WEBVTT - What are the World's Oldest Board Games? 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.519 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.280 and iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.640 Guess what Will? What's that Mango? Did you know that 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.319 the game Candyland comes from a polio ward? I have 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.480 to say, I cannot think of two things more different 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.800 than Candyland and polio Mango. I know it sounds entirely insane, 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.200 but in nineteen forty eight, a teacher named Eleanor Abbot 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.200 invented candy Land during a polio epidemic. Apparently, Abbot got 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.319 sick and was confined to this hospital where children were 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.479 being treated in iron lungs, which you know, it just 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.559 sounds horrible. Iron lungs for those of you who don't know, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.680 were these early types of respirator where the kids were 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.559 basically immobilized and mostly they're just lying on their backs, 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.480 unable to see anything except the white ceiling above them. 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.520 And to counter all of this, Abbot creates this bright, 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.840 cheerful game where the only goal. The only goal is 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:03.200 to move around the landscape of treats, and her original 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:05.480 version of the board even showed a boy in a 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.440 leg brace starting to walk. Wow, that's pretty cool, and 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.399 you know, I almost feel bad admitting this now, but 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.840 I always thought Candyland was kind of boring. Is that 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.280 controversial to say? I don't know. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.959 I mean, let's be clear, it is super dull. The 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.200 game basically requires no effort and has no strategy. But 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.840 it was made as mindless entertainment. It was really this 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.160 way for kids to imagine again and pastime. But you know, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.000 reading about candy Land made me wonder about all these 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.200 colorful cardboard boxes and family rooms across the country and 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.880 the incredible stories hiding inside them, many of which don't 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.640 involve deadly diseases. So let's dive in. 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:09.600 Hey there, podcast listeners, welcome back to Part Time Genius. 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.640 I'm Will Pearson, and as always, I'm here with my 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.799 good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer and they're behind the booth. 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.360 That's our amazing producer Dylan Fagan, who seems to be 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.919 wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches. Haven't seen those 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.079 in a minute. He's got a pipe. I hope the 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.080 smoke alarm doesn't go off, and he's waving something at us. Mego, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.480 can you actually tell what that is? Yeah? I think 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.800 it's a candlestick, which is maybe a reference to Clue. 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.480 Oh my god, it's Professor Fagan in the booth with 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:44.160 a candlestick. That's amazing. So I was a big fan 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.320 of Clue. But Will I'm wondering if you had to pick, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.440 what would you say is your favorite board game of 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.280 all time? You know, if we're having to stick to 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.560 board games versus just like a party game and a box, 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.400 I probably would put Clue way up there. I mean, 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.880 it is so much fun playing with the family. My 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.320 daughter gets so into it and so anxious about one 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.040 of us guessing before her, and it just gets real heated, 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.560 but in the right kind of way. But if I 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.079 had to just say my favorite like game in a box, 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.120 I'd probably go with something like, uh, Taboo. Like I 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.120 just love the element of a timer being there and 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.680 it being a word based game and having to play 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.120 with a team and just getting so into it and 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.520 all the screaming that starts to happen when it gets 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:29.880 really heated. I don't know that those would probably be 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:34.000 my two favorites, how about you. Yeah, for parties, I 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.760 like Categories. I think Categories is always really really fun. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.600 Ruby brought home this game called out Foxed a few 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.360 years ago and it's for younger kids, but there is 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.839 a fox who is stolen the pie and you're trying 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.040 to figure out which fox it is, and it's super 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.880 super cute and really really fun. So that's a game 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.760 I've been giving to people recently. So many good games 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.200 out there. Well, you know, one of the things that 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.320 surprised me when I started researching for this topic is 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.280 just how many different types of board games that are 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.240 out there. In fact, in nineteen ninety nine, a renowned 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.840 British games history I'm named David Parlott. He published a 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.720 book called The Oxford History of Board Games, and he 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.560 divided board games into four different groups. You've got your 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:20.960 race games, where the goal is to cross a finish 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.440 line or get your pieces home first. You've got your 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.560 space games, where you need to achieve a certain pattern 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.280 or configuration. You've got your chase games where you hunt 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.440 down and thwart your opponent's pieces. And then you've got 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.640 your displaced games, where you win by capturing your opponent's pieces. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.240 So I don't know if you've got all those straight now, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.280 but those are the four categories. I love that games 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.240 historian is a real job, but I also love that, 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.520 like the height of games historian is that you make 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:54.359 your categories rhyme like that, right, right, yeah, but I'm curious, like, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.760 where does something like Monopoly fit into the system? Mango, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.159 do not underestimate British games history and David Parlott so 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.039 to address questions just like that one you asked, he 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:09.640 actually added in an informal fifth classification these are theme games, 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:11.719 so I guess they didn't rhyme with the others, but 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.039 it includes quote the plethora of modern board games chiefly 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.920 categorized by a thematic subject matter, such as property trading 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:21.279 or crime detection. 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.400 Well, I mean, I do love that someone is taking 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.120 such an academic approach to understanding board games. 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.000 It's really kind of amazing. It's honestly one of my 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.599 favorite things is when people have such specific specialties, like 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.200 I really do love that to be like the guy 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.160 to go to on stuff like this. But anyway, Parlotte 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.520 explains that board games are a cultural activity, not unlike 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.919 music or dance. They've been part of human civilization for 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.720 as long as human civilization has been around, and as 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:51.520 a result, they deserve to be studied. 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.400 I actually wanted to know what the world's first board 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:56.960 game was, and it turns out it's something called senate. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.720 The game means passing, and it was a popular board 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.360 game in ancient Egypt, played by everyday people as well 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.200 as royalty, and one of the paintings in Queen Nevertid's 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.480 tomb shows her playing it, and King tut was actually 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:12.720 buried with five Senate game boxes. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:14.400 So how did the game work? 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:16.800 I mean, the thing is, we don't really have a 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.920 definitive account of the rules. What we know mostly comes 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.760 from tomb paintings and the few surviving boards. But basically, 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.400 the board was a grid of thirty squares made of 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.159 both three rows of ten, and you started the top 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.560 left corner and move your pieces across the roads until 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.600 you get to the bottom right corner. But what's interesting 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.040 about it is that while archaeologists think Senate began as 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.359 this sort of simple pastime, like something you played for fun, 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.679 eventually it took on this greater meaning. So there's actually 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.599 tombart that shows the deceased playing Senate against their living relatives, 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:51.880 and that sug just the game had the power to 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.800 connect the living and the dead, and some people think 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.640 the game may represent the soul's journey through the realm 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.320 of the dead as they try to reach the after life. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.080 So maybe a little bit more profound than say, hungry, 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.200 hungry hippos. But you know, I also looked into ancient 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.960 board games and I discovered the story of the royal 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.320 game of er. Now. It was played in Mesopotamia around 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.400 four five hundred years ago, and Westerners learned all about 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.320 it in the nineteen twenties when a British archaeologist named 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.000 Sir Leonard Woolley was exploring the ruins there and that 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.920 was the great Samerian city state in modern day Iraq, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.760 and so deep in the royal tombs there, Woolly found 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.680 these beautiful boards made from shells and semi precious stones, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.480 but there was nothing to indicate what the game was 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.640 exactly or how to play it. So for decades the 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.640 boards just sat there at the British Museum. And I'm 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.880 guessing the story doesn't end there. It does not, I 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.760 have more to say about that. And so that's when 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.800 Irving Finkel, who was a British museum curator with the 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.520 perfect name for a British museum curator, Irving Finkel, he 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.440 enters the scene. Now, he's apparently quite a character he's 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.640 got his huge white beard and bushy eyebrows, all these 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.640 things that you knew exactly when I said. His name 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.000 was Irvan Finkel, and he's obsessed with board games and 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:12.480 cuneiform and this made him uniquely suited to solve this mystery. 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.280 So one day in the nineteen eighties, he's looking at 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.520 a tablet that had this weird combination of Sumerian and 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.840 Babylonian languages on it, and he's just trying to decipher it, 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.320 and Finkel figured out it was written by a Babylonian 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.480 scribe who was quoting an early Sumerian document. This was 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:33.800 all about the royal game of er. So what was 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:35.840 he looking at? Like, did he find directions for the game? 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.400 He kind of did. So the tablet Finkel translated had 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.200 a set of directions for a gameplay that included fortune telling, 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.600 like landing on certain squares apparently predicted your future. But 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.400 like I said, this Babylonian guy was quoting an earlier 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.000 description of the game, and so that helped Finkel reconstruct 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.840 the original method of play, and under David Parlot's classification, 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.760 it's a race game. So you move your pieces along 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.720 the board by rolling dice which back in Sumerian times 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.920 would have been made from sheep or ox bones. And 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.960 whoever gets all their pieces across the finish line wins. 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:12.559 Now you can thwart your opponent by landing on one 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.960 of their pieces and then sending them back to the start, 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.679 and according to Finkel, special mark squares gave you an 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:20.680 extra turn. So even some of the little things that 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.000 you would see in today's games. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.240 Yeah, I know, it feels so modern in a sense. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.080 So can you actually play this game now? 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.160 Yeah? And so lots of people have made boards modeled 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.680 after the ones at the British Museum. You can find 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.320 them on Etsy if you want to look at this. 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.720 But if you prefer a more digital Sumerian experience, you 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:41.040 can go to royal ur dot net and play online. 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.080 That is amazing to think you can play a game 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.240 that Mesopotamian's played way back when. 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:48.679 You know. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.240 One thing I learned while researching this episode is that 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.679 board game history is really messy, and different culture has 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.640 often developed similar games, and they evolved as people played, 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.719 so it's not always easy to trace their lineage like 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.800 you think about chess. Right, Chess was originated in India 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.959 over a thousand years ago, but there's also evidence that 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.560 similar games were created in China, Pakistan, Russia and elsewhere. 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.640 Wow. Yeah, And actually, for our newer listeners, you know Mango, 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.760 didn't we do an episode about chess a few years ago? Yeah? 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.160 It was called why are Russians So Good at Chess? 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.520 And we got into some of that history. So we 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.360 don't have to go over it now. But I do 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:28.920 want to tell you about another game with Indian roots 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.319 and a complicated family tree. It's called Pachis and it 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.720 goes to show how a single game can leap frog 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.360 its way across the globe. But why don't we get 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:55.240 into that right after this break? Welcome back to Part 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.880 Time Genius, where we're talking about board games, where they 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.520 come from, and why we love them so well. I 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.440 want to tell you about the game of Pachise, So, Mengo. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.520 I know a lot of times we'll have discussions around pronunciations, 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.000 given your family roots and my roots here in Alabama. 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:15.280 So I think what you mean though, is Parcheesi, right? No? 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.360 I mean pachie swhiches often revirred to is the national 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.080 game of India. I had no idea of been the India. 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:23.679 A number of times. I did not know it was 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.880 the national game of India. But the name comes from 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.720 the Hindi word which means twenty five. And it's a 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.520 classic chase game played on a board shaped like cross. 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.600 There's a square in the middle and the goal is 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:37.360 to be the first player to get all four of 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.280 your pieces around the board and into the center. 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.679 I have to say, mango, that sounds a lot like Parcheesi. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.840 Yeah it should, because Parchiesi is a simplified version of 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.760 the game that was marketed in the US and the 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.520 late eighteen hundreds, but there are differences. So in the 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.080 Indian version, the pieces start and end in the center square. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.840 In PARCHIESI, each player starts their pieces in one corner 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:04.000 and races to the center. Also, Parchiesi uses dice, putchies 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.720 uses Cowrie shells. You throw them and count the number 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.080 of shells that land with the open end up and 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.520 that determines the number of spaces you can move. And 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:14.960 in most versions of the game, the highest value you 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.240 can get from these cowri shells is twenty five. 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.640 Hence the name you know, the cowori is of course 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.080 for those that don't know, it's a small, shiny sea snail, 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.560 which I've just discovered is a great tongue twister to 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:26.600 say ten times fast. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.760 Well, what's really interesting is that no one knows exactly 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.199 where Putchies came from. It may have evolved from games 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.760 that began in the fourth century or even earlier. There 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.320 are depictions of cross shaped boards that date back to 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.280 the second century BCE. We do know there was an 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:48.240 early version called chowpar that was popular among Mogul royalty 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.880 in the sixteenth century, including the Emperor Akbar, and he 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:53.960 actually had a life sized game set up at his 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.800 palace and instead of using tokens, he and his friends 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.559 played by calling out their moves to courtesans who walked 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.040 across the outdoor board. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.800 It's interesting, and how did pacice get turned into Parcheesi? 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.600 For those of us in America now around eighteen sixty, 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.400 there was a British games company that made a version 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.800 called Pachisi for the UK market. A few years later, 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.480 a New York man named John Hamilton made his own version, 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.000 copyrighted it, and sold it to a company that became 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.840 known as Cell Chaw and Writer, which you know is 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.160 a major games publisher, and that's where it was rebranded 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.920 as PARCHIESI and became a hit. I do like it 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.560 when things like this evolve and sort of bounce around 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.679 over time. So in this case, this bounced from India 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.080 to Britain to America, and I guess with slightly different 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:40.200 names at each stop. 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.679 I mean, what's weird is that there's even a little 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.320 bit more back and forth. So in the eighteen nineties, 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.040 after Parcheesi took off in the US, the game changed 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.640 again in England and people modified it to a smaller 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.760 board and they used one die instead of two, and 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.559 that version was called Ludo, which you know, I'm sure 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.920 you've heard of, And strangely enough, in the twentieth century 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:05.080 there was a Ludo craze that swept India. So, I mean, 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.920 it's kind of amazing to think this board game that 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.400 started in India ends up traveling, evolves and then and 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:12.680 then comes back to India. 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.440 Oh that's wild, all right. So for my next fact, 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.800 I think I'm going to go back to British Games Historium, 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.280 David Parlott and his game classification system. You remember him 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.840 from the top of the episode Mango. I mean, how 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.920 could I forget British Games historian David Parlotte. I like 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:28.480 that every time we're going to mention and we're going 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.520 to have to say in full British games historian David Parlott. 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.400 But it's good, good branding for him. But I want 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.800 to get into the modern era of board games here, 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:38.960 which is really when we start to see the rise 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.720 of what Parlot calls these these theme games. And one 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.600 of the first teams people applied to board games was geography. 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.080 And why do you think that was? Well, in the 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.040 late eighteenth century, board games took off in Europe. Now 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.160 this was the age of Enlightenment, so there were all 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:56.200 kinds of theories about education and people realize that board 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.920 games could be educational. Now at the same time, you 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.720 have cartographers who were getting into the game publishing business, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.520 creating game boards out of maps. And these geographic board 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.000 games mostly followed the same pattern, so you moved from 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.880 city to city across a map, learning little facts along 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.440 the way. And here's an unusual detail. Most games didn't 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:20.640 use dice because dice were associated with gambling. So instead 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.280 people use this spinning top with numbered sides called teetotem. 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.960 Now have you ever heard of this? I actually have 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.680 it kind of looks like a Dradel right. In fact, 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.080 it became the Dradal like European Jews modified it by 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.120 replacing numbers with Hebrew letters, so by using a teetotem 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.400 instead of dice, it made board games socially acceptable. And 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.680 back then travel wasn't as common as it is now, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.520 so geographic board games were also a way to discover 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.400 places that you might not otherwise get to know. Oh 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.160 that's really fun. So in eighteen twenty two, a geographic 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.240 game called a Traveler's Tour of the United States became 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.240 the first board game to be published in America, and 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.320 it was created by a New York map maker, and 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.240 it consisted of a map of all twenty four states 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.600 at the time, that's all we had at that point, 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.200 and so cities on the map were marked by numbers 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.800 instead of names. There was a corresponding list of places. So, 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.520 for example, Trenton, New Jersey, was marked with a ten 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.880 on the map, and if you looked up number ten 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.360 on the list, it said Trenton. And then there were 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.080 bonus facts like capital of the state on the Delaware River, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.520 thirty miles northeast of Philadelphia, population three thousand, stuff like that. 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:30.560 And so you spin the teetotem, look that number of 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.200 spaces ahead on the map, and if you can name 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.600 the town without looking at the list, you get to 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.320 move your token there. So if I'm a number seven Wilmington, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:41.880 Delaware and I spent a three, I can move to 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.280 number ten, assuming that I know the spot is Trenton. 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:47.320 You're following this, it's a little complicated. 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.080 I mean, I do love this like Oregon Trail nature 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.320 of these games where you're learning about places along the way, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.400 but this almost sounds painfully educational. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:00.800 Yeah, and the goal of the game was to travel 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.200 from the East Coast down to New Orleans. But interestingly 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.040 the game was political too, so an Iowa State professor 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.040 named Matthew winn Sivils he writes this fascinating essay about 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.320 this in the conversation, and he points out that the 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:19.280 location descriptions tell a very specific story about the United 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.359 States in eighteen twenty two and how we wanted to 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:27.400 see ourselves. They emphasize institutions of higher learning, economic prosperity, 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.320 the industriousness of American citizens, and they do not, however, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:35.080 mention slavery. So it's like American exceptionalism the game, right, 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.239 that's exactly right. But you have to know where Trenton is. 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:39.360 That's the main thing. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.879 Fascinating. Well, speaking of things Americans are good at. I 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.399 did some research into the creation of the board game industry, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.240 like how did these games go from these folk creations 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:55.080 to indie publications to you know, a billion dollar business. 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.240 And it turns out we have a man named Milton 0:17:58.359 --> 0:17:59.520 Bradley to thank for it. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:01.520 You know, for some reason, I always thought that was 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.920 like a law firm name, you know, the partner's last 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:05.960 names that come together to form the name. 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.119 Yeah, I actually thought so too. I thought it was 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.760 two partners. But Milton was a real person, and he 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.400 was born in Maine, in this tiny town called Vienna. 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:20.480 His family struggled financially and they ended up moving to Lowell, Massachusetts, 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.639 so his dad could work in a mill. Now, Milton 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:25.840 never finished school and he had a hard time finding 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.880 jobs too. But in eighteen sixty he started this lithography business. 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.680 This happened to be an election year. Abraham Lincoln was 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.879 running against Democrat John C. Breckinridge, and Bradley made a 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:41.320 lithograph print of Lincoln that sold like hotcakes. Actually, I'm 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:42.680 just going to send you a copy so you could 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:43.320 take a look at it. 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.040 I mean, that's Abraham Lincoln, but his hair is very 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.080 short and he doesn't have a beard. 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.160 Yeah, he doesn't have that trademark beard. So shortly after 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.800 Bradley started selling this lithograph, Lincoln actually grew his beard, 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.880 which made him look totally different. So not only did 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.200 his stock of prints become worthless overnight, but some people 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.560 actually started complaining about this and Bradley starts giving them 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.400 their money back. It almost put him out of business 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:12.840 and as well because of this ridiculous beard. But after 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.920 this disaster Bradley pivots. He published a board game called 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.880 The Checkered Game of Life. Now this was probably inspired 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.200 by a British game called a New Game of Human Life, 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.520 which was weirdly based on a sixteenth century game called 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.119 the Royal Game of Goose, which I feel like, if 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.200 you've got a game called the Royal Game of Goose, 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:33.600 how can you improve on it? 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:35.320 Early they did. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:37.760 But what all these games had in common was the 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.000 idea of moving along a path that represented life, and 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.880 it had a strict moral code that determined the outcome. 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.840 So if you landed on a vice, you'd travel backwards. 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.399 If you landed on a virtue, you move forwards. And 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.800 players didn't have much agency in the games, much like Candyland, 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.840 so wherever your pieces landed, that was kind of your fate. 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.760 So what Bradley does is he adds this level of 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.200 decision making to the game. Players spun a teetotem and 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.520 then they look at the chart that gave them two 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.159 to four options for their move. So some of the 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.840 spaces on the board had points, like landing on college 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.160 or happiness that actually gave you five points, and other 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.520 spaces sent you back, kind of like snakes and ladders. 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:20.320 And weirdly, Bradley really pulled from all elements of life, 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:24.960 so bad spaces included things like ruin, poverty, disgrace, and 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:27.560 most surprising of all, suicide. 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.119 Oh that is horrifying. 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.280 Yeah, nothing fun about that. But Bradley's game was an 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.240 enormous hit for the time. He sold over forty five 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.120 thousand copies in his first year alone, which enabled them 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.000 to build a company named after himself. 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.480 And is this this checkered game of life related to 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.440 the game life that we played growing up? 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:49.359 You know, you look at the board and looks nothing 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.560 like it right, Like, it almost looks more like Shoots 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.320 and Ladders than the Game of Life, but it is related. 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.720 So in nineteen sixty Milton Bradley gave the game to 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.080 a designer to retool for the hundredth anniversary of the game. 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.440 And along with taking out things like suicide, that's when 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.120 they added those like little cars and the spinner and 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.440 the cash, all to make it more fun. And along 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.520 the way his company became this cornerstone of American board games. 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.840 They produced titles like Operation Battleship, also Candy Land, and 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:21.640