Game of the Goose
Encyclopedia
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
with uncertain origins. Some people connect the game with the Phaistos Disc
Phaistos Disc
The Phaistos Disc is a disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the Greek island of Crete, possibly dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age . It is about 15 cm in diameter and covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols...
(because its spiral shape), others claim that it was originally a gift from Francesco I de' Medici of Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
to King Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
sometime between 1574 and 1587, while the latest theories attribute to the Templars
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
the creation of the game. According to these theories the Templars, possibly inspired by other games or discs (as the Phaistos Disc) from the Holy Land, developed a game and a secret or encrypted guide to the Way of St. James
Way of St. James
The Way of St. James or St. James' Way is the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried....
, representing each numbered space in the game a different stage in this journey. Furthermore, the hidden messages would not be just in the game but in the monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
s, cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
s and churches along the Way to Santiago de Compostela.
In June 1597 John Wolfe had attested that the game existed in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. It is thought to be the prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
for many of the commercial Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an racing board games of recent centuries. The game is mostly played in Europe and seen as family entertainment. Commercial versions of the game appeared in the 1880s and 1890s, and feature typical old European characteristics such as an old well and kids in clothes from the period. In the 1960s, the game company CO-5 marketed a variant called Gooses Wild.
Description
The board consists of a track with consecutively numbered spaces (usually 63), and is often arranged in a spiral with the starting point at the outside. Each player's piece is moved according to throws of one or two diceDice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
. Scattered throughout the board are a number of spaces on which a goose
Goose
The word goose is the English name for a group of waterfowl, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller....
is depicted; landing on a goose allows the player to move again by the same distance. Additional shortcuts, such as spaces marked with a bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
, move the player to some other specified position. There are also a few penalty spaces which force the player to move backwards or lose one or more turns, the most recognizable being the one marked with a skull
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
and symbolizing death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
; landing on this space results in the player being sent back to start.
On Spanish boards the reverse is usually a parchís
Parchís
Parchís is a Spanish board game of the Cross and Circle family. It is an adaptation of the Indian game Pachisi.Parchís was a very popular game in Spain at one point, and it is still popular. Since it uses dice, Parchís is not usually regarded as an abstract strategy game like checkers or chess...
board.
In worldwide culture
- In Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's comic opera La Belle HélèneLa belle HélèneLa belle Hélène , opéra bouffe in three acts, is an operetta by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
, the Greek Kings sing about and play a Game of the Goose and argue over cheating. - In his 1899 novel Le Testament d’un excentrique, Jules VerneJules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
uses the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as a giant real-life Game of the Goose board, on which seven players race each other in pursuit of a $60,000,000 inheritance. - The game was the basis for a game and stunt show in ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
named Il Grande Gioco Dell'Oca (The Great Game of the Goose), as well as the near-identical SpanishSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
version, El gran juego de la ocaEl gran juego de la ocaEl gran juego de la oca was a TV game show produced in Madrid, Spain from 1993 through 1995 and again in 1998 as El nuevo juego de la oca. It was a weekly show airing in a block of several hours on the Spanish channel Antena 3, and later Telecinco...
(same). The Spanish version ran from 1993 to 1995, and again in 1998 as El nuevo juego de la oca (The New Game of the Goose).
External links
- History and Rules of Game.Discovery of the Relation between the Squares of the Game of the Goose and the stages of the St. James Way.
- Dagonell's rules of the Game of the Goose
- Printable Board for the Game of the Goose
- Rules
- A history of the Game of the Goose
- "Giochi dell'oca e di percorso" by L.Ciompi&A.Seville