Today in our Critical Games Studies lesson we watched a program called 'Dicing with Destiny' which was presented by Benjamin Woolley. Its actually a 3 part series but we only watched the first which took us from 1st century Britain to the Victorian era.
It began with a Roman board game found in Colchester Quarry which was named the Stanway Game. This is quite amazing the fact that people two thousand years ago were still playing games, and that having fun, enjoyment and the need for entertainment when bored are deep in the minds of people.
When the archaeologists actually found the board, the pieces were still in place which i liked Woolley's comment that he made saying something on the lines of "the peices were fixed in time, challenging us to make a move after two thousand years".
Its interest how different religions took a different look on games and how they developed through different eras. For example in the late Middle Ages games began to become less about having fun and imbued with prophetic significance but more associated with gambling which the church disapproved of. I find it funny that they changed children's games by removing the dice and adding another mechanic because dice was thought to be the work of the devil even though the replacement piece still had to use some sort of chance.
Another interesting point was that the simple snakes and ladders game originated from another board game on a Hindu's journey to enlightenment, which seemed quite complex.
I believe games are important because you not only have fun but you can also learn from them. Woolley mentions he didn't know much about the world because he lived in a middle of nowhere but had games to improve his knowledge, small things like how he knew London's Mayfair was a much smarter than Whitechapel Road.
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