Board games
Board games are a form of recreation. Usually played indoors, they use movable "pieces" and may be two player or multiplayer.
In two-player games goal is either to defeat an opponent so that he loses all of his pieces, or to command the greatest area of the board (e.g. chess, chequers or draughts, go etc.).
In multiplayer games (two or more players) the object is either a race of some kind (snakes & ladders, Trivial Pursuit, ludo etc.), to achieve a certain target of "points", or to eliminate all of the other players (Monopoly, Risk etc.). Where the elimination of all other players is the goal the game may take many days to complete and shortened versions are often played with a time limit where the player with the greatest score is declared the winner.
Traditional games
- go is won by controlling more territory than your opponent; even one more point is enough to win
- chess requires the checkmate of the opponent's king; that is, you win if your opponent cannot prevent you from capturing his king (to save face, you don't actually capture it)
- checkers is won by capturing all your opponent's pieces
- backgammon is won by moving all fifteen of one's pieces off the board before the opponent can do the same
Modern games
- Risk (board game) is played on a simplified world map, divided into continents. The winner eliminates all the other players by occupying every country on the board.
- Monopoly (board game) is won by bankrupting all the other players by charging increasingly high rent.
- Scrabble is a collaborative crossword puzzle game.
External links
- Board Game Geek - A database of board games, with reviews, ratings, variants and commentary.
