One issue that comes up periodically is that some game designers who grew up in the last couple of decades tend to look at game design through the lens of past video games.
When they think about game mechanics or themes, they might take cues from past video games that they loved.
But every so often, we’re reminded that games have been around for as long as people have been, and we have a much richer history if we dig past a form of media that has only been around for mere years.
Oldest Gaming Tokens Found in Turkey from Discovery News reports that 5,000-year-old game tokens were found in Bronze-Age burial mounds.
How neat is that?!
The tokens were accompanied by badly preserved wooden pieces or sticks. Sa?lamtimur hopes they’ll provide some hints on the rules and logic behind the game.
“According to distribution, shape and numbers of the stone pieces, it appears that the game is based on the number 4,” he said.
With something that old, and no one living to explain how to play, I imagine it would be quite the mystery to solve.
But imagine creating a game back then? Carving your own pieces with no one to tell you that you’re reinventing the wheel and should focus on the game instead… B-)