This historic two-player war game has been popular for over 220 years - maybe more. The earliest version was played around 1800 on a Fox and Geese board somewhere in the middle of Europe, and by 1803 was being published as...
How to Play Peg Pastimes
Instructions for playing these historic games from around the world, plus a bit of history about each game.
Konane – A traditional board game of Hawaii. (A very good game!)
Konane was almost lost to history, discouraged by colonizers in the early 1800s. Fortunately, it's back, and we can enjoy this bit of Hawaii's fascinating culture on the game table. When you explain the rules, people don't...
Tâb is a challenging “Running Fight” board game from ancient Egypt (and beyond).
Tâb was rediscovered by archeologists a century ago in digs throughout the eastern Mediterranean. It was a game that appears to have been popular with all classes, and traveled along the trade routes as far east as India and...
Play SENET, game of the Pharaohs from the year 3,000 B.C.E.
Our "wayback machine" takes us once more to ancient Egypt and another of the oldest board games known to modern archeology. Senet is a great little race game, with set-backs and strategic mechanisms well known to modern...
The ancient Egyptian game called Mehen is the earliest known multi-player board game.
Most ancient board games, and indeed most abstract strategy games, are for two players. The game of Mehen "the coiled snake" appears to be the oldest multi-player board game ever discovered. The game is will over 4000 years...
Hounds & Jackals – The favorite board game of the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs!
The historic game of Hounds and Jackals - also known by several other names - was rediscovered by British archeologists in the late 19th century. The game is at least 3500 years old, and several variants have been found over...
Aseb – A Strategy Board Game from Ancient Egypt, also Known as “20 Squares.”
This is one of the five board games in our "Ancient Egypt" series, rediscovered by archeologists within the past 150 years. Aseb (also known by other names) is around 5,000 years old. Its popularity was widespread and...
Peg Pastimes – The Book About the History of Table-Top Games
Board games, card games, dexterity games, party games… the world of table-top games has grown to a multi-billion-dollar industry. But the phenomenon of table-top recreation is as old as history itself. The new Peg Pastimes...
Why do they call it “Watermelon Chess”? Xi Gua Qi is a great little game of entrapment for two.
The game Xi Gua Qi comes from eastern China, although variants can be found in many lands. It's been around for centuries, and continues to be played today. It deserves the attention.