Tag Archives: Games

2020: Five-Dimensional Chess

Posted on August 31, 2020 by corvusfugit

In 5d Chess (released last month by Thunkspace), pieces can travel back in time. A rook in the eighth move of a game, for example, can be placed on the board as it was in move five. This then creates … Continue reading →

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1629: The Most Trivial Disagreements

Posted on August 15, 2020 by corvusfugit

Such personal correspondence and diaries as survive suggest that social relations from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries tended to be cool, even unfriendly. The extraordinary amount of casual interpersonal physical and verbal violence, as recorded in legal and other … Continue reading →

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1794: The Game of the Snake

Posted on April 3, 2020 by corvusfugit

Robert Laurie and James Whittle: The Royal Pastime of Cupid, or Entertaining Game of the Snake (London, 1794) The rules: Haveing a pare of dice, it must be first agreed upon, what to play for, which is to be layd … Continue reading →

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6th Century: St. Brendan’s Isle

Posted on November 18, 2018 by corvusfugit

The 10th century Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis relates the story of Saint Brendan the Abbot (c. AD 484 – c. 577), who takes a group of fourteen monks on an expedition in search of the island of Paradise. After a … Continue reading →

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1793: Cards for Equality

Posted on June 20, 2018 by corvusfugit

      Following the French Revolution and its toppling of the French monarchy, Urbain Jaume and Jean-Démosthène Dugourc conceived the idea of a new deck of playing cards that, like the revolutionaries, would toss out its “aristocracy” of Aces, Kings, … Continue reading →

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1283: Book of Games

Posted on December 23, 2017 by corvusfugit

Illumination from the Libro de los Juegos, a compendium of games commissioned by King Alfonso X of Castile, Galicia and León in 1283.

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1982: Do You Remember?

Posted on November 9, 2017 by corvusfugit

Do you Remember? We do it all for fun you know Get loaded after the show, it’s all part of the scene Don’t hate us, we’re just kids People say we’re behind the times, go ahead and see if I … Continue reading →

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1805 BC: Game of Hounds and Jackals

Posted on September 25, 2017 by corvusfugit

A board game from the reign of Amenemhat IV (c. 1814–1805 BC) (source)

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1635: And Drinking Cocktails Too, Apparently

Posted on May 30, 2017 by corvusfugit

Quirin Boel: Two Monkeys Playing Backgammon (1635 – 1690) (source) “Twee apen spelen triktrak” in Dutch; “triktrak” is a nice onomatopoeia.

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