10 OLDEST Board Games In History

10. Ashtapada (600 BCE)

Chess is an old game, look here’s Sherlock Holmes playing it, that’s how you know it’s old, and smart and also old. But it’s not half as old as most of these games, hell the rules weren’t even standardised until the 19th century, get outta here with that baby-ass bulls***. Chaturanga, the commonly regarded ancestor of Chess cropped up in India in the 7th century, but the youngest game on this list Ashtapada appeared in India a full millennium earlier, a thousand years. That’s ages, you could watch all of the MCU twice in that time, but Ashtapada is related to chess. See, the name Ashtapada essentially means board, and the board it’s describing is what we recognise today as a chess board, an 8 by 8 board made up of squares. Gameplay-wise instead of being like chess, it’s more of a cross between backgammon and another ancient Indian game snakes and ladders. Roll dice, or shells as it was back then, to move pieces around the board, working your way to the centre, while avoiding capture by your opponent’s pieces. Fun fact: the game is dated to the 600 BCE, because it’s featured on a famous historical document, namely a list put together by the Lord Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, of games that he refused to play. Ashtapada, the bad boy of the Buddhist gaming scene.