Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Persia. The earliest record of backgammon itself dates to 17th-century England, being descended from the 16th-century game of Irish.
Ludo is a strategy board game for two to four players, in which the players race their four tokens from start to finish according to the rolls of a single die. Like other cross and circle games, Ludo is derived from the Indian game Pachisi. The game and its variations are popular in many countries and under various names.
Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question they are asked from a card. Each correct answer allows the player's turn to continue; a correct answer on one of the six "category headquarters" spaces earns a plastic wedge which is slotted into the answerer's playing piece. The object of the game is to collect all six wedges from each "category headquarters" space, and then return to the center "hub" space to answer a question in a category selected by the other players.
Parcheesi is a brand-name American adaptation of the Indian cross and circle board game Pachisi, published by Parker Brothers and Winning Moves Games USA.
Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley. It was first marketed under the name of Yahtzee by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games such as Poker Dice, Yacht and Generala. It is also similar to Yatzy, which is popular in Scandinavia.
Shut the box is a game of dice for one or more players, commonly played in a group of two to four for stakes. Traditionally, a counting box is used with tiles numbered 1 to 9 where each can be covered with a hinged or sliding mechanism, though the game can be played with only a pair of dice, pen, and paper. Variations exist where the box has 10 or 12 tiles. In 2018 the game had a renaissance in Liverpool, England, when it became the house game at Hobo Kiosk pub on the Baltic Triangle. It was popularized by DJ duo Coffee and Turntables and became the most played board game in Merseyside for 4 years in a row.
Three man is a drinking game played with two dice. It can be played with at least three people but some consider it better with around five.
Nard is an historical Persian tables game for two players that is sometimes considered ancestral to backgammon. It is still played today, albeit in a different form. As in other tables games, the playing pieces are moved around a board according to rolls of dice. It uses a standard tables board, but has a different opening layout and rules of play from that of backgammon.
Cee-lo is a gambling game played with three six-sided dice. There is not one standard set of rules, but there are some constants that hold true to all sets of rules. The name comes from the Chinese Sì-Wŭ-Liù (四五六), meaning "four-five-six". In America it is also called "See-Low," "Four-Five-Six," "The Three Dice Game," "Roll-off!," and by several alternative spellings, as well as simply "Dice." In China it is also called "Sān Liù Bàozi" (三六豹子), or "Three-Six Leopards". In Japan, it is known as "Chinchiro" (チンチロ) or "Chinchirorin" (チンチロリン).
Dice chess can refer to a number of chess variants in which dice are used to alter gameplay; specifically that the moves available to each player are determined by rolling a pair of ordinary six-sided dice. There are many different variations of this form of dice chess. One of them is described here.
Kismet is a commercial dice game introduced in 1964. The game's name is the Turkish word for "fate". E. William DeLaittre holds the trademark on the game, which was originally published by Lakeside Games, and which is currently produced by Endless Games. Marketed as "The Modern Game of Yacht", the game play is similar to Yacht and Yahtzee, with a few variations. A primary distinction is that in Kismet, the sides of the dice have different colored pips.
Tapa (Тапа) is a tables game played in Bulgaria and North Macedonia. It is also played in Greece, where it is known as Plakoto. The word tapa means bottle cap.
Yatzy is a dice game similar to Yacht and Yahtzee. It is related to the Latin American game Generala and the English game of poker dice. Yatzy is most popular in the Nordic countries.
Aeroplane chess is a Chinese cross-and-circle board game similar to the Western game of Ludo and the Indian game of Pachisi. Developed in the 20th century, aeroplane chess features airplanes as pieces instead of the more abstract pawns and beehive-shaped pieces found in the games from which it is derived. Aeroplane chess has spread around the world, especially in Africa.
A number of related games under the Yahtzee brand have been produced. They all commonly use dice as the primary tool for game play, but all differ generally. As Yahtzee itself has been sold since 1954, the variants released over the years are more recent in comparison, with the oldest one, Triple Yahtzee, developed in 1972, eighteen years after the introduction of the parent game.
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time. In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres, widely considered the most prestigious award in the board and card game industry. A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.
Sho is a traditional race game in Tibet, still common today. Its name is simply the Tibetan word for "dice". It is traditionally played for money and by men, with two to four players - three being the most common. With four players, the usual variant is to play as two teams of two, with the partners sitting opposite each other.
Hexagony is an abstract strategy board game for 2 to 6 players that was published as Bin'Fa by Taoist Arts Inc. in 1977, as Hexagony by Avalon Hill in 1980, and later re-released in a slightly modified form by Kenterprises as Bin'Fa.
The following is a glossary of terms used in tables games, essentially games played on a Backgammon-type board. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but applicable to a range of tables games.
Long Nardy, also just Nardy, is a Russian tables game for two players. It is also played in Armenia as Long Nardi or Nardi. It probably originated in the historical Persian game of Nard. It requires a tables board, 15 men apiece and two dice.
