Board Games and Card Games

Mastermind is one of the new-gen board games. The board game that is played in most parts of the world today under the name ‘mastermind’ was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster cum telecommunications expert. Some historians feel that the game has striking resemblance to the game “bull and cows”, which is about a century old. Basically, mastermind is a two player board game revolving around the concept of breaking a code.

Since the invention of the game in 1970, the rights of production and marketing of the game have been solely held by invicta Plastics. UK. The name “mastermind” is also said to have been coined by this firm itself and there are two other firms which now have the licenses of manufacturing this game in the US and Israel respectively.

Initially, Mastermind (or bulls and cows), was played with pen and pencil. Although, primarily this was a two player game, it has been modified in some cases to accommodate more players. The game is usually played by 3 or 4 digits.

The story of how Invicta plastics actually got its hands on mastermind, is also an interesting one. When Meirowitz had invented this game back in 1970s, he was unable to find a taker for it initially. He had to frequent a number of game manufacturers’ offices with his game idea, but he was rejected by most of them. It was only in 1971, at the International Game fair at Nuremberg. Invicta plastics had taken over all the intellectual rights of the game back then and under the aegis of the founder of the company (Mr. Edward Jones-Fenleigh), the company refined and further fine-tuned the game in order to make it useful for commercial purposes. The game was modified and finally released in 71-72 and was an immediate hit because of the sophisticated game-play it exhibited.

Many accolades followed for the company, almost as soon as the game had hit the markets. In the year 1973, the game was the first game ever to win the “game of the year” award. Later, the game got the design center award, followed by the Queen’s award for best exports. All this was the result of the unprecedented popularity that the game had gained within the first few months of its release. Since the inception of the game, it has sold more than 55 million copies and is popularly followed in more than 80 countries as of now. The game has gained unprecedented success amongst people of all age groups, especially the more mature lot and still continues to be a strong player in the board-games market.

The packaging of the game was also given a lot of emphasis by the marketers of the game when it was launched. The main face of the box of the game featured a stout man with mustaches in the foreground (probably of Israeli origin) and a lady in the foreground standing beside his chair (the lady is from an Asian origin, apparently). The duo have become synonymous with the game, right since the time that the game came into existence.