La Conquête du Monde

In 1957 French filmmaker, Albert Lamorisse, designed a game titled "La Conquete Du Monde" (The Conquest of the World.) The game featured a board printed with a world map divided into specific countries, and many wood playing pieces of different colors. The game may sound familiar. In 1959 Lamorisse's game publisher Miro Company took his game to the American game makers Parker Brothers, who promptly brought out a version in English, titled Risk. In both games, players compete to gain control of more territories by various means. Battle victories are determined by rolls of the dice. Risk went on to influence game manufacturers to produced more strategy games. And later firms appeared which specialized in these games, such as Avalon Hill in Baltimore to name just one. Risk may be the world's best-selling mass produced strategy game, and it directly influenced the design of thousands of similar games which came after it.