by Bruce Whitehill
Toy Shop, October 1997
WHAT IS A GAME?
How is a game different from a toy? A toy is a plaything that usually can be used in different ways, that can be played with alone or in a non-competitive way, and that has no specific time period associated with play.
A game, on the other hand, normally has a set of rules governing play, including a fixed beginning and end, and a competitive element in which a player tries either to best an opponent or score higher than in the previous game. Naturally, there are many games which use toy-like devices, and many toys that include the description of a game that can be played with them.
TYPES OF GAMES
Besides categorizing games according to the method of play, one can classify games into five basic groups according to the material or style of construction: card games, board games, skill and action games, computer and video games, and activity or “parlor” games. Naturally, some games use elements of more than one group.
Card Games. A card game is a game which uses a deck of playing cards, such as RUMMY, or one which uses special cards, such as OLD MAID. Games such as AUTHORS (invented in 1861) and OLD MAID are in the public domain and were issued by many different companies, whereas other popular card games were owned by one company. PIT and ROOK, for example, have been made since 1904 and 1906 respectively by Parker Brothers.
Board Games. A board game is a game which uses a carved or illustrated surface, called a gameboard, on which the game is played. Early, non-commercial gameboards were carved in wood, etched in stone, or drawn in the dirt or sand. Most commercially produced board games use a lithographed or printed sheet pasted onto a piece of cardboard. The board may be either a one-piece board or folded (usually one fold, but sometimes as many as three); it’s usually removed from the box and placed on a table, but some games are played in the box on the “buildup” (the support pieces inside the box bottom), directly on the box bottom, or even on the box cover. Because of the standardization of paper sizes and printing processes, some of the folded gameboards of the 1870s were exactly the same size as the standard 18 1/2″ x 18 1/2″ gameboards of today. Earlier American boards–and some made today–are fashioned of wood, paper, and linen (cloth). Three-dimensional boards can be made out of a plastic mold, from wood, or using a die-cut cardboard.
Most board games are designed to be played with two to six players. In terms of method of play, there are two main styles of board games: race games and positioning games. Race games can be divided into three primary types: path, track, and circuit. In a path game, players start at one point and race along one or more circuitous paths to a finishing point (as in CHUTES AND LADDERS or UNCLE WIGGILY); similarly, in a track game, players, with one or more playing pieces, race to be the first one to get all the pieces once around the board (as in BACKGAMMON and PARCHEESI or any horse race game). A circuit game allows players to continue circling the board until one player accumulates whatever is required to win (as in MONOPOLY).
Positioning games are usually played on some sort of grid, where playing pieces may be placed either on the intersections of the lines (as in GO) or in the spaces between them (as in CHECKERS and OTHELLO). Games of this type usually require a player to block, capture, or eliminate an opponents pieces, but some games, such as CHINESE CHECKERS, are a mixture of blocking and racing.
Skill and Action Games. A skill and action, or dexterity game is one which requires the players to perform a physical activity. TIDDLY WINKS, target games, many marble games and games with tops fall into this category. For the most part, the player is required to throw, roll, slide, shoot, spin, or balance something. Some “skill and action” games are almost all action and very little skill–for example, a game which uses a spinning top but where the player has no control over the top’s direction; other games, such as JACKS and PICK UP STICKS, require good in hand-eye coordination. Many of the earlier games were wood, now most are plastic.
Computer or Video Games. Computer or video games are electronic games–games that use “chips” or images on a screen. Usually, no tangible playing pieces are required, and often the player can play alone, trying to better a previous score or competing against the machine rather than another player.
Activity Games or Parlor Games. Activity games or parlor games are those games which may not require any special materials and may be played by almost any number of people. The term “parlor game” comes from the social party games that were played in the parlor (forerunner of the “den”) in the last century. A common parlor game of the period, FORFEITS, required players to answer questions or perform a stunt; if a player was unsuccessful (as most players were) that individual had to pay a penalty–usually reciting prose or poetry, imitating someone, or acting out something.
Many modern parlor games began as pencil and paper games, or games using few, if any, implements. Most of the popular parlor pastimes over the past century have now been boxed and sold commercially, including CHARADES, TWENTY QUESTIONS, and CATEGORIES, a multitude of trivia and question and answer games, and the more recent dictionary games; BALDERDASH has just evolved into BEYOND BALDERDASH. During the 1980s many of these games were made into commercial ventures, with major companies adapting an old idea, then packaging and selling the parlor game in a box. The game play for such successes as PICTIONARY, TRIVIAL PURSUIT, and SCATEGORIES could all be traced to early parlor games.