Battleship - The Classic Naval Combat Game

You sank my Battleship! The enduring catchphrase heard on television advertising for decades.

Battleship, the classic naval combat game is a guessing game played by two people where the object is to sink all of your enemy’s ships.

Although popularized in the United States as a board game produced by Milton Bradley in 1931, it is know throughout the world as a pencil & paper game that predates the First World War.

Here is a link to a printable version of the pencil & paper game:



Historian John Toland wrote in “The Dillinger Days,” that prisoners in solitary confinement at the Indiana State Penitentiary played a version of Battleship during the 1920’s. The inmates would mark squares on their cell floors and call out attacks from cell to cell. “For years the more obtuse guards wondered what was being plotted when they heard men calling: B7, Miss, or Destroyer sunk.”

Today, Milton Bradley (owned by Hasbro), offers several editions of the game including a hand-held electronic, a travel pack, or an advanced electronic home game version.

Knights Game - a variation on the world favorite

Today’s game is titled “Knights Game.” The game is played on a standard chess table and you move your piece (the *) like you would a knight in chess. Clear all of the squares to win the game.

Although there is not much to say about Knights Game, the game that inspired it is one of the most popular board games in the world…

The origins of Chess remain a mystery with many different theories about its origin.
The most common belief is that chess developed in India around the 6th century, since the Arabic, Persian, Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish words for chess all derive from the Sanskit game “chaturanga.” Additionally, India is the only country which had all three animals (horse, camel, and elephant) in its cavalry which represent knight, bishop, and rook in chess. The modern version of chess played today ultimately derives from a version of chaturanga.

Another theory that exists is that chess arose from the similar game of “Xiangqi,” (Chinese chess) or at least an ancestor thereof, which existed in China since the 2nd century BC.
As the games popularity increased it spread westward to Europe and eastward to Japan with new variations as it spread. When the game entered the Islamic world, the names of the pieces closely retained their Persian forms but its name became “shatrani,” which continued in Spanish as “ajedrez,” and in Greek as “zatrikion,” but in Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian word shāh (meaning king).

Chess eventually reached Russia from Mongolia, where it was played at the beginning of the 7th century. It was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, and described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering chess, backgammon, and dice titled “Libro de los Juegos.”

Mahjong - The Popular Chinese Game of Tiles

Mahjong, Májiàng, Màhjeung, Máquè, Màhjeuk; or the common English spellings of mahjongg, majiang, mah-jong or mah-jongg. No matter how you say it, it remains the popular Chinese game of skill, strategy, intelligence, calculation, and luck.

There are several theories regarding the origin of Mahjong, however, there is no evidence to support anyone of them.

One of the theories suggests that Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, developed the game about 500 BC. The appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincides with Confucius’ travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrine. Also, according to myth, Confucius was fond of birds, which would explain the name “Mahjong” (meaning sparrow).

But there are problems with this theory… Confucius was northern Chinese and “Mahjong” comes from a westernized pronunciation of Yueyu (Cantonese) name for the game. In addition, there is little to no evidence of Mahjong’s existence prior to the Taiping era which eliminates Confucius as the likely inventor.

Another theory implies that Mahjong was developed from existing Chinese card and domino games around 1850. The most likely card game is “Mádiào” (AKA Ma Tiae - Hanging Horse; or Yèzí – Leaf) from the early Ming Dynasty. This card game is played with 40 cards which are similar in appearance to the cards used in Ya Pei. The cards are numbered from 1 to 9 in four different suits with four extra flower cards and are very similar to the numbering of Mahjong tiles today.

Other theories include Chinese army officers serving during the Tai Ping Rebellion created the game to pass the time. A noble living in the Shangai area created the game between 1870 and 1875. Or, the game was created around 1850 in the city of Níngpō by two brothers who created Mahjong from the earlier card game Mádiào.

Mahjong was banned in it’s homeland in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded. The new Communist government forbid any gambling activates which were regarded as symbols of the capitalist corruption. After the Cultural Revolution, the game was revived and once again has become one of the favorite pastimes of the Chinese people.

Super Monkey Poop Fight - A Parody of the 80's Mega-Hit

Here is an interesting version of the popular Donkey Kong video game… “Super Monkey Poop Fight. Call me sophomoric, but I thought it was funny.

Donkey Kong (AKA Donki Kongu, or DK) was created when Shigeru Miyamoto was assigned by Nintendo to convert Radar Scope into a game that would appeal to Americans. The result was a major breakthrough for Nintendo and the video game industry. Sales of the game were so strong that it was the best selling video game in the early 1980’s. Nintendo has since release two sequels of the popular game (Donkey Kong Jr and Donkey Kong 3), as well as eight games for the Game & Watch platform.

One little known fact: Since 1994, DK has worn a necktie, his sole article of clothing.

The goal of this version is to have DK find bananas. You will need to fight the other monkeys by avoiding and throwing poop. As the game progresses you will not only fight monkeys, but need to avoid evil zoo keepers who will try and catch you.



You control DK with the left and right arrow keys. “A” will throw poop or, if you are walking, it will make you run. “S” will make you jump or, if you press “S” and then the up arrow, you can grab on to branches and vines.

Crossword Puzzle - The Most Common Word Puzzle in the World

The Crossword Puzzle is the most common word puzzle in the world but do you know where they came from?

The first "word cross" puzzle is credited to Arthur Wayne, who published his puzzle in the New York World on December 21, 1913. This puzzle, which can be seen here, contained most of the features as we know them today. It wasn't until later that the name was changed to "crossword puzzle."

As Wayne’s puzzle gained popularity, they became a weekly feature in the New York World. The first book of crossword puzzles was published by Simon and Schuster in 1924 and became an instant hit. In 1930, the term “crossword” first appeared in a dictionary.

Today, crossword puzzles appear in almost every published paper in the world. The most prestigious (and among the hardest to solve) are the puzzles published in the New York Times.

A popular variation of Wayne’s crossword puzzle is the British cryptic crossword which was first published in New York magazine in 1968. Until 2006, Atlantic Monthly published a cryptic crossword “puzzler” by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, which combined cryptic clues with clever variations on the construction of the puzzle itself. The intent of the puzzle authors was to entertain with novelty that resulted in no two puzzles alike.



A more complete history of the crossword puzzle, as well as a reprint of that very first crossword, can be found at a page maintained by New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz here.

Video Poker - Five Card Draw

The Game for Today is Video Poker - the popular casino game based on five card draw poker.

Computerized casino video poker machines first appeared in the mid-1970's, just after the birth of the home video arcade console. These first machines were crude compared the sophisticated versions of today. It would take the casinos a few more years before these early consoles became commercially viable – the initial expense of the components was just too great.

The Video Poker consoles became more popular when SIRCOMA (Si Redd’s Coin Machines) introduced Draw Poker in 1979. SIRCOMA later became slot machine manufacturing giant IGT (International Game Technology).

During the 1980’s, video poker’s popularity climbed as casino patrons found the machines easy to play and casino’s discovered that the machines were more profitable than their table game counterparts.

Today, most major Las Vegas casino’s consider the video poker machine a major source of revenue and feature the machines prominently.

PONG - The Game that Started it All

Do you think PONG was the first video game? You'd be wrong, Computer Space was the first game released in November, 1971. The original PONG wasn't released by Atari until November 29, 1972. However, it was the first video to gain widespread recognition and is credited with launching the home video arcade market.

You don't understand what a technical milestone this was for the time. In 1970, it would require a mainframe computer the size of a small apartment to rival the computing power of today's cell phone.

The earliest form of electronic ping-pong dates back to 1958, when William A. Higinbotham developed "Tennis for Two" which was played on an oscilloscope at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

It wasn't until 1966 that Ralph Baer (working for Sanders Associates) made a design for playing computer games over a television set. His designs were patented and he created a game resembling PONG. It took Baer four more years to demonstrate his invention to Magnavox who was so impressed with the game they formed a partnership with Sanders Associates to manufacture the game (the Odyssey 1TL200).

In the spring of 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey was demonstrated in Burlingame, California. The reason this date is important is because Nolan Bushnell played the Odyssey for the first time. Bushnell is one of the founders of Atari.

Soon after playing the Odyssey, Nolan and a partner formed Atari. The first game created was a ping-pong game. The name "Ping Pong" was already trademarked, thus "PONG" was born.

Originally, Bushnell envisioned Atari as a video game design company. In fact, Bushnell had appointments with arcade manufactures Williams and Bally/Midway to license the PONG game. It wasn't until the runaway success of PONG field tests that Bushnell cancelled his appointments and decided to manufacture the game.

The news of the PONG test spread quickly and two weeks after the tests, Magnavox notified Atari they had a patent on the game concept. Atari fought the suit, but Magnavox was able to produce witnesses that saw Bushnell play the Odyssey in Burlingame and provided a guest bookuestbook with Bushnell's signature from the event. Atari ultimately settled and paid Magnavox $700,000 to license the patents.

The summer 1975 Consumer Electronic Show was'nt much better for Atari. There was little interest in the PONG game during the show (Magnavox's Odyssey had failed and was discontinued in 1974), but things changed quickly. Just after the show, Tom Quinn, a buyer for Sears called and the rest is history... The "Sears Tele-Games Pong IV" was the most popular Christmas gift in 1975, and Sears was the exclusive seller of the popular Atari game (sales were close to 150,000 units!).

By 1977, the home version of PONG was so popular that it was copied by other manufactures. The market was soon flooded with copycats and PONG crashed, but not before Atari created the video arcade/home video game market - a $10 Billion dollar industry.



Atari means "to be engulfed" in Japanese.

Click here to view the original PONG unit and here to find a schematic if you want to build your one. You can also take a trip down memory lane and visit the Atari Museum here.

Trio - Tetris on Steroids!

Trio was created by Oded Poncz on the Google gadget platform. Similar to Tetris, Trio is like a first cousin - only harder. The game speeds up faster and with the 3 balls falling at the same time, your combinations become limited quickly.

The object of the game is to create a sequence of three or more balls of the same color to make them disappear. Remove as many Trios as you can to improve your score. Trios can be formed horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Use the arrow keys to arrange the color sequence and the location of the Trio.

Good Luck!

Mastermind - Can You Solve this Code-Breaking Game?

Mastermind is the code-breaking game invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert.

Since 1971, the rights to Mastermind have been held by Invicta Plastics of Oadby in the United Kingdom who originally manufactured the game. They have since licensed it's manufacture to Hasbro in most of the world and two other manufactures who have the United States and Israel rights.

In 1977, Donald Knuth demonstrated that the codebreaker can solve the pattern in five moves or less, using an algorithm that progressively reduced the number of possible patterns. Subsequent mathematicians have been finding various algorithms that reduce the average number of turns needed to solve the pattern: in 1993, Kenji Koyama and Tony W. Lai found a method that required an average of 4.340 turns to solve, with a worst case scenario of six turns.

Now it's your turn to solve the code....



In this version, you are the codebreaker trying to solve the code pattern (in both order and color). Your opponent is the computer who begins each game with a new code. Each guess is made by placing a row of code pegs on the decoding board. Once feedback is provided, another guess is made; guesses and feedback continue to alternate until either the codebreaker guesses correctly, or twelve incorrect guesses are made.

Tetris - The Greatest Video Game of All Time?

Tetris first gained mainstream exposure and popularity beginning in 1989 when Nintendo released Tetris on its Game Boy system.

Tetris was originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pazhitnov (last name translated to Pajitnov) by the Tetris Company in 1985. Pajitnov stated that pentominoes were the inspiration for the game. The "Tetris" name is derived from the Greek numerical prefix "tetra-" meaning four, because all of the blocks are made of four segments.

The game (or one of it's variations) is available for nearly every video game platform, console, and operating system, as well as mobile phones, PDA's, and more. To this day, Tetris appears on lists of the greatest video games of all time.

Peg Solitaire - A Centuries Old Classic

Here is a variation of the centuries old classic game of "Peg Solitaire." The traditional English version features a cross and the European version features a circle. Over the centuries, several other designs have been discovered.

The peg game can be traced back to the court of Louis XIV and the year 1697 with several works of art from that time depicting the solitaire board and its popularity.

According to folklore, the game was invented by a French aristocrat while incarcerated in the Bastille, although, researchers have found little evidence to support this.

In other sources, the game is credited to American Indians; however, there is no evidence to support this claim either.

Backgammon - An Ancient Classic

Backgammon is consider one of the oldest games in existence. Civilizations that have come and gone have played the game. The most likely ancestor of the modern table game is "The Royal Game of Ur," which was played in ancient Mesopotamia, however, recent excavations at the "Burnt City" in Iran found a similar game existed around 3000 BC. The artifacts included two dice and sixty pieces; the set is believed to be 100 to 200 years older that the sets found in Ur.

Ancient Egyptians played a game called "Senet" with moves controlled by rolls of the dice. Ancient Romans played several games with similarities to backgammon including "Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum" (game of twelve lines). "Tabula" (table or board) was mentioned by Byzantine Emperor Zeno (AD 476-481) with a board of twenty-four points. In 6th century Shahbameh, Burzoe is credited with inventing a game called "Nard" played with dice made from ivory and teak.

The "Jeux de Tables," a predecessor of modern backgammon, first appeared in France during the 11th century and became a frequent pastime for gamblers. Gambling was so bad that in 1254, Louis IX issued a decree prohibiting his court officials and subjects from playing the game.

Tables games were played in Germany in the 12th century, and had reached Iceland by the 13th century. While it is mostly known for its extensive discussion of chess, the Alfonso X manuscript "Libro de los Juegos," completed in 1283, describes rules for a number of dice and tables games.

By the 17th century, tables games had spread to Sweden. A wooden board and checkers were recovered from the wreck of the Vasa among the belongings of the ship's officers.

In the 16th century, Elizabethan laws and church regulations had prohibited playing tables, but by the 18th century backgammon was popular among the English clergy.

Edmund Hoyle published a short treatise on the Game of "Backgammon" in 1743; this book described the rules of the game and was bound together with a similar text on "Whist." The game described by Hoyle is, in most respects, the same as the game played today.

Enjoy the ancient classic...

Blackjack - The Popular Casino game of 21

Vingt-et-Un (twenty-one) originated in French casinos around 1700. When Blackjack was first introduced to the United States it was not very popular, so gambling houses tried offering various bonus payouts to increase players. One bonus was the payout of 10-to-1 if the player's hand contained the ace of spades and a black jack (jack of clubs or jack of spades). This hand was called "BlackJack" and the name stuck even though the payout was soon abolished.

Today, Blackjack (AKA Twenty-one or Pontoon) is considered one of the most popular casino games in the world.

ColorJunction - a variation on the Japanese classic Chain Shot

ColorJunction (AKA SameGame, Bubblet, or Jawbreaker) is a puzzle game originally invented as "Chain Shot" in 1985 by Kuniaki Moribe (Morisuke). The game was distributed for Fujitsu FM-8/7 in a Japanese monthly computer magazine called Gekkan ASCII. In 1992, the game was redistributed under the name "Same Game" for the UNIX platforms by Eiji Fukumoto (Kyoto), followed by a NEC PC-9801 version by Wataru Yoshioka (W. Yossy). This version became popular in Japan and was quickly ported to various platforms including Palm OS and Windows Mobile 2003.

SAME GAME is pronounced "sah-meh-gah-meh" with all short vowels as customary in Japanese.

Hangman - the Word Game of Deduction

"Gallows," "The Game of Hanging," or "Hangman," the origins of the game are obscure, but it still remains popular today. The history is vague, but it seems the game began in Victorian times according to Tony Agreed, author of "The Oxford Guide to Word Games." A variation of the game is mentioned in Alice Bertha Gomme's "Traditional Games" in 1894 under the name "Birds, Beasts and Fishes."

Pacman - The Icon of the 80's

Considered one of the most famous of arcade games, Pacman was originally developed by Namco and licensed for distributed by Midway. Midway first released the game in Japan in 1979. Pacman became such a social phenomenon that it sold merchandise, inspired a cartoon series, and a Top 40 pop single.

The Flash Classic - Bejeweled

Bejeweled was originally created by PopCap Games as a web based flash game called Diamond Mine. Bejeweled became an immediate success which allowed PopCap Games to form partnerships with Internet gaming sites such as Microsoft Zone. Since it's creation, the game has been coded for multiple platforms including Windows, yesteryear, Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone, Xbox, and iPod.

Sudoku - The Math Logic Puzzle

The math logic craze game that has been an international hit since 2005. Originally titled "Number Place" by inventor Howard Garns in 1979, Sudoku was first published in Dell Magazines. Sudoku didn't become popular until puzzle publisher Nikoli discovered Garn's puzzles in old copies of the Dell publiction.

Get Answers with the Magic 8 Ball

Great for getting answers to complex questions, solving romance problems, or deciding what to have for dinner. The Magic 8 Ball knows all. Try it yourself and get the answers to all of your yes/no questions.

Just click the 8 ball to get started, and have your questions ready.

I thought this was appropriate since today is Friday the 13th.

Welcome to The Game for Today!

Hi & Welcome to The game for Today blog. It's just past midnight - Friday the 13th! and I was finishing my work for today (typical day since I work for myself) when this idea came to me. A Game A Day!

It started like this... I was looking to relax a moment after work and play an online game. Nothing to complex, just something simple to unwind and get my mind off work. I went to my favorites and was about to play something that I've played 100's of times and BORING. That's when the idea came - create a gaming site with simple entertaining games to kill some time, refresh the mind, or just goof off.

Stay with me as time goes by, my goal for the site is to post a game a day so it should get fun.

I sure there's some of you out there that have similar ideas and habits. Some come take a tour, have some fun, or just kill some time.

If you would like to get involved would like more information Game for Today! Please contact me.

I will keep this site free because I don't like to pay for things either. I am planning on this bringing in a small amount through advertising but if you would like to support what I do and if you've found this blog useful, I simply ask that you add me to your blogroll or blog side bar to let other know about me. Help spread the word about The Game for Today!

I setup some free subscription services so you can keep in touch with what The Game for Today! is up to.

Cheers - John