The Game of the World, by Pierre Du Val (1645)

This board game was created by the French cartographer Pierre Du Val and published in Paris in 1645, with a royal licence from Louis XIII. That licence described the game as a very simple and concise method of introducing people to and helping them appreciate the geography of the world. Only two copies of this map survive: one in the David Rumsey collection and the other in the National Library of France.

This game is the first adaptation of the Game of the Goose for teaching geography. The board is oval-shaped and consists of 63 circles numbered in a spiral, each featuring a small map of a country or territory in the world. The route begins in the polar regions and passes through, in that order, the Americas (green), Africa (red), Asia (yellow) and Europe (grey), until it reaches square 63, which represents France.

The gameplay was similar to the Game of the Goose. Players placed an initial bet in the centre of the board and then rolled two six-sided dice, moving forward as many squares as the sum of the dice. The rules incorporated the stereotypes and legends of the time:

When a player lands on New Mexico (square 5), they are held captive by the Savages until another player passes through there.
When landing on Peru (square 10), the player receives their stake thanks to the rich mines of Potosí.
When landing on Germany (square 50), the player stops to have a drink with the Germans for two turns.
When landing in Sweden (square 52), the player is shipwrecked on the Scandinavian coast and returns to the polar regions (the starting square).

To reach the finish square, players had to roll the exact number; if they failed, they had to move back as many squares as the number of moves they had left. The first player to reach France collected all the money accumulated in the balloon from the bets, making the final square the geographical, political and economic centre of the game all at once.

Milhaud Maps

The Game of the World, by Pierre Du Val (1645)

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