Variation in German race games as a distinctive feature

This chapter is concerned with the history of German single-track race games of the ‘rolland- move’ type, up to the end of the 19th century. The Game of the Goose (Gänsespiel) is the main prototype, giving rise to derivative and variant games, more or less closely allied to the original. These are all properly categorised as Laufspiele, (Race Games, literally ‘Running’ games) though they are often referred to loosely as ‘Goose Games’.

Over time, beginning in the late 16th century, these German race games have developed in a distinctive way, compared with those of other European countries: in particular, the German games show very significant variations in track length and rules, even in those when the goose is used to mark the fortunate spaces. This is in complete contrast to (say) the remarkable lack of variation of their French equivalents, the Jeux de l’oie, whose stability continues to this day. The main focus of this chapter is a discussion of the distinctive features, based mainly on a detailed analysis of the rules, so giving some insight into how the various classes of game have interacted during their historical development

These various classes of game include two that are particularly associated with Germany: the Affenspiel, where the goose is replaced as favourable symbol by the monkey, and the class typified by the Post- und Reisespiel, where the track represents a real or an imagined journey, as opposed to a purely symbolic journey through life, as in the Game of the Goose. Although the origin of both classes can be traced through analysis of the rules to the parent Game of the Goose, the popularity of the Monkey games in Germany, as judged by the number of different published examples, was almost comparable to that of the Game of the Goose, whereas the popularity of Journey games far exceeded it.

The lack of sources and the need for an image database of German games

There is not yet an authoritative publication devoted solely to German race games comparable to the work by D’Allemagne for the French games based on the jeu de l’oie. Instead, work on the German games is scattered through the literature.