Game board
They serve as the primary interaction zone for players and can range from simple to highly elaborate, sometimes incorporating three-dimensional or electronic components.
Understanding of ancient board games is difficult, as artifacts from such time are often incomplete (smaller accompanying pieces are rarely found), and lack accompanying rules; in many cases even the original name of the game has been lost to time.
Very few if any similar objects have been found in the archeological evidence from sites linked to the Neolithic and Bronze Age eras (one artifact dated to c. 3500 BCE and resembling a chess board exists from Tell Majnuna in Syria, although it might have been a proto-calculator).
The next generation of artifacts more universally acknowledged as game boards, also more complex than the possible mancala-styled boards, are dated to the Early Bronze Age period around the Mediterranean and include those for Egyptian senet and mehen from ~3000 - 2000 BCE and similar ones from Mesopotamia (Fertile Crescent region).
[15] Board games made in the early 1800s started to feature maps of real locations (ex.
traditional checkered chess board or Pictionary), others can be very complex, thematic and incorporate numerous pieces of artwork (ex.
[5]: 32 Some game boards can be quickly improvised using pen and paper or drawn on the ground.
[2]: 225 Some can be three-dimensional or include props such as landscape elements (volcanos, walls, or such - see for example Mouse Trap or Fireball Island).
[5]: 210 [18] Most modern game boards are larger than an A4 sheet of paper; some are folded or assembled from smaller components.
[5]: 206 Such spaces are tied to game rules and mechanics influencing where pieces can be placed or how they can move.
[2]: 95–96 Other common elements of game boards include tracks for moving pieces.
Carcassone, in which players build the game board by laying down map tiles[20]).
[2]: 98–99 [5]: 2 In particular wargames such as Star Wars: X- Wing Miniatures Game or Warhammer 40,000 can be played on surfaces such as tables, maps or three-dimensional dioramas.
