If there’s one thing humans love, it’s games. The video gaming industry is gigantic, and there’s no shortage of excellent board games released each year, too. And then there are the classics, the ones that have been around for more years than anyone can remember and which are still going strong.
If a game has been popular for more than fifty years, then it’s a classic. Some of the games like dartboard surround that we’ll outline below have been around for thousands of years, which reflects a level of success that you just can’t imagine a modern game replicating. If you’re curious about playing the games that your ancestors — and, in some cases, their ancestors were playing — then try the options outlined below.
Chess
Chess is the game. There’s still nothing that can compete with it in terms of intellectual curiosity, endless fascination, and enduring appeal.
The history of chess stretches all the way back to 6th Century India. Fast forward 1500 years to today, and the game is played all over the world by people of all skill levels. It’s estimated that there are more than 600 million chess players, and with the game growing in popularity all the time, that number will only continue to increase.
Looking to get started? Download a chess-learning app to teach you the basics, then ask around for a game. Chances are, there’ll be at least one friend or family member who’ll give you a game.
Blackjack
Blackjack is probably the oldest card game that’s still widely played. Despite being more than three hundred years old, blackjack remains remarkably popular. That’s due, in part, to the overall accessibility of the game. While some card games require study and practice, a person can pick up the basics of blackjack in a matter of minutes. The game has evolved and developed over the centuries, and continues to do so in the digital age; today, websites offer it online in a number of different variants. Given its current level of popularity, you wouldn’t bet against blackjack still being popular several centuries into the future, either.
Pong
Pong is the first video game on this list, and that’s fitting, because it was one of the first video games on any list. While it might not have been the first video game — that honor belongs to Tennis for Two — it was the first one to grab the public’s attention. In the process, it changed the course of the video game industry forever.
You’re unlikely to meet any video game aficionado who doesn’t love playing Pong, even if, admittedly, they don’t do so as often as they’d like.
Checkers
Checkers isn’t quite as advanced or as widely popular as chess, but it does beat its more illustrious brother in one department: it’s older. And by quite a big margin. Historians believe the game dates back as far as 1,000 BC, which would make it more than 3,000 years old! However, there’s a caveat to that fact, and that’s that the modern version of checkers (the one you’ve probably played), only arrived around the 13th century. Still, the final form of the game wouldn’t have arrived without all the work that came before it, so we’re sticking by the 3,000-year-old tag.
Go
Go remains a popular game more than 2,500 years after it was invented. Originally developed in China, the game spread to neighboring countries, most notably Japan and Korea. It’s estimated that there are more than 50 million Go players, with the vast majority living in Asia. If you’re a chess player and you’re looking for a new challenge, then Go, which offers a similar level of complexity, might be the game you’ve been searching for. The game lures you in with its seemingly simple rules, only to reveal itself to be a game that requires deep strategy and planning. Basically, you’ll see why it has remained popular for thousands of years.
