Sport and Leisure/Toys and Games

Card games

Playing cards were invented in imperial China. They were found in China as early as the 9th century during the Tang Dynasty

Right-facing playing cards – Jack of Clubs, Jack/Queen/King of Spades

King of Hearts does not have a moustache

King of Diamonds has an axe behind his left shoulder

Queens in a pack of cards hold flowers

Nine of Diamonds is known as the ‘curse of Scotland’

Ace of spades is also known as the ‘death card’

Ace of spades used to show the tax on a set of playing cards

Swiss playing cards – acorns, bells, flowers and shields

German playing cards – acorns, bells, hearts and leaves

Tarot – a set of cards featuring 21 trump cards, the fool, and an extra face card per suit, in addition to the usual suit (face and pip) cards found in ordinary playing cards. Tarot cards came to be utilized primarily for divinatory purposes with the trump cards along with the fool card comprising the 22 major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the 56 minor arcana. 78 cards in total. The traditional Italian tarot suits are swords, batons/wands, coins and cups

Ranking of poker hands –

1.Straight flush – five cards in sequence, all of the same suit

2.Four of a kind – four cards of one rank and an unmatched card of another rank

3.Full house – three matching cards of one rank and two matching cards of another rank

4.Flush – all five cards are of the same suit

5.Straight – five cards of sequential rank

6.Three of a kind – three cards of the same rank, plus two unmatched cards

7.Two pair – two cards of the same rank, plus two cards of another rank (that match each    other but not the first pair), plus one unmatched card

8.One pair – two cards of the same rank, plus three other unmatched cards

9.High card – highest card

Odds of a royal flush (an ace-high straight flush) are 649,739:1

Blaze is a poker hand consisting of five face cards

World Series of Poker is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Las Vegas and, since 2005, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment

World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet is considered the most coveted non-monetary prize a poker player can win

Community card poker refers to any game of poker that uses community cards (also called ‘shared cards’ or ‘window cards’), which are cards dealt face up in the centre of the table and shared by all players

Omaha hold 'em is a poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make his best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards

Pineapple hold 'em exists halfway between Texas hold 'em and Omaha hold 'em. Players are initially dealt three cards. Each player then discards one of the three cards, and the game proceeds exactly as in Texas hold 'em

Poker players – Dave ‘The Devilfish’ Ulliott, Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak

Thomas Preston was a poker player known as Amarillo Slim

Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries. Bridge is a development of whist

Duplicate bridge is the most widely used variation of contract bridge in club and tournament play. It is called duplicate because the same bridge deal is played at each table and scoring is based on relative performance

Rubber bridge is a form of contract bridge, played by two competing teams of two players each. A rubber is a best-of-three competition which is completed when one team is first to win two games. A team wins a game when it is first to score 100 or more contract points

Yarborough is a hand with no card higher than a nine

A pinochle deck consists of two copies of each of the Ace through 9 cards of all four suits, for 48 cards per deck. Aces are considered high. Pinochle follows a nonstandard card ordering. The complete ordering from highest to lowest is A, 10, K, Q, J, 9

In Baccarat, cards 2 to 9 are worth face value, 10s and face cards (J, Q, K) are worth zero, and Aces are worth 1 point. Baccarat is a simple game with only three possible results – 'Player', 'Banker' and 'Tie'

Players attempt to score nine (known as ‘le grande’) in Baccarat

The piquet deck is a subset of the French-suited 52-card deck, with all values from 2 through 6 in each suit removed

A two-handed bezique deck is a 64-card deck, consisting of ace through 7 of each suit twice (two piquet decks)

Cribbage was invented by poet John Suckling

Cribbage is played to 121 points. The highest possible hand score is 29

Pegging, two for his heels, one for his nob, muggins, skunking – terms used in cribbage

Euchre is played with four people in two partnerships with a deck of 24 standard playing cards. It is the game responsible for introducing the joker into modern packs

Skat is a trick-taking card game for three players

In Germany, Doppelkopf is nearly as popular as Skat. Trick-taking card game for four players

Pelmanism is a card game in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards. Also known as Pairs

Patience (UK) also known as Solitaire (US)

Klondike, Sultan, Miss Milligan, Clock – types of Patience

Top Trumps is a card game whereby the aim is collect all the cards in the pack. Each card in the pack describes an item from a selected theme, such as cars or aircraft

Canasta uses two complete decks of 52 playing cards plus the four jokers

Blackjack, also known as twenty-one, is the most widely played casino banking game in the world

Pontoon is the British variant of blackjack

Royal pontoon – Ace and court card of the same suit (or three sevens)

The objective in gin rummy is to score points and reach an agreed number of points or more, usually 100, before the opponent does. The basic game strategy is to improve one's hand by forming melds and eliminating deadwood

Misere is call by a player who is bidding to win no tricks

Board games

Abalone is a two-player strategy board game. The objective is to push six of the opponent's marbles off the edge of the board

Backgammon was first played 5,000 years ago

Each side of a backgammon board has a track of 12 long triangles, called points. The points are considered to be connected across one edge of the board, forming a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. Players begin with two checkers on their 24-point, three checkers on their 8-point, and five checkers each on their 13-point and their 6-point

Tric-tric is another name for backgammon

Edmund Hoyle published A Short Treatise on the Game of Back-Gammon in 1743

Candy Land is a simple racing board game. It has become a cultural icon in the U.S., where it is often the first board game played by children because it requires no ability to read and only minimal counting skills

Chinese checkers is a variety of Halma

Cluedo was invented by Anthony Pratt in 1947

Cluedo: Discover the Secrets was released in 2008. The six suspects from the original crime have been updated to include first names and more modern-day lifestyles. Each character has a special ability or ‘power’ which can be used once during a game

Go originated in ancient China more than 2,500 years ago

The two players alternately place black and white playing pieces, called ‘stones’, on the vacant intersections (‘points’) of a board with a 19x19 grid of lines

Hex is a similar game to Go and was invented by John Nash

Halma (from the Greek word meaning ‘jump’) is a board game invented in 1884 by an American plastic surgeon at Harvard Medical School, George Howard Monks. The goal of the game is to transfer all of one's pieces from one's own camp into the camp in the opposing corner of the 16x16 board

Ludo (from Latin ludus, ‘game’) is a simplification of the traditional Indian Cross and Circle game Pachisi. It originally appeared in 1896. The game was patented in England

Parcheesi is an American adaptation of Pachisi

Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called sowing games or count and capture games, which comes from the general gameplay. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West. The mancala games best known in the Western world are Kalah, Oware (or Awele), Congklak, Omweso, and Bao

Monopoly was invented by Charles B. Darrow in 1933

Best Monopoly strategy – buy orange properties, ignore utilities

Monopoly rentals – site only £2, house on Old Kent Road £10; site only £50, hotel on Mayfair £2000

On a Monopoly board, there are three Chance and three Community Chest squares

Electric Company – only property that includes all the letters of the word Monopoly

Here and Now – limited 70th anniversary edition of Monopoly, brought up to date. Played with Visa credit cards. Cheapest property – Bishopsgate (£600,000), most expensive property – Kensington Palace Gardens (£4,000,000). Airports instead of stations. Playing pieces include a skateboard and mobile phone

The history of the board game Monopoly can be traced back to the early 1900s. Based on original designs by the American Elizabeth Magie, several board games were developed from 1903 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. The first game was called The Landlord’s Game

The character locked behind the bars is called Jake the Jailbird. Officer Edgar Mallory sent him to jail

The Monopoly games mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, is intended to be a representation of the late financier, J. P. Morgan. However the monopoly game mascot is now called Mr. Monopoly

US Monopoly – based on Atlantic City. Most expensive property – Boardwalk, cheapest property – Mediterranean Avenue

Anti-Monopoly is a board game made by San Francisco State University Professor Ralph Anspach in 1973, in response to Monopoly. Players compete to return the state of the board to a free market system

The first Monopoly World Championships took place in New York, in 1973

Risk was invented by Albert Lamorisse and released in 1957 as The Conquest of the World. The standard version is played on a board depicting a political map of the Earth, divided into 42 territories, which are grouped into six continents

Castle Risk is a version of Risk that is played on a map of Europe

Senet, a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt, is the oldest board game whose ancient existence has been confirmed, dating to c. 3500 BC

Shogi is a Japanese board game played by two players. The object of the game is to capture the opponent's King. It is played on a nine-by-nine board. The vertical rows are called files, the horizontal ones ranks or just rows. Each player has twenty pieces: one King, two Gold Generals, two Silver Generals, two Knights, two Lances, one Rook, one Bishop and nine Pawns

Snakes and Ladders is an ancient Indian board game. The most widely known edition of Snakes and Ladders in the United States is Chutes and Ladders from Milton Bradley

Sorry! is a Cross and Circle board game that is based on Pachisi

Stratego is originally a Dutch board game featuring a 10x10 square board and two players with 40 pieces each. Pieces represent individual officers and soldiers in an army. The objective of the game is to either find and capture the opponent's Flag or to capture so many of the opponent's pieces that he/she cannot make any further moves

The Game of Life is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley. The game simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriages and children (or not) along the way

Totopoly is a commercial board game, based on the events leading up to, and during, a horse race. Originally made in 1938 by Waddingtons

Trivial Pursuit was created by Scott Abbott and Chris Haney. Released in 1982. Owned by Hasbro

In the classic version of Trivial Pursuit, the Genus edition, the six categories are Geography (blue), Entertainment (pink), History (yellow), Arts & Literature (brown), Science & Nature (green), and Sports & Leisure (orange)

Trouble is a board game in which players compete to be the first to send four pieces all the way around a board. It is a variant of Frustration

German-style board games

German-style board games, frequently referred to in gaming circles as Euro Games or Euro-style, are a broad class of tabletop games that generally have simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction and abstract physical components. The games emphasize strategy, play down luck and conflict, lean towards economic rather than military themes, and usually keep all the players in the game until it ends. German-style games are sometimes contrasted with American-style games, which generally involve more luck, conflict, and drama

Agricola was created by Uwe Rosenberg, and published by Lookout Games. The goal of the game is to build the most well-balanced farm at the end of 14 rounds

Carcassonne is a tile-based game. It is named after the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France, famed for its city walls

El Grande game board represents renaissance-era Spain where the nobility (the Grandes) fight for control of the nine regions

Imperial – the object is to accumulate wealth in the form of bond holdings in successful countries and cash. Players take on the role of international financiers who purchase government bonds in the six pre-World War I empires

Puerto Rico – players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy

The Settlers of Catan is a multiplayer game Players assume the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources. Players are rewarded points as their settlements grow

Other games and puzzles

Tile-based games

Dominoes – the earliest mention of dominoes is from Song Dynasty China

The traditional domino set consists of 28 dominoes, which have a total of 168 dots

Mahjong is played with a set of 144 tiles. In most variations, each player begins by receiving 13 tiles. In turn players draw and discard tiles until they complete a legal hand using the 14th drawn tile to form four groups (melds) and a pair (head). There are two different honour suits: the winds and the dragons (red, green, and white)

Mahjong – Chinese for ‘sparrow’

Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble

Rummikub was invented by Ephraim Hertzano, a Romanian-born Jew, who immigrated to Mandate Palestine in the early 1930s. The game combines elements of rummy, dominoes, mahjong and chess

Scrabble was invented by Alfred Butts in 1931

Lexico, Criss-Cross Words – forerunners of Scrabble

Scrabble board is divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. In an English-language set, the game contains 100 tiles. Players have seven tiles

SOWPODS is a term used to refer to the word list used in tournament Scrabble in most countries

‘Twelve’ is the only number equal to its score in Scrabble

In the Polish version of Scrabble, Z score one point

Puzzles

Eternity is a tiling puzzle created by Christopher Monckton and launched by the Ertl Company in 1999. Consisting of 209 pieces, it was marketed as being practically unsolvable, with a £1 million prize on offer for whoever could solve it within four years. The prize was paid out in 2000 for a winning solution arrived at by two mathematicians from Cambridge

Futoshiki is a logic puzzle game from Japan. Its name means ‘inequality’. The objective is to place the numbers 1 to 5 (or whatever the dimensions are) such that each row, and column contains each of the digits 1 to 5. Some digits may be given at the start. In addition, inequality constraints are also initially specified between some of the squares

Jigsaw puzzle made by John Spilsbury in 1766

Kakuro is a Sudoku type puzzle, aka Cross Sums

KenKen is a Sudoku type puzzle, where grids are divided into ‘cages’. KenKen translates as ‘square wisdom’

Rubik’s Magic – the goal of the game is to fold the puzzle into a heart-like shape and unscramble the picture on the back side, thus interconnecting the three rings

Sudoku was originally called Number Place. Numbers in a Sudoku puzzle add up to 405

Tangram is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only an outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces, which may not overlap

Tredoku is a Sudoku that appears to exist in three dimensions

Word games

Pictionary is a guessing word game invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in 1985. The game is played with teams with players trying to identify specific words from their teammates' drawings

Dice games

Poker dice are dice which, instead of having number pips, have representations of playing cards upon them. Poker dice have six sides, one each of an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, ten and nine, and are used to form a poker hand

Yahtzee is made by Milton Bradley (now owned by Hasbro), which was first marketed by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations

Snake Eyes – two 1’s in dice

Role-playing games

Gary Gygax, the author of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), co-created with Dave Arneson and co-published with Don Kaye in 1974 under the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), which was bought by Wizards of the Coast

Avalon Hill is now a division of the game company Wizards of the Coast, which is itself a subsidiary of Hasbro

Wizards of the Coast produce Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon Trading Card Game

Traditional games

World conker championships held annually at Ashton, in Northants

World marbles championships held at Tinsley Green in West Sussex every Good Friday

Each player has five marbles and a larger shooter or ‘taw’. The simplest variant is called ‘shooting the ring’

Tiddlywinks – players use a ‘squidger’ to propel a wink into flight by pressing down on a wink, thereby flicking it into the air. The objective of the game is to score points by sending your own winks into the pot and preventing the opponent from ‘squopping’ your winks by placing your own winks on top of them

Bomb, boondock, doubleton, nurdle, scrunge – terms in tiddlywinks

Mathematical games

Nim is a two-player mathematical game of strategy in which players take turns removing objects from distinct heaps

Tower of Hanoi consists of three pegs, and a number of disks of different sizes which can slide onto any peg. The puzzle starts with the disks neatly stacked in order of size on one peg, the smallest at the top, thus making a conical shape. The puzzle was invented by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883

Other games

Subbuteo is derived from the scientific name Falco subbuteo (a bird of prey commonly known as the Eurasian hobby), after a trademark was not granted to its creator PeteAdolph to call the game ‘Hobby’. First sets sold in 1947

Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill, marketed by Hasbro, in which players remove blocks from a tower and put them on top. The player who causes the tower to collapse loses. The word jenga is derived from kujenga, the Swahili verb ‘to build’

Pachinko is a Japanese gaming device used for amusement and prizes. Although pachinko machines were originally strictly mechanical, modern pachinko machines are a cross between a pinball machine and a video slot machine

Rock-paper-scissors is also known as Roshambo. It is a type of a zero sum hand game

Escalado was invented and patented in 1928 by Swiss inventor Arthur Gueydan and produced by Chad Valley. Model race horse game pieces, originally made of lead, make their way across a long fabric race track towards the finish line at the other end. The horses move across the race track by means of a mechanical hand crank

Toys

Lego comes from Danish ‘leg godt’ which translates to ‘play well’. The name could also be interpreted as ‘I put together’ or ‘I assemble’ in Latin. Toy of the year in 1974 and 1975

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. Christiansen began creating wooden toys in 1932, and began calling itself Lego in 1934

Bionicle – Lego toys. Portmanteau constructed from the words ‘biological’ and ‘chronicle’

Duplo – Lego for young children

Lego initiated a robotics line of toys called Mindstorms in 1999

Lego Friends is a product range of Lego designed to appeal primarily to girls. Introduced in 2012

Kiddicraft was a toy company founded in 1932 by Hilary 'Harry' Page. The company is notable for the releasing of the predecessor of the Lego bricks, the Self-locking Bricks

Erector Set is a toy construction set invented by Olympic pole vault gold medalist A.C. Gilbert in 1911

Matchbox was introduced by Lesney Products in 1953 and is now owned by Mattel. Lesney's reputation would be moulded by Jack Odell, Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith (hence the name ‘Lesney’); their first major sales success was the million-selling model of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation Coach

Hornby Railways dates back to 1901, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first 00 gauge train. In 1964, Hornby and Meccano were bought by their competitor Tri-Ang

Lines Bros Ltd was a British toy manufacturer of the 20th century, operating under the Tri-ang brand name

Slinky or ‘Lazy Spring’ is a toy consisting of a helical spring that stretches and can bounce up and down. The toy was invented and developed by naval engineer Richard James in the early 1940s

View-Master – the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master ‘reels’, which are thin cardboard disks containing seven stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small colour photographs on film. The View-Master system was introduced in 1939

Etch A Sketch was invented by Andre Cassagnes and subsequently manufactured by the Ohio Art Company. Introduced in 1960

Playmobil is a line of plastic figures produced by the Brandstatter Group, headquartered in Zirndorf, Germany

The American businesswoman Ruth Handler is regarded as the creator of Barbie in 1959, and the doll's design was inspired by a German doll called Bild Lilli. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Made by Mattel (founded by Howard ‘matt’ Matson and ‘el’ Elliott Handler). Barbie ditched Ken, is now with surfer Blaine

Fulla is a Muslim Barbie, released in 2009

Sara and Dara are Islamic Barbie dolls, released in 2012

Francie Fairchild was a fashion doll issued by Mattel from 1966 to 1976 and re-introduced in 2011. Marketed as "Barbie's MODern cousin" (sic) from England, the doll had an extensive line of mod-style clothing

Bratz – manufactured by MGA Entertainment. Four original 10" dolls were released in 2001 – Cloe, Jade, Sasha and Yasmin

The original nine Beanie Babies were launched in 1993 by Ty, Inc.

Character Group produce Dr Who and Little Britain toys

Wham-O Inc. is a toy company currently located in California. They are known for marketing many popular toys in the past 50 years, including the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, Slip 'N Slide, Super Ball, Trac-Ball, Silly String, Hacky Sack and the Boogie board. Founded in 1948 by Richard Knerr and Arthur ‘Spud’ Melin

Magic 8 Ball is a toy used for fortune-telling or seeking advice, manufactured by Mattel

Lincoln Logs is the name of a children's toy consisting of notched miniature logs, used to build miniature forts and buildings. They were invented by John Lloyd Wright, son of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright

Dreidel is a four-sided spinning top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah

Jacob's ladder is a toy consisting of blocks of wood held together by strings or ribbons. When the ladder is held at one end, blocks appear to cascade down the strings

Nerf is a toy brand created by Parker Brothers and currently owned by Hasbro. Most of the toys are a variety of foam-based weaponry, but there are also several different types of Nerf toys, such as balls for sports like football, basketball, and others. The most notable of the toys are the dart guns (referred to by Hasbro as ‘blasters’) that shoot ammunition made from Nerf foam

Zhu Zhu Pets, formerly Go Go Hamsters in the UK, is an American line of plush robotic hamster toys

Diabolo is a juggling prop consisting of a spool which is whirled and tossed on a string tied to two sticks held one in each hand

Beyblade is a high-performance spinning top. As of 2005 over 100 million units had been sold worldwide

‘Walking the dog’ and ‘rock the cradle’ are terms used in yo-yo

The My Friend Cayla doll is designed to sync with a smartphone or tablet which allows her to recognize a child's speech and conduct simple conversations

Toy of the Year awards began in 1965. First winner – James Bond Aston Martin die-cast car. Action Man won in 1966. Spirograph won in 1967

Pogo stick was invented by Hans Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall, from Germany, in 1920

Transformers – Toy of the Tear in 1985 and 1986

Furby – Toy of the Year in 1998 and 1999

Computer and video games

Nintendo Game Boy was released in 1989. Game Boy Colour was released in 1998. The Game Boy and Game Boy Colour combined have sold 118 million units worldwide

NES – Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo DS – Dual Screen

Nintendo 3DS has the ability to produce ‘3D effects without the need for any special glasses’ via a process called autostereoscopy

Nintendo Wii has a Nunchuk controller and Mii avatar

Master System – Sega 8-bit video game console released in 1987

Xbox was released by Microsoft in 2001

Microsoft's second console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005 and has sold over 77 million consoles worldwide. The successor to the Xbox 360 and Microsoft's most recent console, the Xbox One, was revealed in 2013

Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices by Microsoft for Xbox 360 and Xbox One video game consoles

PlayStation was released by Sony in 1994

PlayStation 2 is the best-selling home console to date, having reached over 155 million units sold as of 2012. Sony's next console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006 and has sold over 80 million consoles worldwide. Sony's latest console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013

PSP – PlayStation Portable. Succeeded by PlayStation Vita

First-person shooter (FPS) is a genre of computer and video games which is characterized by an on-screen view that simulates the in-game character's point of view and a focus on the use of handheld ranged weapons

Third-person shooter (TPS) is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting

A god game is a computer simulation game that casts the player in the position of an entity with divine or supernatural powers, and places them in charge of a game setting containing autonomous mortals to guard and influence. Examples of such god games are Little Computer People and The Sims

A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find

Hack and slash, abbreviated H&S, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat

A merger between Activision and Vivendi Games took place in 2008, with the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard. Activision still exists as a subsidiary owned by Activision Blizzard, and it still develops and publishes games such as Call of Duty and Guitar Hero

Draughts was the first computer game, in 1951

Platform games are characterized by the player having to climb up and down, or jump from and to, platforms and ledges, while fighting enemies and collecting objects, e.g. Super Mario, Donkey Kong

Shigeru Miyamoto is best known as the creator of some of the most successful video game franchises of all time, including Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pikmin, and the Wii series

Traveller’s Tales have sold over 60 million games to date, and have won two BAFTAs; one for Gameplay with Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and one for Children's Videogame of the Year for Lego Batman: The Video Game. It is part of the TT Games group

Ubisoft headquarters are in Montreuil, France

Independent video games (commonly referred to as indie games) are video games created by individuals or small teams generally without video game publisher financial support

Pong was invented by Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, in 1972. It is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics

Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972, was the first home gaming console

Space Invaders is an arcade video game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado of Taito Corporation and released in 1978. The player controls a laser cannon by moving it horizontally across the bottom of the screen and firing at descending aliens. The aim is to defeat five rows of eleven aliens. By mid-1981, more than four billion quarters, or $1 billion, had been grossed from Space Invaders machines

Asteroids is an arcade space shooter released in 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers

Pac-Man was developed by Namco and first released in Japan in1980. Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man

Frogger is a 1981 arcade game. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one by crossing a busy road and navigating a river full of hazards

Elite is a space trading video game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers

Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was created in 1984

Age of Empires requires the player to develop a nation, from a handful of Stone Age villagers. Developed by Ensemble Studios

SimCity was designed by Will Wright

The Sims is a strategic life simulation computer game created by game designer Will Wright, published by Maxis, and distributed by Electronic Arts. The game is a simulation of the day-to-day activities of one or more virtual people (dubbed ‘Sims’) in a suburban household located near SimCity

Pokemon was created by Satoshi Tajiri, controlled by Nintendo. The franchise began as a pair of video games for the original Game Boy in 1995

Ash Ketchum, known as Satoshi in Japan, is the protagonst in the Pokemon franchise

In most incarnations of the fictional Pokémon universe, a Trainer that encounters a wild Pokémon is able to capture that Pokémon by throwing a specially designed, mass-producible spherical tool called a Poké Ball at it. If the Pokémon is unable to escape the confines of the Poké Ball, it is officially considered to be under the ownership of that Trainer

Sensible Soccer was first released for Amiga and Atari ST computers in 1992

The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games. It takes place in a fantastic version of the Caribbean during the age of piracy. The player assumes the role of Guybrush Threepwood

Mortal Kombat was developed and published by Midway Games in 1992. Known for its gory finishing moves. The game focuses on the journey of the monk Liu Kang to save Earth from the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung. Mortal Kombat features at least 60 player characters

Mario was the official mascot of Nintendo. He first appeared in Donkey Kong, though his original name was Jumpman. Because of the common reference to him and his brother Luigi as the ‘Mario Brothers,’ it has been speculated his full name is Mario Mario. Mario is depicted as a short, pudgy Italian plumber who lives in the Mushroom Kingdom, where he is regarded as a hero by many; he is best known for thwarting the plans of the evil King Bowser to kidnap Princess Peach and subjugate the Mushroom Kingdom

Super Mario Bros released in 1985

Luigi’s Mansion was the first Mario game to be released for Nintendo GameCube, in 2001

Sonic the Hedgehog was the mascot of Sega. Battles against his nemesis Doctor Eggman, also known as Doctor Robotnik. Sonic's best friend is a young fox called Miles ‘Tails’ Prower

Ape Escape is a series of video games made by Sony, starting with Ape Escape for PlayStation in 1999

The original Legend of Zelda (1986) is the fourth best selling NES game of all time. The series centres primarily on Link, a playable character and the protagonist. Link is often given the task of rescuing Princess Zelda

Crash Bandicoot is a series of platform video games. The protagonist of the series is an anthropomorphic bandicoot named Crash, whose quiet life on the Wumpa Islands is often interrupted by the games' main antagonist, Doctor Neo Cortex

Animal Crossing is a community simulation video game series developed and published by Nintendo, in which the player lives in a village inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, carrying out various activities

Street Fighter made its debut in the arcades in 1987. The player took control of martial artist Ryu, who competed in a worldwide martial arts tournament. A second player could join in at any time and take control of Ryu's rival, Ken

Civilization was designed by Sid Meier. The game's objective is to ‘Build an empire to stand the test of time’: it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires through the ages from the ancient era until modern and near-future times

Banjo-Kazooie stars a honey bear named Banjo and his friend, a large red bird – of the fictional Breegull species – named Kazooie, who are both controlled by the player, and a witch named Gruntilda as the primary antagonist

Halo is a series of science fiction first-person shooter video games developed by Bungie Studios and published by Microsoft, developed exclusively for the Xbox 360. The games are set in the ‘Halo universe’. The Halo trilogy centres around the SPARTAN 117 ‘John’, also known as Master Chief, a human super-soldier equipped with technologically advanced battle armour, and his AI companion, Cortana

Halo 3 follows the character Master Chief and his struggle against the Covenant and the Flood

Half-Life, often abbreviated HL or HL1, is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software and published by Sierra Studios. In Half-Life, players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist, who must fight his way out of a research facility overrun by aliens and soldiers. Half-Life 2 was released in 2004

Doom is a 1993 computer game by John Romero of id Software. The player takes the role of a nameless space marine who has been deported to Mars

Grand Theft Auto games are produced by Rockstar

Grand Theft Auto III – set in Liberty City (based on New York)

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – set in Vice City (based on Miami)

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – set in the fictional state of San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto IV is set in a re-imagined Liberty City, a fictional city based heavily on modern day New York City. It follows Niko Bellic, a Serbian veteran of the Bosnian War who comes to the United States in search of the American Dream. GTA IV sold about 3.6 million units on its first day of release and grossed more than $500 million in its first week, breaking the first-week sales record of $300 million set by Halo 3

Grand Theft Auto V is set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the game's single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to execute a number of heists while under pressure from a government agency. The game's use of open world design allows the player to freely roam the state's countryside and the city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles

Only the expansion packs for the original Grand Theft Auto, London 1969 and London 1961, have featured a location outside of the United States

Resident Evil is a video game series developed by Capcom and created by Shinji Mikami. The series is credited with popularizing the survival horror game genre. This franchise has been heavily influenced by George A. Romero's Dead movies, as well as the Alone in the Dark series of PC horror games. The original Resident Evil revolves around a series of cannibalistic homicides that occur in the Arklay Mountains region, situated north of the fictional Raccoon City

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. Players create characters which serve as their avatars in the online world of Azeroth

Gears of War is a tactical third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games using Unreal Engine 3.0 technology and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game centres around the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. The player assumes the role of Marcus Fenix

Assassin’s Creed was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide in 2007 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The objective in the game is to assassinate nine historical figures propagating the Crusades in 1191

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is a direct sequel to Assassin's Creed II, with Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Desmond Miles returning as the main protagonists

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was released in 2013

Assassin's Creed Unity was released in 2014

Tekken (Japanese: ‘Iron Fist’) is a fighting game franchise created, developed and published by Namco

Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion is a history-based Real-time strategy game. The game was developed by Joymania Entertainment (since changed to Joymania Development) and published by TopWare Interactive. The scenery is based on the Anglo-Saxon period, c. 1000 AD

Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console

Guitar Hero World Tour is the first game in the Guitar Hero series to feature drum and microphone controllers for percussion and vocal parts

Rock Band was developed by Harmonix Music Systems and MTV Games, and distributed by Electronic Arts. The series, inspired by Harmonix's previous efforts on the Guitar Hero series, allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular rock music songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments. Players can play the lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums parts to songs, as well as sing through a USB microphone

Call of Duty is a first-person shooter video game, released in 2003. The game was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The game simulates the infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the fourth installment of the main series. It is the first game in the series not to be set during World War II

Call of Duty: Black Ops – the playable characters are Special Forces operatives conducting black operations behind enemy lines

Call of Duty: Ghosts was released in 2013

RuneScape is the world's most popular free MMORPG, released in 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio

L.A. Noire is a video game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed by Team Bondi in conjunction with Rockstar Games. L.A. Noire is set in Los Angeles in 1947, with players being challenged to solve a range of crimes

Final Fantasy is a fantasy role-playing video game, developed and first published in Japan by Square (now Square Enix) in 1987. The story follows four youths called the Light Warriors, who each carry one of their world's four elemental orbs which have been darkened by the four Elemental Fiends. 14 installments

Hitman game series revolves around Agent 47, a cloned assassin-for-hire

Hitman: Absolution is an action-adventure stealth game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix. Fifth Hitman game

The Elder Scrolls is a role-playing video game series developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The first product – The Elder Scrolls: Arena – was released in 1994 for DOS PC systems. Development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion began in 2002

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released in 2011

Dishonored was developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.  Set in the fictional, plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, Dishonored follows Corvo Attano, the Empress's legendary bodyguard

Kirby series is a fantasy video game series developed by HAL Laboratory and Nintendo. All of the games in the Kirby series feature a pink spherical creature named Kirby as the main playable character and protagonist. Kirby frequently saves the world he resides in from various powerful antagonists, the most recurring one being King Dedede, the self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land (a region of Pop Star)

Portal was developed by Value Corporation and released in 2007

Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to Portal and was released in 2011

GLaDOS, short for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, is a fictional artificially intelligent computer system in Valve Software's Half-Life video game series and the main antagonist in the video game Portal

Brain Age, also known as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, is a series of video games developed and published by Nintendo

Red Dead Redemption is an open world action-adventure western video game, developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games

Need for Speed is a series of racing video games published by Electronic Arts. Need for Speed is the most successful racing video game series in the world

Need for Speed: Most Wanted was released in 2012

The Last of Us was developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The player takes control of Joel, who is trekking across a post-apocalyptic United States in 2033, in order to escort the young Ellie to a resistance group, the Fireflies, who believe Ellie may be the key to curing an infection that has ravaged the world

Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab. A free client program called the Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Ailin Graf is a German teacher who is Second Life’s first dollar millionaire

Scene It? is a DVD game series created by Screenlife, in which players answer trivia questions about films or pop culture

Kinect Adventures! is a 2010 sports video game for the Xbox 360, which utilizes the Kinect motion camera, and is included as a pack-in game with the device. The game is a collection of five adventure and sports minigames, including River Rush

Diablo is an action role-playing hack and slash video game series developed by Blizzard Entertainment

In Diablo III, players choose one of five character classes; the Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk or Demon Hunter and are tasked with defeating the titular Diablo. Diablo III set a new record for fastest-selling PC game by selling over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release, and was the highest selling PC game of 2012, selling more than 12 million copies during the year

Night Trap is a survival horror interactive movie video game that was released in1992 originally for the Sega CD

Mass Effect takes place in the year 2183, with the player assuming direct control of an elite human soldier named Commander Shepard and setting out to explore the Galaxy on a starship, the SSV Normandy. The eponymous ‘mass effect’ is a form of inertia-suppressing technology, allowing faster-than-light travel

PaRappa the Rapper is a rhythm video game for the PlayStation. The game is named after its protagonist, Parappa, a rapping dog with the motto, "I gotta believe!"

Starcraft is owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series centres on a galactic struggle for dominance between three species – the Terrans, the Zerg, and the Protoss – in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector in the 26th century

Shadow of the Colossus – a man named Wander must travel across a vast expanse on horseback and defeat sixteen massive beings, known simply as colossi, in order to restore the life of a girl named Mono

Minecraft is a sandbox indie game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus ‘Notch’ Persson and publshed by Mojang. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft allow players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. In 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang, along with the ownership of the Minecraft intellectual property for US$2.5 billion

BioShock is set in 1960, in which the player guides the protagonist, Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture

FIFA is a series of association football video games or football simulator, released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. As of FIFA 13, Lionel Messi is the face of the franchise

Madden NFL is an American football video game series developed by Electronic Arts Tiburon for EA Sports. It is named after Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden

Destiny received the title of Game of the Year from GamesRadar and the BAFTA Award for Best Game at the British Academy Video Games Awards. Released in 2014, Destiny marked Bungie's first new franchise since the Halo series. Set in a "mythic science fiction" setting

Temple Run is an endless running video game. In Temple Run, the player controls an explorer who, having stolen a treasure from a temple, is chased by "demonic monkeys" who want to eat him

Mobile apps

Zynga is a social network game developer founded by Mark Pincus. Games include Mafia Wars and FarmVille

Playfish, currently a property of Electronic Arts, is a developer of free-to-play social network games

Angry Birds is a puzzle video game developed by Finland-based Rovio Mobile. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was first released for Apple's iOS in December 2009. Since that time, over 12 million copies of the game have been purchased from Apple's App Store. The birds are angry at pigs that have stolen their eggs

Angry Birds Rio added a number of new elements, most notably the first use of boss levels. Players must now rescue caged exotic birds or defeat evil marmosets

Angry Birds Star Wars was released in 2012

Angry Birds Transformers was released in 2014

CastleVille was released by Zynga in 2011

FarmVille is a farming simulation social network game developed by Zynga

Words with Friends is a multi-player word game developed by Zynga with Friends (formerly Newtoy, Inc.)

Fruit Ninja is a game where the player slices fruit with a blade controlled via a touch pad

Candy Crush Saga is a video game for smartphones and Facebook that was released in November 2012 It was developed by King.com. As of March 2013, Candy Crush Saga surpassed FarmVille 2 as the most popular game on Facebook. The game is a variation of ‘match three’ games. The basic move of the game consists of swapping two candies' positions to align sets of three of the same colour, whereupon they disappear, causing candies above them to collapse into the space left behind

In 2014 a sequel Candy Crush Soda Saga was released

Bejeweled is a tile-matching puzzle video game by PopCap Games. More than 75 million copies of Bejeweled have been sold, and the game has been downloaded more than 150 million times. The objective of this game is to swap one gem with an adjacent gem to form a horizontal or vertical chain of three or more gems of the same colour

Flappy Bird was developed by Vietnam-based developer Dong Nguyen. The objective is to direct a flying bird, named ‘Faby’ which moves continuously to the right, between sets of Mario-like pipes. Flappy Bird was removed from both Apple's App Store and Google Play by its creator in 2014, due to guilt over what he considered to be its addictive nature and overuse

Heads Up! was created by the Ellen DeGeneres Show. You hold your iOS device on your head as it displays a word, which you have to guess from your friends' clues

Clash of Clans is a 2012 freemium mobile MMO strategy video game developed and published by Supercell, a video game company based in Helsinki

Subway Surfers features youths applying graffiti to (tagging) a metro railway site