Board games from the city of Vijayanagara (Hampi ... - Gioco dell'Oca.

B OOK R EVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS / REZENSIONEN 127
Roberto CONVENEVOLE and Francesco BOTTONE,
La storia di Risiko e l’anello mancante : origini e evoluzione del gioco di strategia più diffuso
nel mondo. Roma : novecento, 2002. 191 p. ; large colour folder (4 maps) ; b/w map.
ISBN 88-88423-09-5. Price: € 13.90.
In Italy the board game “Risk” is called “Risiko!” thus using the… German name of
the game. (In Italian ‘risk’ is rischio.) This strange phenomenon has not prevented the
Italian players from acclaiming the strategic game and making it very successful in their
country. This may explain why it is in Italy and in Italian that “Risk” has found its first
historians.
In La storia di Risiko e l’anello mancante (The story of Risk and the ‘Missing Link’ (1) :
origins and evolution of the world’s most widespread strategic game) Roberto Convenevole
and Francesco Bottone offer more than pure history. They also present the structure
of Risk, discussing the balance between luck and strategy, and the number of dice
involved (5 or 6), they list all Risk’s variants and versions, then they present their own
variant, called “L’anello mancante” (here translated as the ‘Missed Link’) or “blind Risk”.
The rules of “L’anello mancante” are printed in four languages: Italian, French, (2) English
and German. The book ends with no less than five appendices, the first one giving reproductions
of the original patents with their translations in Italian, followed by the mathematics
of Risk (Appendix 2), a presentation of Eric Solomon’s classification of board
games and other considerations.
The present reviewer has no authority for commenting upon “L’anello mancante” but
is more interested in what Convenevole and Bottone have to say about the origin and
history of “Risk” or, as it was first called by its inventor, French film-maker Albert
Lamorisse, “La Conquête du Monde” (The Conquest of the World). They offer an
impressive insight in the early steps of the game, as it was designed and patented (in
1954) by Albert Lamorisse (1922-1970), better known for his children’s films Crin Blanc
(1952) and Le ballon rouge (1955) both prize-winners at Cannes. After a thorough
description of this first patent Convenevole and Bottone deal with the first production
of the game, which was done by France’s leading game-publishing company of the time,
Miro Company (established in 1936, taken over in 1969 by US group General Mills
then merged into a larger company called Miro-Meccano in 1980, later renamed General
Mills Jeux et Jouets then sold in 1986 to Hasbro). Miro Company was then flourishing
and had close relationships both with Parker Bros. – it was the French publisher of
“Monopoly” since 1937 – and with Waddington in Britain.
As it was “La Conquête du Monde” was very original but did not play well enough.
This is why the Miro Company director wanted to improve Lamorisse’s game. For this
he required the help of Jean-René Vernes (3) who had designed a game called “Rome et
Carthage” (which Vernes had patented as early as 1951), which Miro had published in
1954. The game was very successful and quite new in its principles. From 1955 to 1957
Vernes worked with Lamorisse for improving the game, making it faster and shorter.
We owe to Roberto Convenevole many details which he got directly from personal correspendence
with Jean-René Vernes.