Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Everybody enjoys a healthy dose of relaxation, and what better way to relax than enjoy some good old indoor games? There are plenty of indoor games available, and these are games not require concentration. So, it is not that indoor games are to be taken lightly. In fact, many of them are actually played at a professional level. At the same time, they can be played within a homely atmosphere, with friends and family, during leisure. Countless number of people participate in indoor games, be in at a professional level or just for fun. Indeed, there are many kinds and varieties of indoor games available, and while some of them require a good deal of skill, observation and patience, all of them require the players to know the rules properly. Let us take a quick look at the Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games.

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

1. Chess

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Chess is a type of strategy board game played on a chessboard by two players. Chessboard is a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid alternating in color between black and white. This indoor game is currently enjoyed by millions of people all over the world and has also become a part of many school’s curriculum activity in recent years. Each player starts this board game with sixteen pieces that are ne king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The objective of chess is to ‘checkmate’ the opposition’s king in such a way that the king is under inescapable threat of capture. The game is believed to be originated in Eastern India around 280 CE during the Gupta Empire as “chaturaṅga”. Wilhelm Steinitz became the first official World Chess Champion in 1886 and the current World Champion is the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen.

2. Cards

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Card game is an indoor game that can be played using playing cards as the primary device of the game. There are countless card games all over the world with a wide variety of rules. A small number of card games have standardized rules where most of the games have rules that are varied by region, culture, and person. The evidence of playing card can be traced back to ninth century during Tang Dynasty, China. Tang writer Su E, in his Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, wrote that daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang, Princess Tongchang, played “leaf game” in 868 AD with members of the Wei clan. Several characters of the popular novels such as the Water Margin were featured on the faces of playing cards during the Ming Dynasty in 1368 AD. During the 14th century, playing cards first appeared in Europe. Also Read: Top 10 All Time Best Poker Players.

3. Darts

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Darts is an indoor game where players throw small missiles at a circular target called dartboard mounted to a wall. The term “Darts” now refers to a game which has a specific set of standardized rules involving a particular board design, although various boards and rules have been used in the past. This game is widely regarded as the most common and traditional pub game. Dart game is played nin the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Republic of Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, the United States and all across the Commonwealth. Many games can be played using dart boards buy usually Dart refers to a game where participants throw three darts per visit to the board with the goal of reducing a fixed score. The origin of a dartboard can be traced to the cross-section of a tree and the old name for a dartboard is “butt” which stands for “target” in French.

4. Monopoly

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Monopoly is originated as a way to demonstrate the evils of land ownership in 1903 in the United States. An American lady Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips first created the game for explaining the single tax theory of Henry George in 1903. The current version of this game was first published in 1935 by Parker Brothers with the subtitle “The Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game”. The game was named after the economic concept of monopoly which stands for the domination of a market by a single entity. The game Monopoly is now mainly produced by Hasbro, the most popular United States game and toy company. The game revolves around buying or trading properties while developing properties with houses and hotels and in turn collecting rent from their opponents.

5. Scrabble

 

Scrabble is a word game where two to four players place tiles for scoring points. The game is played on the game board bearing a single letter, each of which is usually divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The words flow from left to right in rows or downwards in columns in crossword fashion. The words used in this game should be defined in a standard dictionary. The name of this game “Scrabble” is a trademark of Hasbro in the United States and Canada and mainly sold by Hasbro’s Parker Brothers Division since 1999. It was also sold as the Milton Bradley game before 1999. Scrabble is trademarked by Mattel outside the United States and Canada. Scrabble is available in 29 languages worldwide and 150 million sets have been sold throughout the world. According to studies, one-third of American homes have a Scrabble set.

6. Carrom

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Carrom is a type of “strike and pocket” table game which is quite similar to billiards and table shuffleboard and has a distinct Eastern origin. It is known by many different names all over the world but widely known as “Carrom” where it is widely played throughout the East. This table game is a very popular game in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Middle East. Many clubs and cafés regularly host tournaments in different countries of South Asia. It is also used as family games typically played by children and family members at social functions in the eastern regions of the world. The game is believed to be originated from the Indian subcontinent but there is no concrete evidence to prove the theory. It is also believed that the Carrom was invented by Indian Maharajas as one glass-surface carom board can still be found in one of the palaces in Patiala, India.

7. Jenga

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Jenga is created by Leslie Scott and is a game to test physical and mental skill. It is currently manufactured and marketed by a division of Hasbro called Parker Brothers. The tower of Jenga is typically constructed of 54 blocks. The objective of this game is to remove one block at a time from the tower and then balanced on top of the tower which creates a progressively taller but less stable tower structure. The word “Jenga” is actually derived from a Swahili word which stands for “to build.” The game Jenga was created by the co-founder of Oxford Games Ltd, Leslie Scott, based on his family game which they used to play during early 1970s after they purchased a few block from a sawmill in Takoradi, Ghana. Robert Grebler made the tallest tower while playing with an original Jenga set produced by Leslie Scott in 1985.

8. UNO

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

UNO is a type of American card game which is generally played with a specially printed deck called UNO card. An identical game called Mau Mau can also be played with normal playing cards. The game was originally invented by Merle Robbins in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1971. Merle Robbins was an Ohio barbershop owner and one day came up with the idea for UNO in 1971. He first introduced the game in his own family and later Robbins and his family spent $8,000 to have 5,000 games made. He later sold the manufacturing right of UNO to a funeral parlor owner for $50,000 with 10% royalty per games sold. The rules of this game are almost similar to the Crazy Eights family of card games and the UNO card deck has been a Mattel product since 1992.

9. Ludo

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Ludo is a type of board game generally played by two to four players where participants race their four tokens from start to finish according to the dice they rolled. Ludo is believed to be derived from the Indian game Pachisi like most of the cross and circle games. Ludo, as well as its many variants, has now become popular throughout the world under various names. Pachisi was originated during the 6th century in India and the earliest evidence of this game can be found is a depiction of boards on the caves of Ajanta. The game was enjoyed by several Mughal emperors of India such as Akbar. Several variations of this game were invented in England during the late 19th century. Each participant rolls the dice and the highest roller starts the game and then takes alternate turns in a clockwise direction.

10. Battleship

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Top 10 Non Athletic Indoor Games

Battleship or Sea Battle is a type of guessing game usually played by two players. This game is dates from World War I and has become hugely famous as a pad-and-pencil game since 1930s. It was first published as a plastic board game in 1967 by Milton Bradley. The game is believed to be originated from a French game L’Attaque which was popular during World War I. It also has connections with E. I. Horseman’s 1890 game Baslinda which was used to be played by Russian officers before World War I. The first commercial version of the game was released in the United States by the Starex Company in 1931 as “Salvo”. A mini version of the game was used in the third season of The Hub’s Family Game Night. American science fiction action 2012 movie Battleship was also made with the inspiration from this game.

Even though we commonly tend to think that indoor games are only played by people who have absolutely no athletic skills, we often forget that these games require their own set of skills, as well. While the games do not have any direct connection with physical fitness, there is no need to look down upon those who enjoy indoor games. After all, no party or rainy day is complete without some indoor games, and until you have one a round or two at the other indoor games, you cannot prove the muscle power of your brains.