GAME ON! One might think that moving plastic pieces around a cardboard board wouldn’t be able to compete with the fast-paced interactive world found online. Yet sales of board games have been steadily increasing during the past decade and there are even trendy cafés where people gather to play their favorite games or try new ones

T he white queen has been captured. The wheat harbor is blocked. And Colonel Mustard is lying in a heap in the library with a knife in his heart.

No these aren’t the latest news headlines proclaiming a world gone mad. Nor is this a nightmare from which you’re desperately trying to wake up. The culprits for all the chaos can be found in a cupboard in your home because we’re talking about board games of course!

Games like chess have entertained people for thousands of years. But every generation has its new favorite whether it’s Clue or the Settlers of Catan. What’s the appeal and what separates the winners from the duds? Place your maker on the starting line — which in this case is Egypt circa 3000 BCE — and find out.

The Never-Ending Game

Long before there were selfies cameras or even portraits painted on canvas there were tomb paintings. In Egypt where no self-respecting pharaoh or queen would have a tomb with bare walls the paintings sometimes depicted the pastimes the ruler enjoyed during his or her earthly life — and which the person hoped to continue doing for eternity after death. Of interest to board game enthusiasts is a painting in the tomb of Queen Nefertari who died in 1255 BCE which shows her seated at a table and playing Senet one of the earliest board games in history.

Senet had been around for about 1 800 years before Nefertari was born. What accounted for its enduring popularity and why would anyone want to play it for eternity? Sadly though there are paintings of the game and archaeologists even found a gaming board and pieces belonging to Pharaoh Amenhotep III intact and ready for play no one thought to paint the rules on tomb walls. We therefore don’t know what made this game so intriguing.

We do know that the Senet board was comprised of three rows with ten squares each. The two players each had at least five pawns to move about the board. Was the game therefore similar to checkers (that’s draughts to board game players from England) which can trace its lineage back to Ur circa 3000 BCE and was mentioned by the Greek poet Homer? We’ll probably never know.

Another ancient game the Royal Game of Ur circa 2650 BCE has had more luck. In this board game each side has seven markers that move around the board — one side is black the other is white — and there are four four-sided dice which are in the shape of a pyramid and determine how far the player can move. (Yes dice have been rolling for thousands of years; they even predate board games making them the earliest of games.)