A game which we did not discuss in class, but is of great interest to me is the game of Parcheesi. Parcheesi is a game that was created in India around 500 BC (even before chess is said to have been created). It, like chess, has pawns that must move around the board blocking and capturing other players pieces. These games both mimic in some ways the movements and strategies of battle. However, it is very much unlike chess in that it is much more a game of chance. A player's prospect of winning a game of Parcheesi is based almost solely on the luck of the roll of dice. Caillois would call such a game 'Alea,' meaning that Parcheesi is a game of 'destiny.' While Parcheesi is still a game that is played in America, people more commonly play a Parker Bothers 1934 adaptation of the game known as Sorry!. Sorry! is similar to Parcheesi in that it is a game with four identical sides of different color trying to get their four pawns around the board and back into home. However, Sorry! adds an element of excitement by using a stack of shuffled cards in order to determine the player's move. These cards take away what little element of strategy exist for Parcheesi. Not surprisingly, this much more fast-paced version of Parcheesi seems appropriate for the time in which it was created. Its conception very much reflects the introduction of Monopoly by the Parker Brothers in 1935. It too is an adaptation of an earlier much less exciting game known as the Landlord's game. In the same way that Parcheesi and Chess reflect the culture of the common society in which they were created, so too do Sorry! and Monopoly. In this period of American History exciting games of chance were very much gaining foothold despite the fears of the immoral nature of dice and gambling. Because money was scarce in the 1930's due to the great depression, games of chance seemed to more appropriately reflect the difficult times many people experienced despite their hardest attempts to succeed. It was a time in American history when 'destiny' seemed to outweigh determination. On the other hand, the excitement of the game more accurately reflected the fast-paced nature of society in 1930's America as opposed to 500 BC India. In the end, Parcheesi and Sorry! are yet another example of play adapting to and reflecting the society in which it is played.
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