Atlas/History
History of Games
From ancient boards to the arcade and the digital era — where today's games came from.
Ancient Board Games
Ancient board games are among the oldest surviving artifacts of deliberate play. Long before printed rulebooks or manufactured pieces, people scratched grids into stone, clay, and…
Read sector →The Chess Family of Games
The chess family is a group of two-player, turn-based strategy games that share a common ancestor and a recognizable set of structural features. Members of the…
Read sector →The History of Card Games
Card games are among the most portable and adaptable forms of play ever devised. A deck is a compact set of identical-backed slips, each carrying a…
Read sector →Origins of Tabletop Roleplaying
Tabletop roleplaying is a form of collaborative storytelling in which participants assume the roles of fictional characters and collectively narrate their adventures. One player, often called…
Read sector →The Arcade and Early Digital Era
The arcade and early digital era refers to the period from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s when coin-operated amusement machines and the first home consoles…
Read sector →The Evolution of Digital Games
The evolution of digital games is a story of technological innovation and creative adaptation. It begins in the mid-20th century, when researchers and engineers first used…
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