Roll the dice!

Roll the dice! Which of these 10 board games is your favorite?

Credit: Aakash Dhage

If there’s one thing these 10 entertaining board games have taught us, it’s that even rainy days can be fun! We can almost picture the countless hours of enjoyment these games have provided, whether we were hanging out with friends or spending quality time with family. With that in mind, consider this article a small yet heartfelt tribute to these 10 masterpieces of entertainment—games so good they make us want to grab the dice and set up the game board for a cozy night in. Enjoy!

Credit: Joshua Hoehne

We’ll start with a modern classic. Can you think of a single person who hasn’t played at least one round of Monopoly? After all, this game has been around since 1935—nearly 90 years as a beloved favorite.

As you probably know, the objective of the game is admittedly a bit ruthless: your main mission is to financially outlast your opponents by buying properties and raising their value through development. But don’t let that scare you off—Monopoly offers hours of incomparable fun for players of all ages.

Credit: Randy Fath

Whoever told you to take life more seriously clearly never played this game. The Game of Life is one of the oldest modern board games, originally created in 1860 by none other than Milton Bradley himself. However, that early version was vastly different from the one we know and love today, which was released in 1960.

The Game of Life places each player in a tiny plastic car, which they guide along a winding board filled with diverging paths and life-altering decisions. Every choice the player makes helps shape their ideal life: they might get married, start a family, or even land the job of their dreams.

Credit: Alexander Lyashkov

Who knew that solving a murder could be this fun? Created in the land of Sherlock Holmes himself, this British game pits players against one another in a race to solve the mysterious murder of a certain Mr. Boddy. While the game is known to North American audiences as Clue, the original name, Cluedo, is a blend of "Clue" and "Ludo," the latter being Latin for "I play" and also the name of another classic board game—emphasizing its nature as a game of strategy and deduction.

What’s perhaps most memorable about Clue is its colorful cast of characters. For instance, any player who chose the yellow token was playing as Colonel Mustard.

Credit: Melinda Gimpel

If only our grammar teachers could see us having so much fun spelling words! Created in 1948, Scrabble is a game in which players form words by placing letter tiles onto a board made up of small, square spaces. Each word earns a certain number of points, which can be doubled or even tripled if placed on special tiles.

What’s perhaps most fun about Scrabble is how it makes us rack our brains trying to come up with long or unexpected words. If there’s ever a good time to remember that "krill" is a small crustacean eaten by whales—and worth a nifty 13 points—it’s during a particularly heated game of Scrabble.

Credit: Michał Parzuchowski

Did you know that Jenga comes from the Swahili word kujenga, which means "to build or construct"? While the name might seem ironic—after all, the goal is to force your opponents to bring the tower crashing down—each game of Jenga creates a brand-new structure that likely has never existed before.

Created in Britain in 1983, Jenga challenges players to take turns removing one wooden block at a time from a tower built from 54 blocks. After removing a block, players must carefully place it on top of the tower. With every piece taken, the tower becomes increasingly unstable, and the game ends when a block is removed that causes the entire structure to collapse.

Credit: Gabriel Meinert

Remember how we said that The Game of Life was one of the oldest modern games around? Well, Life can’t hold a candle to the more than 5,000 years of history behind checkers. The British Museum in London houses checkerboards that date back to ancient Egypt, discovered in several burial chambers.

The modern English name comes from the checkered pattern on the board. Players place their pieces on the dark squares and try to capture their opponent’s pieces by "jumping" over them.

Credit: VD Photography

While the modern version of the game, known as Ludo, dates back to the late 19th century, its origins go much further. It is based on the ancient Indian game Pachisi, which can be traced back to the 6th century. Regardless of the name, this classic game has brought joy to people around the world for centuries.

A game of Ludo begins with up to four players choosing a colored set of four pieces, which they place in their respective starting areas. The objective is to move all four pieces to the "home" area at the center of the board. However, this task is easier said than done: players must roll the exact number needed to reach home, and their pieces can be sent back to the starting area if another player lands on the same space. Interestingly, this frustrating element of the game inspired the German name for Ludo: Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, which translates to "Man, don’t get annoyed."

Credit: Dave Photoz

Like Clue, the board game Risk takes an unpleasant subject—war—and turns it into an entertaining (albeit sometimes tense) experience. Risk places up to six players in the role of generals, challenging them to strategize and deploy their troops across a world map.

A game of Risk involves attacking, defending, and maneuvering troops through 42 different territories. Alliances may be formed—and just as easily broken—with some versions even introducing secret objectives that lead to unexpected betrayals.

Credit: Galen Crout

While Settlers of Catan (or simply Catan) is the newest game on this list, that doesn’t make it any less of a classic. Created in 1995 by German game designer Klaus Teuber, Catan casts players as settlers arriving on a newly discovered island, which they must develop and expand.

Throughout the game, players use the island’s natural resources to build roads, settlements, and cities. A major part of the gameplay involves trading and negotiation: players must frequently engage with one another in diplomacy, exchanging resources that will help grow their respective civilizations.

Credit: Randy Fath

We’ll end this article with the only board game on this list that has transcended its status as a game to become a recognized mind sport. The game of chess has remained largely unchanged since the 15th century, but what’s even more fascinating is that its origins can be traced back at least 900 years before that time.

Despite its seemingly simple rules, chess has inspired an incredibly detailed body of theory, touching on fields such as mathematics, psychology, and computer science. Chess has even surpassed human limits: after the computer Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, artificial intelligence has continued to outmatch the best players worldwide.

Even nonsense can have an explanation

Adobe, Google, Wikipedia: Where do the names of tech companies come from?

Credit: Markus Winkler

If you’ve ever wondered why so many tech companies have names that seem unrelated to their products or services, you’re not alone. Big brands like Google, eBay, Adobe, and Apple, to name a few, have quirky names that seem to be more about the sound or the catchiness of the word rather than the actual meaning of it. But even if the meaning isn’t immediately obvious, it does exist. Did you know the origins of these 12 names?

Credit: Emily Bernal

Many of the go-to software programs for graphic designers, like Photoshop and Illustrator, are made by Adobe. The company’s name comes from Adobe Creek in Los Altos, California—a stream that ran behind the founder’s home—named after the type of clay found there.

Credit: Mitchell Luo

Perhaps the most famous name origin story on this list, Google comes from a misspelling of _googol_—a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name was chosen by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company founders, to reflect their goal of building a large-scale search engine.

Credit: Maxim Hopman

According to founder Steve Jobs, the company's name was inspired by his visit to an apple farm while he was on a fruitarian diet. However, he also mentioned that it was partially chosen because "Apple" comes before "Atari" alphabetically—one of his competitors at the time.

Credit: appshunter.io

Originally called AuctionWeb, eBay got its name from the company’s founder, Pierre Omidyar, who owned a consulting firm called Echo Bay Technology Group. When he couldn’t register echobay.com, he shortened it to eBay.

Credit: Brian McGowan

Early in the animation company’s history, one of its founders suggested the name "Pixer" because it sounded like a made-up Spanish verb for "to make pictures." However, another founder, Loren Carpenter, preferred "Radar" for its futuristic feel. So, they combined the two into a single word: Pixar.

Credit: Heidi Fin

Although Spotify originated in Sweden, the word itself has no meaning in Swedish. According to the story, founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon were brainstorming names when one of the suggestions was misheard as "Spotify," and it just stuck. The rest is history.

Credit: Luke Chesser

Originally launched as Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia took the first part of its name from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick" or "fast." The idea was to create a fast, collaborative encyclopedia that anyone could edit.

Credit: Tech Daily

The word "Hulu" has no English definition, but there is an ancient Chinese proverb that describes hulu as "the holder of precious things"—seems quite fitting for a content platform, right?

Credit: Eyestetix Studio

If you’ve ever wondered what Skype means, it’s actually a straightforward combination of "sky" and "peer-to-peer." It was originally shortened to "Skyper," but when the founders discovered that name was already in use, they further trimmed it to "Skype."

Credit: Filios Sazeides

While some assume that Airbnb stands for an "online bed & breakfast" concept, the true meaning of the name is much simpler. The founders, who were the first hosts, bought air mattresses for their guests and created a website called "Air Bed & Breakfast," which they later shortened to Airbnb.

Credit: Brett Jordan

The forum platform for all, Reddit, has a straightforward name derived from the phrase "I read it online." However, as some have pointed out, there is also a Latin parallel to the site’s name—_reddere_—which translates to "render" and can mean "to submit for consideration or approval"—exactly what users do on the site.

Credit: Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com

If you’re building a brand from scratch, don’t name it after a word that already exists—create your own instead. That’s exactly what Etsy’s founder, Rob Kalin, did. In an interview, he explained that the name was inspired by an Italian expression that sounded like the now-famous brand name and meant "oh, yes."