Games Britannia

In this 3 part series, Benjamin Woolley talks to us about the history of board games, and games in today's society.

Part 1

During the first part of Games Britannia, Woolley talks about 3 ancient games in particular: The Stanway game, Alea Evangeli and Gyan Chaupar.

The Stanway game - This game is considered to be the oldest game in British history. The games rules are completely unknown, as no rule set has ever been found for the game, but it seem to be laid out in a way similar to a game like Chess. Plus, the game was found with no dice or similar instrument so it implies a game of strategy rather than luck. The game was considered to be halfway through when found, as none of the pieces positions seem to correlate with each other. The game-board consists of  8 x 12 squares.

Alea Evangeli - Another old strategy game with similar aspects to Chess. The board consists of 19 x 19 squares. One players starts with 25 pieces, 24 regular pieces and 1 king, arranged in a starting formation in the middle of the board. The other players starts with 48 regular pieces arranged around the middle of the board in a particular pattern. The objective of the game is for one player to get the king to any corner of the board, while the other player has to try and capture the king.

Gyan Chaupar - Gyan Chaupar, or the Game of Knowledge, is the spiritual predecessor to the game Snakes and Ladders. Unlike the rather plain Snakes and Ladders however, Gyan Chaupar was meant to have great spiritual meaning, with each square being a step along the path to Enlightenment.

Part 2

In part 2, Woolley talks about more Modern games. He talks about how Monopoly, Scrabble and Cluedo are the most popular games in households to this date, as well as noting that Monopoly was actually inspired from a socialist game called "The Landlords Game".

Woolley also talks about the advancement of board games into full-blown adventures, primarily RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons. Compared to a game like Monopoly, D&D is extremely complicated and games can easily stretch into a length of days, usually resulting in the game being played in chunks over a period of time.

Part 3

In the final part of Games Britannia, Woolley makes the transition from board game to digital game. He starts off with the first step into digital games in the 80's, from simple arcade games like Pac-man, to Elite, a space sim.

He then advances to the first introduction into a 3D digital world, like Tomb Raider or, to put my own personal favourite game into the mix, Populous - The Beginning.

He completes the final episode by talking about the final and most recent forms of digital gaming. He mentions games like GTA, which can be considered morally very bad games and potentially bad influences on a generation, and games like World of Warcraft, which allow thousands of players to interact with each other in one huge, breath taking world.


My opinion of the Games Britannia series is very positive. While i was initially skeptical about watching several hours dedicated to old board games, i found the experience very interesting, even going so far as playing several of the games after watching them, with Alea Evangelii being a particular favourite of mine. All in all, i found the series enjoyable and would recommend any games designer, or anyone interested in games, to watch it.