This week: Gaming Through The Ages

You will have noticed by now that that not even FG has been immune to millennium fever, but all this talk of 'Games of the Century' and the 'Greatest Games of All Time' is nonsense, frankly. We're all fooling ourselves into the notion that 'the game' is an invention of the twentieth century, and that all the truly classic games need a microchip. Arse! Some of the greatest games go as far back as Ice Age times, as this arbitrary, Western-centric and not wholly historically accurate trip down memory lane reveals...

The Age of Atlantis and other "Lost Civilisations"
Many people still harbour the idea that we weren't civilised enough to play games before the Stone Age, when we learned to throw rocks at each other. But this simply isn't true, as any rational person would conclude after a bit of research.

The 'Seven Tribes' of Fish People, for example, who were around when the Aztecs were still in nappies, invented an all-male, high-testosterone game called Let's get Naked And Boisterous In The Showers Together. It was later to be reinvented as rugby. And if you don't like ruby, don't blame the nobs of, erm... Rugby, blame the Fish People.

Another novel game, one that again is still played today, was created by the strange race of aliens who lived in the under-sea city of Atlantis. It was called Sit On My Face, and we won't go into that one...

The Last Ice Age
There wasn't much to do in those chilly times except shiver, grunt and make piss-holes in the snow. But the people of those days did play an extremely enjoyable game, called Hrumph Grrr. There weren't any rules to speak of (probably because language hadn't even been invented yet) but that didn't stop the fun. A 'Bout' of Hrumph Grrr would simply 'kick off' whenever anyone accidentally fermented the food. Intoxicated to the top of their thick skulls, their few brain cells befuddled, a great fight would break out, which would normally go on for hours, ending only when someone got trampled by a mad woolly mammoth high on fermented pinecones.