Portal:Games

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Ancient Egyptian ivory game board in the exhibition of Tutankhamun's treasure in Paris (2019)

A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).

Games are sometimes played purely for enjoyment, sometimes for achievement or reward as well. They can be played alone, in teams, or online; by amateurs or by professionals. The players may have an audience of non-players, such as when people are entertained by watching a chess championship. On the other hand, players in a game may constitute their own audience as they take their turn to play. Often, part of the entertainment for children playing a game is deciding who is part of their audience and who is a player. A toy and a game are not the same. Toys generally allow for unrestricted play whereas games present rules for the player to follow.

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role. (Full article...)

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Frank Chadwick is an American game designer and New York Times best selling author. He has designed hundreds of games, his most notable being the role-playing games En Garde!, Space: 1889 and Twilight 2000, and the wargame series Europa and The Third World War, as well as creating Traveller with Marc Miller. He has won multiple awards for his work. (Full article...)

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...that Barbarossa is an award-winning German-style board game by Klaus Teuber from 1988 in which the players have to sculpt plasticine to earn points?
...that in the video game The Splatters (pictured) players detonate bombs by flinging anthropomorphized globs of goo at them?
...that Israeli chess Grandmaster Ronen Har-Zvi first met his wife playing online chess at the Internet Chess Club?
...that Skyfox was one of the first games to popularize the cockpit view for flight action games?
...that professional poker player Ilari Sahamies lost over US$3 million playing online poker while drunk, including more than $700,000 in a single day?

General images

The following are images from various game-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Preferans, a trick-taking card game version popular in Croatia (from Card game)
Image 2The modern German board game Catan is printed in 30 languages and sold 15 million by 2009. (from Board game)
Image 3 Men Playing Board Games, from The Sougandhika Parinaya Manuscript (from Board game)
Image 4A ball-in-a-maze puzzle requires fine motor skills (from Game of skill)
Image 5Typical MUD interface for God Wars II (from Role-playing game)
Image 6Playing Cards, by Theodoor Rombouts, 17th century (from Game)
Image 7The Card Players, 17th-century painting by Theodoor Rombouts (from Card game)
Image 8Backgammon is a game of skill. Strategy can give players advantages, but there is also an element of chance. (from Game of skill)
Image 9A selection of pieces from different games. From top: Chess pawns, marbles, Monopoly tokens, dominoes, Monopoly hotels, jacks and checkers pieces. (from Game)
Image 10Senet, one of the oldest known board games (from Board game)
Image 11Royal game of Ur, southern Iraq, about 2600–2400 BCE (from Board game)
Image 12Hounds and jackals (Egypt, 13th Dynasty) (from Board game)
Image 13Students using dice to improve numeracy skills. They roll three dice, then use basic math operations to combine those into a new number which they cover on the board. The goal is to cover four squares in the row. (from Game)
Image 14Patolli game being watched by Macuilxochitl as depicted on page 048 of the Codex Magliabechiano (from Board game)
Image 15Mamluk playing card (king of cups), c.15th century (from Card game)
Image 16The number of board games published by year (1944–2017), as listed on BoardGameGeek. Expansion sets for existing games are marked in orange. (from Board game)
Image 17Game of the District Messenger Boy (1886) (from Board game)
Image 18Ancient Egyptian ivory game board in the exhibition of Tutankhamun's treasure in Paris (2019) (from Game)
Image 19Two Qataris playing the traditional board game of damah (from Board game)
Image 20The oldest full deck of playing cards known, the Flemish Hunting Deck, c. 1475–1480, paper with pen, ink, opaque paint, glazes, applied silver and gold, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art from New York City (from Game)
Image 21A fantasy LARP group (from Role-playing game)
Image 22Young girls playing a board game in the Iisalmi, Finland, library in 2016 (from Board game)
Image 23Children's Games, 1560, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (from Game)
Image 24Han dynasty glazed pottery tomb figurines playing liubo, with six sticks laid out to the side of the game board (from Board game)
Image 25An adventurer finds a teleportation portal while exploring a dungeon in the role-playing video game Falcon's Eye. (from Role-playing game)
Image 26Parcheesi is an American adaptation of a Pachisi, originating in India. (from Game)
Image 27The Card Players by Lucas van Leyden (1520) depicting a multiplayer card game (from Game)
Image 28The board game Monopoly is licensed in 103 countries and printed in 37 languages. (from Board game)
Image 29Association football is a popular sport worldwide.
Image 30Tug of war is an easily organized, impromptu game that requires little equipment. (from Game)
Image 31Ancient Egyptian gaming board inscribed for Amenhotep III with separate sliding drawer, from 1390 to 1353 BC, made of glazed faience, dimensions: 5.5 × 7.7 × 21 cm, in the Brooklyn Museum (New York City) (from Game)
Image 32The Mansion of Happiness (1843) (from Board game)
Image 33Chinese mother-of-pearl gambling tokens used in scoring and bidding of card games. (from Card game)
Image 34Historically, card games such as whist and contract bridge were opportunities for quiet socializing, as shown in this 1930s magic lantern slide photo taken in Seattle, Washington. (from Card game)
Image 35A group playing a tabletop RPG. The GM is at left using a cardboard screen to hide dice rolls from the players. (from Role-playing game)
Image 36The Card Players, an 1895 painting by Paul Cézanne depicting a card game, in Courtauld nstitute of Art (London) (from Game)