Race game is a large category of board games, in which the object is to be the first to move all one's pieces to the end of a track. This is both the earliest type of board game known, with implements and representations dating back to at least the 3rd millennium BC in Egypt, Iraq, and Iran; and also the most widely dispersed: "all cultures that have games at all have race games." Race games often use dice

Dice

A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...

 to decide game options and how far to move pieces.

Types

They may be categorized by their ratio of luck to skill:

Simple race games involve pure luck. Each player has only 1 piece to move, and the outcome of the game is thus totally dependent upon the fall of lots. The Game of the Goose

Game of the Goose

The Game Of The Goose is a board game with uncertain origins. Some people connect the game with the Phaistos Disc , others claim that it was originally a gift from Francesco I de' Medici of Florence to King Philip II of Spain sometime between 1574 and 1587, while the latest theories attribute to...

 is the progenitor of most simple Western race games, although Snakes and Ladders

Snakes and ladders

Snakes and Ladders is an ancient Indian board game regarded today as a worldwide classic. It is played between two or more players on a game board having numbered, gridded squares. A number of "ladders" and "snakes" are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares...

 is descended from games of India, Nepal, and Tibet. The ancient Egyptian game Mehen

Mehen (game)

Mehen is a board game that was played in ancient Egypt. The game was named in reference to Mehen, a serpent god protecting Ra during his night-time underworld journey. Nothing else is known about it than that paintings and equipment found suggest that it is a game.-History of the game:Evidence of...

 was likely a simple race game.

Complex race games combine luck and skill. Players have more than 1 piece to move (typically 4), and so choices of move can be made that will put a player in advantageous positions. Many modern complex race games including Ludo

Ludo (board game)

Ludo is a simple board game for two to four players, in which the players race their four tokens from start to finish according to dice rolls. Like other cross and circle games, it is similar to the Indian Pachisi, but simpler...

, Parcheesi

Parcheesi

Parcheesi is a brand name American adaptation of the Indian Cross and Circle game Pachisi. Created in India perhaps as early as 500 AD, the board game is subtitled Royal Game of India because royalty played using color-costumed members of their harems as pieces on large outdoor boards. Such a court...

, Trouble

Trouble (board game)

Trouble is a board game in which players compete to be the first to send four pieces all the way around a board. Pieces are moved according to the roll of a die. Trouble was developed by the Kohner Brothers and initially manufactured by Irwin Toy Ltd., later by Milton Bradley...

, and Sorry! ultimately derive from India's Pachisi

Pachisi

Pachisi is a cross and circle board game that originated in ancient India which has been described as the "national game of India". It is played on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross...

 and Chaupur.

Multiplex race games greatly increase the role of strategy, while retaining the element of chance. Backgammon

Backgammon

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...

, the most well-known representative of this category, is a member of the Tables family of games, which also includes Trictrac http://booksongaming.com/trictrac/, Nard

Nard (game)

Nard is a board game for two players in which the playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice. It's similar to backgammon, uses the same board, but it has different initial positions and rules.- History :...

, and Acey-deucey

Acey-deucey

Acey-deucey is a variant of backgammon. Since World War I, it has been a favorite game of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Merchant Marine. Some evidence shows that it was played in the early 1900s aboard U.S. Navy ships...

. The ancient Egyptian game Senet

Senet

Senet is a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt. The oldest hieroglyph representing a Senet game dates to around 3100 BC. The full name of the game in Egyptian was zn.t n.t ḥˁb meaning the "game of passing."- History :...

 and the ancient Mesopotamian Royal Game of Ur

Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur, also known as the Game of Twenty Squares, refers to two game boards found in the Royal Tombs of Ur in Iraq by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. The two boards date from the First Dynasty of Ur, before 2600 BC, thus making the Royal Game of Ur probably the oldest set of board...

 were almost certainly race games, and may belong to this category.

Strategic race games eliminate (or render trivial) the element of chance. Examples are Bantu and Hare & Tortoise

Hare and Tortoise

Hare and Tortoise is a German-style board game designed by David Parlett in 1974 and first published by Intellect Games. In 1978 it was released by Ravensburger in Germany, where the game became a huge hit. It has since sold some 2 million units in at least ten languages, including two known...

.

Other classifications include geographical distribution or derivation; and shape of track (including spiral, cross and circle, and square—either boustrophedon as in Snakes & Ladders or "labyrinthine" as in Thaayam).

Not race games

Many board games share some characteristics with these games, but are not categorized as race games. For example, the characteristic roll-and-move mechanism of race games is also found in running-fight games, but here the object of the game is not to finish first, but to capture and remove enemy pieces from the board. Similarly in games as diverse as Monopoly

Monopoly (game)

Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...

 and Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which progress is determined by a player's ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions. The game was created in 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, by Canadian Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette and Scott Abbott, a sports...

, players roll-and-move to spaces which may help or hinder their progress, but there is no physical "finish line": a win is not attained positionally, but rather by the collection of assets.

Other games, such as Hex

Hex (board game)

Hex is a board game played on a hexagonal grid, theoretically of any size and several possible shapes, but traditionally as an 11x11 rhombus. Other popular dimensions are 13x13 and 19x19 as a result of the game's relationship to the older game of Go...

, Agon

Agon (game)

Agon is an abstract strategy game with perfect information . Agon may be the oldest board game played on a 6 by 6 by 6 hexagonally tiled board, first appearing as early as the late Eighteenth Century in France...

, and Arimaa

Arimaa

The objective of the game is to move a rabbit of one's own color onto the home rank of the opponent. Thus Gold wins by moving a gold rabbit to the eighth rank, and Silver wins by moving a silver rabbit to the first rank...

require the winner to attain a certain position first, but differ from race games in that the winning state is a position or configuration on a 2-dimensional field, rather than the end of a finite, essentially 1-dimensional track.