Editing Board game (section)

===Historical development===

[[H. J. R. Murray|Harold Murray]]'s ''A History of Board Games Other Than Chess'' (1952)<ref name="classical-classification_murray_1952">{{Cite book|last=Murray|first=Harold James Ruthven|author-link=H. J. R. Murray|title=A History of Board Games Other Than Chess|publisher=Oxford [USA], Clarendon Press, and Hassell Street Press|year=2021|isbn=978-1-015-00305-7|edition=Reprint|orig-year=1st Pub. 1952, [[Clarendon Press]], Oxford}}</ref> has been called the first attempt to develop a "scheme for the classification of board games", in which he separated board games into five categories: "race", "war", "hunt", "alignment" / "configuration", and "mancala" games.<ref name="game-category_murray_1952">{{Cite web|title=SFE: Board Game|website=sf-encyclopedia.com|url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/board_game|access-date=18 January 2025|archive-url=https://archive.today/20250118122450/https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/board_game|archive-date=18 January 2025|url-status=live|df=dmy}}</ref><ref name="game-categories_big-game-hunter_2024"/> [[Robert Charles Bell|Robert Bell]]'s ''Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations'' (1869)<ref name="classical-classification_bell_1960">{{Cite book|last=Bell|first=Robert Charles|author-link=Robert Charles Bell|title=Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations|publisher=[[Dover Publications]]|year=1979|isbn=978-0-671-06030-5|edition=Revised|volume=I|orig-year=1st Pub. 1960, [[Oxford University Press]], London}}</ref> similarly espoused a classification of board games, this time divided into four categories, "race", "war", "positional", and "mancala" games.<ref name="game-categories_big-game-hunter_2024"/> In [[David Parlett]]'s ''The Oxford History of Board Games'' (1999),<ref name="classical-classification_parlett_1999">{{Cite book|first=David|last=Parlett|author-link=David Parlett|title=The Oxford History of Board Games|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1999|isbn=978-0-192-12998-7}}</ref> based on the work of Murray and Bell,<ref name="game-categories_big-game-hunter_2024"/> he described a "classical" categorization of board games which consisted of four primary categories: "[[#race|race]]", "[[#space|space]]", "[[#chase|chase]]", and "[[#displacement|displace]]" games.<ref name="classical-classification_parlett_1999" /><ref name="game-categories_woods_2024_p15">{{Cite book|last=Woods|first=Stewart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xgmjCHxSxvoC&q=history+of+board+games&pg=PP1|title=Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games|date=16 August 2012|isbn=9780786490653|page=15|publisher=McFarland|df=dmy}} [https://ia601907.us.archive.org/9/items/woods-2012-eurogames-p-15/Woods%20%282012%29%20Eurogames%20-%20p15.pdf Alt URL]</ref>{{rp|page=17}}

Modern board games have been classified in a variety of ways, a classification that can be based on the board game's mechanics, theme, age range, player number, and promotion. The diversity of board games means that some games belong to several categories.<ref name="edwards_fv">{{Cite thesis|last=Edwards|first=Jason R.|title=Saving Families, One Game at a Time |url=http://visionandvalues.org/docs/familymatters/Edwards_Jason.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205071220/http://visionandvalues.org/docs/familymatters/Edwards_Jason.pdf|archive-date=5 February 2016}}</ref>{{rp|13}}