Board Games

A Look at 19th Century British Board Games

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Hyperallergic has an interesting article on 19th Century British board games. The games were designed

thematically to illustrate several trends. Some games were for pure entertainment, while others aimed to more deeply engage the minds of their young participants. There were games that dictated moral values as players advanced along paths towards virtues or vices; games designed around geography and British history; and instructive games, requiring players to memorize facts on subjects from math to astronomy.

Publishers deliberately merged education and entertainment: they shrewdly realized that such games would appeal to parents.

It makes me wonder how people will interpret our games 150 years from now.

Free At Last Board Game

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While looking for educational games to play with my AP Government classes this next year, I found this unique board strategy game simulating the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.

Free at Last

Burning Rome: Barbarian Uprising

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Burning Rome: Barbarian Uprising is a free print-and-play, standalone expansion for the commercial game, Burning Rome. It’s free because right now, it is in the prototype stage, so I suspect it won’t be up long.

Both Barbarian Uprising and the original Burning Rome are two player card games are two-player, deckbuilding, tactical card games.

Napoleon At Chattanooga

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Napoleon at Chattanooga is a free print-and-play board game. The authors write:

Napoleon at Chattanooga (NaC) is a painstakingly-researched, meticulously accurate simulation of Napoleon’s campaign in the Tennessee Valley. It is also a two-player game of exploration and conquest in the Solar System, which is also painstaking but not necessarily accurate.