After the excitement of Christmas it’s nice to relax and perhaps spend some time playing traditional family games. In a previous article we looked at a range of games but today we focus on dominoes. Many will remember fathers or grand fathers playing this game with us when we were young. Often played in inns or public houses during the 20th century in Britain, this game is much older than this. The origin of the game appears to go back to China around the year 1120. Chinese domino tiles are slightly longer than the European equivalent and it is thought that the concept of the game travelled from China to Italy around the 18th century. By the end of the 18th century the game had become popular in France. The game then developed via two different methods of playing. In one the object of the game was to match corresponding pips end to end. In the other a totaling system based on arithmetic is used.
The object is to play all your dominoes before your opponent(s). The 28 tiles are shared out between players each taking 7 tiles. A player who cannot play “knocks” and draws another tile from the “stock” of unused tiles. The end of the game, whether by one player having played all of his tiles or by no player being able to play a tile, then sees the scoring. The number of pips on all tiles in hand are added to give the score.
But it is not just the playing of a table top game that dominoes are known for. Many of us as youngsters would stand the tiles on end in a row and then topple the first into the second causing a ripple effect. Or as the expression describes a domino effect. But our attempts are nothing compared to the domino toppling event known as Domino Day. This event is held annually in the Netherlands attempts to beat the previous world record for domino toppling. This year (2009) saw almost 4½ million dominoes toppled.
We don’t suggest you try such a feat in your dolls house but a game of dominoes could add the finishing touch to a scene. A domino set in either 1:12th or 1:24th scale is available from our eb shop.