Board games have been around since the dawn of man. Some have been played for centuries and have a specific association with a particular country, like Parcheesi for India and Go for Japan (despite actually being Chinese in origin). Some more modern games use a particular geographic location for their theme, such as buying prime real estate in Atlantic City in Monopoly. The popular subgenre of board games called “war games” use reenactments of actual battles throughout history to explore how the outcomes might have been altered with different “players” behind the scenes.

Korea seems to have gotten short-changed when it comes to board games. There is no single board game that typifies Korea, unless you count Baduk, which is merely the Korean name for Go. Even in the world of war games, the Korean War is nowhere near as popular a subject as, say, the American Civil War or any number of Napoleonic battles, despite being a major international conflict with lots of intrigue and changing of momentum.

Nevertheless, here is a short survey of a trio of Korean-themed games through the ages.

ANCIENT
Janggi is a traditional Korean game related to chess. While predating Western chess, Janggi appears to be a modification of the Chinese game Xiangqi. Like chess, it is played by two people, with symmetrically arranged pieces of different ranks and the goal of capturing the opponent’s king. Like Go, it is played on the points of intersecting lines, as opposed to alternating colored squares, like the chessboard. Other key differences include slightly different movement patterns from chess (e.g. the bishop piece, called “Syang” or “Elephant,” must first move one space forward or back before moving diagonally); a king that cannot move beyond the nine-point area (called the “fortress” or “castle”) in which it begins the game; and rules that make draws more common.

VERDICT: Easy to learn, but difficult to master. A nice alternative for Chess fans and other abstract thinkers. The Chinese characters on the pieces may make it a challenge to remember which piece does what.

MODERN
Published in 2003 by Multi-Man Publishing, “Korea: the Forgotten War” is an extremely detailed two-player war game that simulates the first year of the Korean War. Each piece represents a different division of either the Communist forces (ranging from North Korean infantry to Chinese and Soviet air forces) or the United Nations forces (including the South Korean Army and U.S. armed forces). On an enormous map of the Korean peninsula, players plot their intricate moves over the course of 109 turns (!!!) that may very well veer from the actual course of history. Numerous factors, from brutal weather to problems with supplying troops with rations and ammo, are simulated, as is the possibility to introduce nuclear weapons into the mix. For those who don’t have the time or energy to play out the entire campaign, players can choose individual battles to reenact, from the Pusan Perimeter to General MacArthur’s landing at Incheon.