Games Britannia: Part 2

Previous in part 1 I spoke about some of the fascinating stuff that I took away from Games Britannia. With part two I couldn't stop taking notes throughout and to summarise would be nearly impossible so this time around I will type up my notes for you to read.

Games Britannia: Part 2, Monopolies and Mergers

In Georgian times when school became compulsory the game 'Mansion of Bliss' was used to entice children under 9 to attend. It used mini stories rather than boring messages to reveal rewards and penalty's for landing on squares and depicted the path to bliss with the end being that of the perfect Georgian family living happily in the perfect mansion.

As the economy grew in the world it directly influenced games of the time and games such as 'The Game of Life' were introduced. This game added choice and strategy to previously 'dumb luck' based games.

In 1860 the first travel game was made for soldiers to take away with them to help keep morale high.

Milton Brady (MB) was considered the first commercial games developer. Their success is seems to be due to the fact they created games where the winner feels that they won due to skill whereas the loose felt that it was just a run of bad luck.

Briar Fox and Briar Rabbit was a political game basses around lad tax (land value tax) this was the introduction of taxing the land and not the wages people earned this idea was meant to redistribute the wealth in Britten.

A lot f political games were used to create household discussion on topics and to hopefully steer public opinion.

Monopoly - tokens from this game were reportedly trinkets taken from the creators wife's charm bracelet. Also Angel Islington is not a real street, its a tube station.

Common road names on the board enticed tourists as they play the UK edition all over the world. It educes a sense of familiarity when they visit from over seas.

Modern day iterations of this game use a speed die which speeds up a game of monopoly to an average of 45 minuets to an hour, putting the focus on trading and diplomacy.

During the war maps were produced on silk and then layered into monopoly boards to aid prisoners of way escape their captors. other implements were used such as compasses. these were identified by a dot in the corner of free parking.

(This is the part where I wrought something that may or may not be from the program. ill be honest I cant remember but it sounds like the sort of thing I'd come up with in my mind so ill put it in here anyway)

'We go through life and every opportunity is the result of luck. what we do with that opportunity is skill, even if we don't see the opportunity we are taking'

The episode then went on to talk about Cludo and scrabble but then TV came along and the TV game shows became a staple in British households.

Trivial Pursuit was the first to bridge the gap between TV and boardgames.

Hasbro = game monster, biggest manufacturer of games in the world (apparently)

Then there was a bit on the game Kensington, named after the place in which it was conceived by its creators. The game used geometric shapes and aside from my lack of grasp on the rules, I thought it looked interesting and I will at some point try and grab myself a copy of the game. The game itself was conceived when the creators were looking down at the paving slabs in Kensington.

The introduction of Space Invaders took the attention away from boardgames and turned them to video games.

Role Playing Games were introduced at a games fair in London in 1982. The origins of pen and paper RPG's were taken from military war games and scenarios used to see how certain events would play out if every they happened.

The episode ended with a look at a modern day game called 'war on terror' This was the first and only game ever reportedly seized by police as an offensive weapon because it came with a balaclava as a game piece. It was made to open peoples eyes to the war on terror and widen public opinion (I defiantly want to get this game!)