A Brief History of Match Three
By
Baldwin Brown-Canning IV
01/04/2008
Match Three is one of the oldest casual game mechanics, along with checkers, chess, and backgammon. Though its recent simplified incarnations as a computer game (Bejeweled, Jewel Quest) have given it renewed popularity, the origins as a board game date back to Roman times.
The elegant simplicity of Match Three starts with the name of the game, which eponymously describes the goal of the game. The game usually is played on a board marked out in an eight by eight grid. On this grid, 64 objects are placed, from a set of seven different objects. Any set of seven objects can be used, but custom dictates the objects be gems.
This is from the apocryphal notion that
the Roman emperor Hadrian played on an ebony wood board with precious gems as
the pieces. Though there is evidence that
ancient Romans indeed played Match Three, there is no surviving data on the
composition of their boards, or of the rule variations they employed. All that
remains are a few relic boards stained with blood and wine.
Though legend has the rules of Match Three preserved by guilds of Free Masons through the Dark Ages, the fact is the game survived the fall of Rome in the halls of monasteries throughout Europe. The monks built game boards on tops of hogsheads using beans and peas as the pieces. It is from this period where the Trappist Trap (originally a pejorative term used by laypeople) and the Terce Opening originated. It is thanks to the monasteries that the game survives today, via its introduction to students at Oxford and Cambridge (see below).
The first scholarly work regarding Match Three was written by Gottfried Leibniz, writing in the journal Acta Eruditorum, in 1682. Here, Leibniz mathematically analyzed the 8x8 Match Three grid and the random distribution of its seven pieces. He calculated the odds of each the then forty-one known opening moves, as well as the effects of combinations resulting from both boxing the triangle and playing the bottoms. Historians point to the fact that this dissertation was certainly read by Isaac Newton (an avid Match Three player), and was the foundation for Leibniz’s later work on Calculus, even serving as the source the name Calculus (“pebbles”) for his branch or mathematics. Thus, proving that Leibniz was indeed the father of Calculus.
The fierce Oxbridge rivalry dates back to 1823, when the first Varsity Match Three was held between the two schools. The competition is hosted in neutral Luton each Lent (Hilary if you are at Oxford). A bit of trivia, Stephen Hawking is the only player to compete in the Varsity Match Three for both Cambridge and Oxford.
The game was exported to America in the 1600’s by professors coming from England to Harvard. In the early 1700’s, while a student at the Boston Latin School, Benjamin Franklin was introduced to Match Three by the headmaster, a Harvard alum. It was his skill at the game that gained teenaged Ben introduction to Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin earned a patent for an “Improved Match Three Board and Bits”. In 1734, the same year as his patent, Ben Franklin became Grand Master in the Freemasons.
It was after the War for Independence that Match Three came into its own in America. Free of the jurisdictional bickering between the English and Continental federations, local leagues and clubs popped up all throughout the former colonies. Where the game was considered a “gentleman’s” game on the Continent, in the newly minted USA, it spread amongst the egalitarian masses. With the influx of new players, and a melting pot of cultural strategies playing, America soon became the world leader in Match Three.
This rich period brought about a great diversity of themed Match Three games. The traditional cut-glass gems remained, but new sets using icons for vegetables were popular in agrarian regions; nautical sets were popular in the North East (as well as the Canadian Maritimes); and flowers were used in sets for ladies. Several factors contributed to the popularity of Match Three in 18th and 19th century America. The urbanization and specialization of the workforce provided more leisure time; gas lighting allowed for better use of evening leisure; improved literacy allowed for reading of rules and strategy books; the Industrial Age and mass production of Match Three sets made them ubiquitous and affordable; and women’s rights permitted public play by women.
During World War Two, in both the US and UK, resources normally used for creating Match Three boards and sets were redirected by the Rationing Board for use in manufacturing aircraft console panels. With traditional sets hard to find, newspapers started printing boards and pieces in their back pages, for people to cut out and use. Players quickly substituted coins for the paper pieces. This is where the name for the Penny-Farthing Gambit originates.
The
modern era of Match 3 begins with the BBC radio series called Match-It!. This
was later adapted for BBC television, and was coincidentally the first BBC TV
game show to be produced and broadcast in a regional dialect (Welsh).
Match-It! used the iconic tile set made popular by the Habs variant played in
prep schools.
In America, the TV version of Match-It!
Became embroiled in the gameshow scandals of the 1950s. College professor
Warren Goodge had a stunning run of 14 victories, and America tuned in to their
sets every night to see him. Network execs thought Warren would make easy work
of Victoria Sloan, a waitress from Long Island. As the challenger, Ms. Sloane
was the opener, and she began with a ruby cross to E-7, which gave her a ruby,
pearl, diamond, ruby combo to start the game. This bold start flustered Goodge,
who could only respond with a weak Knightsbridge swap for 11 points. Ms. Sloan
then boxed the Leicester Square, and proceeded with a run of 27 matches before
sealing Goodge’s fate with the 500 point Mornington Crescent. The Match 3
golden boy had been beaten by a waitress from the suburbs. Stunned TV producers
quickly re-shot some of the footage before air time, and broadcast a match that
showed Goodge holding on to his title by ending in a tie. Word got out,
Congress investigated, and Match 3 has not been on television since.
There had been attempts in the 70s to replicate the Vauxhall style of British Match Three play on a computer. SRI had a version that was able to entertain a child, but lacked the computing power to challenge an experienced player.
The first successful electronic version of Match Three was made in Japan by Okumura in 1974, for play in Pachinko parlors. Their game, Doku-Go, used numbers on a nine by nine grid with a track ball controller. Doku-Go later became the pen and paper game Su-doku, with a much modified rule set no longer resembling Match Three.
Match Three as we now know it stems from Doku-Go. The Japanese electronic game inspired American video game inventors to create a device that would allow Doku-Go to be played in people’s family rooms. The Japanese exclamation for victory in a Match Three game, Atari, became the code name for the Pong like console.
The Atari necessarily simplified the Match Three rules to run on an 8-bit computer: only single player, simplified pieces, nullified jumping, eliminated diagonals, and as a result obviated 93 of the 102 known strategies. Purists would not play it, and casual players did not understand it. The Atari company quickly changed focus from a dedicated Match 3 console to one that played a variety of game cartridges.
In the twenty years since, Match Three programs were occasionally found on VAX machines or MUD servers, but certainly were not mass market games. Finally, Match Three resurfaced on the Internet in the past five years and is making a comeback. Early versions like Diamond Mine were very similar to the 70s Atari version.
Games we play today like Bejeweled, Big Kahuna Reef, Magic Match, Sweet Tooth, 7 Wonders, Chuzzle, Cubis, Rainbow Web and many more all owe their roots to the game played by Caesar. As computers get more powerful, and Match Three makes a comeback, more of the original rules are coming back into the game: multiplayer, different tilesets, varied win conditions, and even the Mornington Crescent finish are coming back.