#pachisi

My conjecture is this: everywhere in the world that develops a stratified, sedentary society also, sooner or later, develops tabletop games, starting with games like Mehen (most of which have not survived). But Mehen-style race games are frankly pretty boring, so inevitably, the culture will graduate from that to what we now call a "tables" game, which is a subgenre of race game where there's a lot more strategy involved: you have more ways to use any single dice roll, and the optimal move in any situation is not always obvious. The oldest examples are the game of Twenty Squares, which comes from Mesopotamia, and Senet from Egypt, both of which date back perhaps as far back as roughly 2600 to 3000 BCE, but there are tons of examples from virtually every corner of the globe. Despite the remarkable similarities of these games, there's no evidence linking them to a common ancestry, meaning that they were all invented independently. Tables games are like pottery and metallurgy – they're just something that humans tend to do, eventually, when left to our own devices.

Name: Pawn

Debut: Senet

Welcome to another gameriffic post showcasing some of the most iconic characters in all of gaming! I can’t believe it took us, a blog about games, this long to get to PAWN, though. Everyone knows Pawn, and everyone’s played as Pawn! Even people who wouldn’t consider themselves gamers, and even people who would have sworn they’ve never gamed before!

But what is a Pawn? I, personally, would define it at any basic game piece that’s an ambiguous representation of the player, often vaguely conical in shape, and often lacking in abilities compared to other pieces, if others are present. Chess was far from the first game to feature pawns, and was far from the last to do it!

Pawn has its origins in Senet, the very first board game known to ever exist! Senet was created and played in Egypt some time before 2620 BCE. Sadly, the rules of Senet are unknown, and even in the past, it seems the rules varied, so we may never know for sure. But we DO know that Pawn is here, and this is likely the first Pawn that ever existed!

Chaturanga, played in India around 600 AD, is without a doubt one of the most influential board games to exist, likely to have inspired various games around the world, including Xiangqi, Shogi, Sittuyin, Makruk, and Chess! The Pawn equivalent here had a few names, all referring to its representation of a foot soldier, and had the same abilities as a Chess Pawn, though was unable to move two spaces as its first move...

I don’t need to bother explaining Chess Pawn! We all know Chess Pawn. As we can see with Chaturanga before, the specific Pawn Shape has proven very reliable throughout history. And I’m glad it has. It’s a nice shape, like a little guy. It has a little head and a little body, and some sort of frilly collar, perhaps. Is this even much of a representation of a warrior at this point? Pawn looks like it’s all gussied up for the occasion. In terms of gameplay, Pawn received some buffs in Chess! It can now move two spaces as its first move, and become any piece it wants upon reaching the other side of the board, rather than just taking the form of the piece that originally occupied that space, as in Chaturanga.

At some point, I’m not sure when, Pawn Fever struck the world. People couldn’t get enough Pawns! In a game with battle-ready religious figures, flying horses, and sentient castles, it was the humble Pawn that captured our hearts. Pawn has so much potential. It can be anything. And it’s cute! It’s not just me, right? Pawn is cute. Even cuter when it becomes further abstracted, like the very first image in this post, where it no longer even resembles a humanoid in ANY way. More like, a blob with an eyestalk. That’s how I interpret those ones.