Games did not move in a straight line from ancient boards to modern screens. People have played with pieces, puzzles, words and imagined worlds across many settings; newer technologies changed how those activities could be played, while older forms continued alongside them. The history is also uneven: durable boards and pieces survive, but the rules, names and everyday play behind many ancient objects do not.
What can ancient game boards tell us?
The evidence is real, but not always conclusive
Archaeologists find possible boards, counters, images of play and occasional written references. These clues do not always reveal what an object was for. The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that the earliest known boards made of parallel rows of holes come from the Neolithic Near East, but cautions that scholars cannot be certain they were used for games.
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That uncertainty matters when asking which game was first. Objects may not be identifiable as game equipment, and an old surviving board cannot prove that no earlier games existed. Games played on the ground or woven into textiles could disappear without leaving a trace.
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Race games and randomizers
Many preserved Egyptian and Near Eastern board games appear to have been races: players moved pieces along a path of holes or squares, with a randomizing implement determining movement. The Met documents Egyptian throw sticks from the Predynastic Period, approximately 4400–3100 BCE. Cubic dice have a less certain origin; the museum essay says they probably came from the Indus Valley. Sheep or goat knucklebones could also serve as randomizers, offering four distinct faces.
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The surviving evidence suggests that chance and movement were important parts of ancient play, but it does not give us a complete set of rules for every game. For some well-known finds, even the original name is unknown.
Which ancient games are known by name?
Senet and Mehen in Egypt
Senet was popular in Egypt from the Predynastic Period through at least the Late Period. Its board has three rows of ten squares, and pieces follow an S-shaped route. During the New Kingdom, Senet became associated with the journey to the afterlife. That later religious meaning is one part of its history; it does not mean every game of Senet was exclusively a ritual.
Mehen, whose name means “the coiled one,” used a spiral board shaped like a snake. It was played in the Predynastic Period and Old Kingdom, and its imagery carried religious associations.
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The Royal Game of Ur and Twenty Squares
Twenty Squares was played across the Near East. Its Sumerian version, now called the Royal Game of Ur, is attested among objects deposited in the Royal Graves of Ur around 2600 BCE. The game later appeared in Egypt. The name most people use today is not evidence that every ancient player called it by that name; modern labels and ancient names do not always match.
Fifty-eight Holes and backgammon-like features
“Hounds and Jackals” is one of several modern names for the game also called Fifty-eight Holes. Its popularity is evident from surviving examples, but the names and rules of some games remain uncertain. The Met also notes board-game finds from Jiroft, Iran, around 2000 BCE, with features shared by later backgammon-like games. Those similarities do not establish that modern backgammon itself existed then.
Where and how did people play?
Ancient games belonged to both ordinary and ritual settings. The Met describes depictions of play on tomb walls and papyri, as well as finds ranging from graffiti on bricks to elaborate boxes made with exotic materials. Trade and military contact helped games move between Egypt and the Near East.
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The surviving objects are an incomplete record of social life. A finely made board can last for millennia, while a game scratched into the ground may vanish. The British Museum’s historical-games overview, published in 2021, places the Royal Game of Ur and Senet alongside later examples such as warri, mahjong and chess, illustrating how varied physical play has been across more than 5,000 years. That breadth does not make any one surviving game the undisputed oldest: preservation and the definition of a “game” complicate such claims.
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Some early computer games were built in research or demonstration settings, where they could engage the public and test what computers could do. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History identifies A.S. Douglas’s OXO, made as part of his Cambridge doctoral work in 1952, and William Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two, created on an analog computer and shown on an oscilloscope display in 1958.
The Smithsonian also describes Ralph Baer and colleagues’ “Brown Box,” a prototype for a multiplayer, multiprogram video-game system intended for home play. These examples mark different steps in electronic play, not a single uncontested moment when video games began. Early work could be a research demonstration, a computer program or a proposed home system; those are related but distinct contexts.
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How did older games shape video games?
Electronic games adopted familiar settings and mechanics, then adapted them to new devices. Jon-Paul Dyson of the Strong National Museum of Play argued in 2013 that “The roots of video gaming go deep into the longer history of games, puzzles, and play.” The museum points to several kinds of continuity:
| Earlier form of play | Digital connection described by the Strong | What carries across |
|---|---|---|
| Pinball in bars, restaurants and arcades | Video-game cabinets appeared in familiar arcade settings | A public place to gather around coin-operated play |
| Race games | Racing video games | The basic goal of moving through a course toward a finish |
| Word games played with physical materials | Electronic word games | Making and solving words, with the device changing the interface |
| Pentomino puzzles | Tetris | Arranging geometric pieces to fit a space |
| Dungeons & Dragons | Role-playing structures in video games | Examples include experience points, fantasy settings, levels, bosses and non-player characters |
These are examples of influence, not proof that every later game has one source or that a digital game simply copies an analog one. A screen can automate movement, scoring or world-building, while a tabletop game may leave more of that work to players’ shared imagination and conversation.
What changed, and what stayed?
The medium and setting changed: play could happen around a carved board, in a public arcade, on a computer or through a home system. The interaction changed too, from moving counters along a track to manipulating digital pieces or exploring a role-playing world. Yet the recurring ideas—racing, solving puzzles, testing chance, competing and building stories together—connect games across those settings.
Board games, card games, puzzles and social party games have not become obsolete merely because electronic games exist. The Strong National Museum of Play emphasizes that analog play persists in its own right. The history of games is therefore not a handoff from physical objects to screens, but a growing mix of forms that continue to influence one another.
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