A Journey Through Europe

NOTE: This game page is only for the game from the 1700s, not for the similarly-titled but unrelated game Journey Through Europe (aka Explore Europe) published by Ravensburger et al in the 1950s through 1990s.

This game is believed to be the first or one of the first known games in the English-speaking world to be attributed to an individual designer.

It was first published by Carrington Bowles, a British publisher of hand-tinted, cloth-backed maps. This game reconfigured a map of Europe to provide a game rather than a reference. It's a straightforward track game. The game uses a teetotum, a spinning top with numbered sides, as dice were viewed as gambling instruments that would not be permitted in respectable households. The players begin and end in London, and many spaces advance players or transport them to other portions of the board. For example, a playing piece that lands on Hanover "shall by order of Ye King of Great Britain who is Elector, be conducted to ... Gibraltar to visit his countrymen who keep garrison there" while the playing piece that lands on "Rome for kissing ye Pope's Toe shall be banished for his folly to ... the cold island of Iceland and miss three turns".

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/42/13