chess pieces were finally standardized and the queen and bishop pieces acquired the powers that they hold today. 

969 Playing cards are first used in Asia. 

c. 1686-1705 In seventeenth-century Europe, dollhouses first gain popularity not as a children's toy but as a hobby for well-to-do ladies. One Dutch dollhouse, now on display in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, was painstakingly handcrafted and decorated for some 20 to 30 thousand guilders (the price real house in Amsterdam at the time). It featured miniature porcelain objects from China and was fitted out with furnishings of different types of wood, glass, marble, silk, velvet, and copper. After the Industrial Revolution, factories began mass-producing toys, and dollhouses become cheaper and more accessible to children. 

1759 Roller skates are invented by Joseph Merlin.

c. 1760 English mapmaker John Spilsbury pastes one of his maps to a board and cuts it in pieces along its borders, creating the earliest version of the jigsaw puzzle. The puzzles were used as a teaching device--for geography, history, and Bible studies--as well as for recreation. The first American jigsaw puzzles appeared around 1850; their popularity during the Great Depression, when companies manufactured cardboard puzzles that even the poorest families could afford. 
1800-1901

1800s Playgrounds begin to appear in American cities. The idea stemmed from the efforts of city reformers who were searching for more healthful play options for children in urban areas, where parks and yards were scarce. The playgrounds started off as "sand gardens," inspired by those seen by an American social worker while visiting Berlin. Financed by local businesses, city playgrounds soon included swings and see-saws. 

1817 Known in some form as far back as ancient Greece, the kaleidoscope is first patented by the Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster and begins to be sold as a children's toy. 

1840 The first American dollmaker is granted a patent and dolls begin to be mass-produced in America for the first time. Dolls are one of the oldest forms of toy, and have been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 2000 B.C. 

1843 The Mansion of Happiness is designed by Anne Abbot and produced by W. and S.B. Ives in Salem, Massachusetts. It became the first board game sold in the United States. According to its rules, players performed good deeds to move forward towards eternal happiness, but move backward as punishment for cruelty, ingratitude, or other vices. 

1870 German immigrant Frederick August Otto Schwarz and his three brothers open a modest toy shop in New York City; it will eventually grow into the enormously successful F.A.O. Schwarz. 

1886 The first BB gun is created. Made for children, it scared many parents because it is actually a working gun that can cause injury. The BB gun was a descendant of the cap gun, which was invented soon after the Civil War, when some shotgun manufacturers converted their factories to make toys. Penny pistols and other authentic-looking toy guns also began to appear in the 1880s. 

1887 The speaking doll, which had first been invented by Johann Maelzel in 1820, is improved when Thomas Edison combines his phonograph technology with a doll, allowing it to speak. 

1896 A westernized version of the Indian game Parcheesi is introduced in England under the name Ludo. Parcheesi is a type of "cross and circle" game, which dates back to 300 A.D. and was played in the Korean, Syrian, and Aztec cultures.

Late 1880s Mah Jongg, which was named for a Chinese word meaning "sparrow," originates in the Ningbo area of China. Games resembling Mah Jongg had been played as long ago as 800. 

1901 At just 22 years old, Joshua Lionel Cowen creates a battery-powered train engine as an "animated advertisement" for products in a store's display window. To his surprise, customers are more interested in purchasing his toy train than the merchandise in the display. Lionel Trains is born.
1902-1940

1902 In America, toy bears begin to be called Teddy Bears" after President Theodore Roosevelt. In only a few years, Teddy Bear-mania swept the world, and by 1915 large-scale toy bear manufacturing was in full swing. 

1903 Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith produce the first box of Crayola crayons. 

1913 Former Olympian (Gold, Pole Vault, 1908) and medical doctor A.C. Gilbert invents the Erector Set, a motorized toy made of steel parts that children use to build models of everything from Ferris wheels and skyscrapers to record players and microscopes. 

1914 Charles Pajeau develops a collection of rugged wooden toys similar to the Erector Set, but designed for younger children; he calls them Tinker Toys. Pajeau was inspired by watching children poke sticks into the holes of thread spools. 

1915 Johnny Gruelle, a newspaper cartoonist, begins to sell Raggedy Ann dolls based on one he had made for his daughter, Marcella. 

1916 John Lloyd Wright, the son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright invents Lincoln Logs, interlocking toy logs children use to build imaginative structures. Wright was inspired by the way that his father designed the earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. 

1927 A tough, durable kind of plastic called polystyrene is invented. Although the first plastic, celluloid, was invented in the 1860s, polystyrene was the first type strong enough to really suit toy making. 

1928 The Mickey Mouse character is created by Walt Disney. Two years later, Charlotte Clark began making stuffed Mickey Mouse dolls, and Disney's legendary merchandising was born. 

1929 The yo-yo is popularized in the United States after entrepreneur Donald Duncan sees the toy being demonstrated in Los Angeles. Duncan bought a small yo-yo company for $25,000 and 30 years later sales of Duncan yo-yos reach $25 million dollars. 

1931 Alfred M. Butts, an unemployed architect from Poughkeepsie, New York, invents a word game called the Criss Cross Game. In 1948, Butts sold the rights to the game to entrepreneur James Brunot, who trademarked it under the name Scrabble. Scrabble went on to sell more than 100 million sets worldwide, including one to two million each year in North America alone. 

1935 Parker Brothers introduces Monopoly. By offering a way to "get rich quick" to Americans struggling through the Great Depression, Monopoly quickly becomes a bestseller, eventually attracting more than 480 million players all over the world. 

1938 Piano tuner and camera buff William Gruber is the mastermind behind the View-Master three-dimensional viewer, which is first sold only through photography stores. Later, after acquiring the licensing rights to all Disney characters, View-Master hit the jackpot, offering 3-D images of stills from Disney movies and TV programs and views of the Disneyland amusement park. 

Early 1940s Affordable, detailed model airplanes begin to be mass-produced. Originally designed to help manufacturers sell airplanes to the military, they begin to make practical toys with the introduction of plastic. Before plastic, models were made with balsa wood provided in kits. Otherwise, consumers had to cut their own wood pieces to fit a provided pattern.
1943-1960

1943 While searching for a suspension device to ease rough sailing on battleships, navy engineer Richard James discovers that a torsion spring will "walk" end over end when knocked over. James brought the discovery home to his wife, who named the new toy "Slinky". If stretched end to end, the Slinky toys sold since 1945 would wrap around the world 126 times. Despite their enormous success, Slinkys are still made in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on the same eight machines that James began with over 50 years ago.

1947 When a group of Minnesota teachers realize their attempt to make and sell garden tools is failing, they decide to use their extra materials to make toys. They named the toy trucks they create Tonka trucks, after nearby Lake Minnetonka. Fifty years later, they had sold 30 million of the miniature vehicles, and used up 120,000 gallons of paint on their signature yellow dump trucks. 

1949 Ole Christiansen , a Danish toy maker, begins to manufacture toy blocks with a new twist. Christiansen creates a plastic brick that can be locked together in different configurations. The Lego, named from the Danish leg godt, meaning "play well," was born. The continuing popularity of the Lego brick probably stems from its ability to stimulate a child's imagination--just six bricks fit together in 102,981,500 different ways. 

Eleanor Abbott designs Candy Land while recovering from polio in San Diego, California. Abbott designed games for child polio victims, and Candy Land's gingerbread-man game pieces, Peppermint Stick Forest, Gingerbread Plum Tree, and Gum Drop Mountain proved so popular with the children that Milton Bradley soon agreed to buy the game. Today, Candy Land is recognized internationally as one of a child's favorite first games. 

1950 Silly Putty is introduced at the International Toy Fair in New York. 

1952 Banking on the idea that children like to play with their food, Hasbro introduces Mr. Potato Head. In its original form, the toy only included parts--plastic eyes, ears, noses and mouths--and children were directed to use them to outfit real potatoes. Eight years later, the manufacturer Hasbro began including a hard plastic potato "body" and the modern version of the toy was born. 

Edward Haas brings the Pez mint dispenser to the United States. It was initially unsuccessful, but gained popularity after Haas changed the original lighter-like design by adding a cartoon head and replacing the mints with fruit-flavored candy. 

1954 Jack Odell creates the original Matchbox car when he makes a small brass model of a Road Roller and puts it into a matchbox so that his daughter could bring it to school. Today, 100 million Matchbox cars are sold each year. 

1956 At a Fourth of July family barbecue, Milton Levine dreams up the idea for the first Ant Farm, complete with live ants.
Play-doh enters the market as a wallpaper cleaner. Non-toxic and less messy than regular modeling clay, it was soon recognized that the cleaner made an excellent toy. The innovative product made Joe McVicker a millionaire before his 27th birthday. To date, 700 million pounds of Play-doh have been sold. 

1959 The Barbie doll is introduced at the American Toy Fair in New York City by Elliot Handler, founder of Mattel Toys, and his wife, Ruth. The busty blond doll--named after the Handlers' young daughter, Barbara--became one of the best-known icons of postwar American popular culture. 

Wham-O founders Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr begin to market the Hula Hoop, after getting the idea from a friend who saw schoolchildren in Australia twirl bamboo hoops around their waist for exercise. Melin and Knerr were actually reincarnating a toy that was probably used as long ago as 1000 B.C. in Egypt, and, later, Greece and Rome. In the first year of production, 15 million Hula Hoops were sold. 

1960 Ohio Art markets the first Etch-a-Sketch. They have since sold more than 100 million of these popular drawing toys. The Etch-a-Sketch was invented by Arthur Granjean in the late 1950s and was originally called L'Ecran Magique. 

In 1869, Milton Bradley invented a game he called The Checkered Game of Life. Its popularity launched Bradley's career in the game business. In 1959, executives at Bradley's company asked game inventor Reuben Klammer to come up with a game to commemorate Milton Bradley's anniversary. Inspired by one of Bradley's old Checkered Game of Life gameboards, Klamer designed the now-classic Game of Life, released in 1960.
1965-1977

1965 Stanley Weston creates a doll for boys based on a new television show called The Lieutenant. The doll, G.I. Joe, proved more popular than the TV series, to the surprise of many toy manufacturers who had assumed for years that boys wouldn't play with dolls. Interestingly, a female G.I. Joe doll introduced years later was a flop. 

1966 Elliot Handler, one of the co-founders of Mattel, Inc., invents Hot Wheels when he decides to add axles and rotating wheels to small model cars. His gravity-powered car with special low-friction styrene wheels reached speeds of 300 miles per hour. 

1969 Parker Brothers markets the first Nerf ball, a polyurethane foam ball that is safe for indoor play. By year's end, more than four million Nerf balls had been sold. 

1972 Magnavox introduces Odyssey, the first video game machine, featuring a primitive form of paddle ball. Other companies soon invested in the video game business and, by 1976 hockey, tennis, and squash were available. 

1973 Dungeons & Dragons is invented by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. The game created a whole new fantasy/adventure category of toys, which is now a $250 million market. 

1976 Nolan Bushnell sells his video game company, Atari, to Warner Brothers. Atari's popular Pong and Super Pong video tennis games soon gave way to a home video cartridge system that ran full-color games, from baseball to Pac-Man. By 1982, Atari was making $2 billion a year, but lost its business just as quickly through over-licensing. In 1983, Atari sent thousands of cartridges to Texas to be used as landfill. 

1977 Kenner Toys introduces a line of Star Wars action figures, capitalizing on the popularity of George Lucas's blockbuster film. They dominate the action figure market and set a precedent for popular toy and video game franchises based on movies. 
1980-1993

1980 Ideal Toys renames their Magic Cube toy Rubik's Cube after its inventor, Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor Erno Rubik. The multi-colored cube is now said to be the world's best-selling toy, and there have been some 300 million Rubik's Cubes (or imitations) sold worldwide. 

1983 A Japanese company, Nintendo, brings the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a home video game system, to the United States. With 52 colors, realistic sound, and high-speed action, it catches the attention of retailers who were initially skittish due to Atari's collapse. The NES, as well as the popular Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda game cartridges, were the top-selling toys for the 1987, 1988, and 1988 holiday seasons. In 1989, Nintendo released Game Boy, a battery-powered, hand-held video game system. 

1985 Artist Xavier Roberts introduces his Cabbage Patch Kids into the mass market. Roberts first designed the dolls in 1977 to help pay his way through school. Cabbage Patch Kids became the most successful new dolls in the history of the toy industry. Although more than three million of the dolls were produced, supply could not keep up with demand, and doll sales for all of 1985 totaled $600 million (or more than $1.1 billion in 2005 dollars). 

1986 Rob Angel, a 24-year-old waiter from Seattle, introduces Pictionary, a game in which partners try to guess phrases based on each other's drawings.

1987 Engineer Scott Stillinger invents the Koosh Ball in an effort to teach young children how to catch. He tied rubber bands together to make a small, easy-to-catch ball. The name "koosh" comes from the sound the ball makes as it lands in a person's hand. 

1993 Toy inventor H. Ty Warner begins to market understuffed plush bean bag toys called Beanie Babies. The toys are designed to be inexpensive so that a child could purchase them. Warner began with nine Beanie Babies (a dog, a platypus, a moose, a bear, a dolphin, a frog, a lobster, a whale, and a pig). The toys were not an instant success. It was only after the first eleven Beanie Babies were retired in 1996 that they became a collector's item. -- An estimated 100 million Beanie Babies are sold in 1996 alone. 

Mattel announces it will be merging with Fisher-Price, creating a $2.5 billion corporation that will rival the leading toy manufacturer, Hasbro. Barbie, Fisher-Price, Disney toys, and Hot Wheels make up 85% of Mattel's sales. 

Mortal Kombat becomes the most popular title in the fast-growing home video-game market. 
1994-2007

1994 Sales of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers action figures top $400 million in the U.S. alone. The Japanese toy company Bandai Co. released the figures to accompany the repackaged U.S. version of a long-running Japanese live-action TV series. 

1996 The bright red Tickle Me Elmo, based on a Sesame Street character, arrives in stores, causing the Christmas shopping crowds to multiply as parents rushed to get the year's "it" toy. Elmo reacted to a child's touch, first chuckling and eventually laughing hysterically when squeezed repeatedly. 

1997 The online retailer eToys.com launches, quickly becoming one of the most popular and fastest-growing cyber toy shops. In addition to toys, the site also included books, videos, computer software, and video games in its inventory.

1998 Debuting in October, the furry "pet" called Furby--animated with six built-in sensors that allowed it to react to movement, light and darkness, and touch--begins selling out as soon as it hits the stores. Furby's range of responses included opening and closing its eyes, wiggling its ears, and speaking a number of phrases in English and "Furbish". Online, crazed consumers were soon offering up to $200 for the $30 toy. 

1999 The collectible card trading game based on the Pok茅mon video games becomes the newest success of the franchise, launched in America by Nintendo in 1998. In an attempt to replicate the way the video game is played, each Pok茅mon card had individual strengths and weaknesses, and players attempted to "knock out" each other's cards in order to win. 

2000 Selling for around $100 retail, the Razor Scooter becomes the top-selling toy of the year. The lightweight aluminum scooter's popularity began in cities like New York and Los Angeles, but soon swept the country, and more than 5 million were sold within a year of its debut. 

Sony launches its new video game console, the Playstation 2. Despite competition from Sega's Dreamcast, Nintendo's GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox, the Playstation 2 becomes the fastest-selling game console in history, with more than 106 million units shipped worldwide by the end of 2006. 

2001 Squishy, battery-powered Jumbo Music Blocks become a popular toy for babies and young children. The large foam blocks featured music, secret pockets, and interactive activities that helped children learn the alphabet and improve motor skills (by working zippers, snaps and buttons). 

M.G.A. Entertainment releases the first four Bratz dolls. With their skinny bodies clad in trendy, provocative urban fashions and their big heads and pouty lips, the anime-like dolls quickly became a sensation, outselling Barbie in several countries around the world. 

2005 The Ganz company releases a new line of plush toys called Webkinz, which quickly start a trend that is compared to the Beanie Babies phenomenon of the 1990s. Using a special code included with each toy, children could log on to a Web site that allowed them to "adopt" their pet and virtually interact with it. 

2006 The next generation of video game consoles is represented by Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3, and Nintendo's Wii. The video game industry has grown to generate some $13 billion in revenues per year.

A History of Board Games: When Did Game-Playing Start?

One can well imagine that games have been played throughout human history, beginning as soon as there was a moment of leisure time not devoted to survival -- and as soon as communications between individuals got beyond the basics of conveying elementary needs and movement, into the realm of intention and ideas. It's a fact that games are played between babies and their parents from the first months of life, beginning with peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake and working up to hide-and-seek just as soon as a toddler is mobile. Games seem to be part of our nature, probably because they serve a useful purpose (learning skills like strategic thinking) all the while being fun.

The broadest definition of games has to begin with such simple baby entertainments (which note: serve to exercise the infant mind in understanding that things that vanish aren't necessarily gone -- and exercise a body and develop coordination and rhythm) and extend through sports to strategy games of all sorts, and even include the games of "make believe" played by friends and siblings in the back yard on nice summer days -- which mature into modern role-playing games that combine elements of imagination with those of luck (roll of the dice) and strategy and rules.

But here we concentrate on board games, which are defined as any game played primarily on, but sometimes just near, a board of some kind.

The Earliest Board Games

The oldest complete board game found thus far is "The Royal Game of Ur" -- which was discovered in 1926-1927 by Sir Leonard Woolley in royal tombs in what is now Iraq -- dating back to more than 2500 B.C.E. The ruins are of the city-state of Ur which once housed Abraham, so we can imagine that this game may have been played by people whose tales are told in the Bible. Among the wonders found within the tombs were four boards of the same basic design representing one game that was played by many classes of people in that society -- ranging from simple to richly worked pieces. It's not known whether UR was the first board game ever played but it's ancient enough that everything before it is pretty much guess-work. 

The mancala family of games -- in which stones are moved about holes arranged in two (or more) parallel rows on a board -- probably originated with seeds or beans played in holes scooped in the dirt (an extremely easy-to-make game for farmers on a lunch break) -- which then evolved into a board game -- about the time folks got tired of scratching holes in the dirt. There are so many variations of mancala that it has to have been around for thousands of years and, likely, goes back further. Rows of holes have been found carved on slabs in ancient structures in Egypt, even in the pyramid of Cheops, that look remarkably like mancala game boards. Saharan remains that date back 3000 years look like mancala boards, too. Richard Leakey found some boards with two rows of thirteen holes in Kenya, that he dates to Neolithic times. Some of these may be ancient calculators but undoubtedly some are early forms of the game.

 

Ancient Games Begin In China: Wei-qi (Go)

The Game of Go ("Wei-qi" in its original Chinese form) enjoys a special place in board game history, because not only is it one of the oldest games known, it has kept essentially the same rules for longer than any other board game out there. After its origins in China perhaps as far back as 2300 B.C.E., Wei-qi spread into Korea in the second century (where it was called Pa-tok, now Baduk or Badug), and finally, when it traveled to Japan via trade routes sometime around the year 700 A.D. -- it developed into a most sophisticated game unlike just about any other class of games -- and the rules have not varied significantly since that time.

Because Go is really a game about capturing territory, it falls outside all the usual classifications of games: alignment games, war games, capture games, hunt games, race games -- though it has hints of some of these in it. Though capture is a part of Go, and it is often considered a war game, capture is just one aspect, and it is not so much about aspects of war (generals and soldiers and war equipment) as it is about defining who owns what spaces on the board. The pieces have no differing powers at all -- they simply serve to mark the borders of territory.

Another Chinese Game: Mah Jongg

Mah Jongg is said to have originated in the Tang Dynasty in China -- about 4000 years ago. Whether its original form was paper (cards) and it later moved onto tiles, or whether it began as tiles (or wooden planks) and cards later developed from it, most of the length of its early history has been recorded as being limited to the aristocracy -- the rules were kept secret until China became a republic early in the last century! It is very likely that the earliest versions of the game would bear little resemblance to the game as played today.

Only in 1920 did it step outside its country of origin and spread, first to the United States and then around the world.

Strongly resembling the card game "Rummy" -- true Mah Jong is a game for four players (and bears little relation to the dull but mesmerizing solitaire version often found on computers, sometimes called "Shanghai"). 

Dice Games, Race Games

Certainly one of the oldest forms of gaming, in general, has to be "lots" played with dice. The earliest form of die seems to have been a binary -- quite often using the small end of a branch of a tree, cut in half so that when thrown it ended either round or flat side up (as seen in the game of Senet; see below). The interesting thing about binary dice is that the odds on a throw of the more extreme numbers (one or six) are very different than they would be using the modern, traditional, six-sided die. With a six-sider you have an equal chance of rolling any number (one in six). But using five of the stick-dice to get six different result (one flat, two flat, three flat, four flat, five flat and no flat would equal six) there are so many different ways of coming up with a 2 or a 3 (ten different ways each), and a fair number of ways to come up with a one or a four (five ways each) but only one way of coming up with a five or a six (all flat up or all flat down) -- which is why in ancient games based on binary dice you'll often see the very rare throws greatly rewarded, with extra distance on moves and a free throw, too.

Dice were later made out of bones and were called "astragals" -- usually made from the knuckle bones of sheep or goats which, when rolled on a hard, flat surface, would land in one of four ways -- customarily valued at 1, 3, 4 and 6. These would certainly have been used for gambling, and it is not a long step from the throwing of dice to the need for some way to keep score -- which is likely where the earliest of race games came from. 

The simplest race games are just that -- a board with spaces and a marker to move along it, and dice to tell you how far to move. Such a game may entertain a child for a little while but one quickly realizes there is no skill at all involved (except perhaps in the throwing of the dice) and no strategy.

The next introduction to race games would have been helps and hazards (as with Snakes and Ladders) themed in a way appropriate to whatever game you're playing. Still not a very challenging game though.

Adding more complications makes the game more interesting, so next we allow the players more than one piece -- so they can choose which to move -- and the ability to bump each other off the board. Add a few "safe" spots and keep the other hazards and helps and we now have a game suitable for adults.

The Ancient Egyptian Game of Senet

One such very early game is S'n't -- lately known as "Senet" or "Senat". This very early board game was found in many ancient Egyptian tombs -- both of pharaohs and workers. A magnificent board was found buried with Tutankhamen. 

In this game of 30 squares set in three rows of 10, both player's pieces enter the board at one end of a row, proceed to the end, turn and go back down the middle at the end of which they turn again, drop to the final row and go back -- the object being to bear off all your pieces before your opponent does. Special spots on the board represent death and being turned away from the afterlife -- and rebirth to try again. The heiroglyph representing a Senet game is found honoring a king -- and dates back to 3100 B.C.E. -- and if the game was known and respected then, it must be older still.