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Period: 3100 BCE to 3500 BCE
Ur
The first ever board game that has been discovered completely. In this game you would race around an ornately decorated board using dice. This game was played by the ancient Mesopotamians. -
Period: 625 BCE to 31 BCE
Calculi
The first recorded 'five in a row' game. The predecessor to Connect 4. This game was played by ancient Romans. -
Period: 625 BCE to 31 BCE
Tesserae
An ancient dice game played by the Romans. These 'dice' were different from our modern dice, as each opposing side would add up to seven. -
Period: 205 BCE to 220
Weiqi (Go)
An ancient Chinese game in which you would capture territory by surrounding your opponents' stones on a checkered board. This game is still popular today. -
200 BCE
Moksha Patam
The original 'Snakes and Ladders' game, consisting of a moral basis where virtues were ladders and vices were snakes. -
600
Chaturanga
The earliest known version of modern chess. -
600
Mancala
A family of games where you "sow" (move) objects through a board in order to collect the most objects at the end. -
1420
Playing Cards
The original playing cards, which did not have suits like our modern cards, but resembled dominoes. -
Pachisi
A race game in which you move pieces around a board in order to get to the middle to win. -
Period: to
Collectible Cards
Games in which you use collectible cards to battle each other. This genre of games got it's rise in the 1990s with Magic, Pokémon, etc. -
Bertie the Brain
"The first video game created." It featured arcade-style gameplay against an AI in tic-tac-toe. -
Dungeons & Dragons
D&D pioneered the genre of table-top RPGs. The creativity that D&D draws out of its players was something never seen so in-depth. -
Period: to
The Golden Age of Arcades
Originally, arcades were thought of as "unsavory" but the founder of Atari wanted to change that perception, when he opened Chuck E Cheese. Arcades became very popular, and the amount of games for these arcades increased exponentially. -
Gettysburg
The first military-based board game focused on a specific battle. -
Gen 3 Consoles
The third generation of video game consoles. This generation included legends like the NES. The NES's addition of a d-pad revolutionized the landscape for video game controllers designs. -
Period: to
VR/AR Games
The newest gaming technology used to immerse the player fully in the game. VR puts you in a virtual environment, while AR puts virtual aspects into your reality. -
Rise of PC Gaming
After the surge of home consoles, people took the opportunity to bring games to come PCs. PC gaming was often ahead of the game against consoles. They had better graphics, and could be updated. -
Period: to
Gen 4-6 Consoles
A wave of consoles that kept increasing their quality of graphics, storage, speed, and audio exponentially. These generations included the SEGA Genesis, CD-ROMs, the N64, the PS2, and the Xbox. -
Settlers of Catan
"The quintessential Eurogame" in which you build settlements and to try reach your opponents. -
Period: to
Gen 7-Present Day
This generation kept improving on the aspects that were improved upon in the prior generations. This generation introduced motion-tracking technology into gaming (the Wii, etc.) Consoles were also starting to be geared towards general entertainment, and not just game-playing.