{{Short description|Board game designer}} {{for|the clockmaker of the same name (1701-1754)|John Jefferys (clockmaker)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
'''John Jefferys''', is the first game designer to whom a game design can be definitively ascribed (in the Anglophone world).<ref>{{cite news |last1=Marsden |first1=Rhodri |title=Rhodri Marsden's Interesting Objects: The first British board game |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/rhodri-marsdens-interesting-objects-the-first-british-board-game-9724793.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220613/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/rhodri-marsdens-interesting-objects-the-first-british-board-game-9724793.html |archive-date=13 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |accessdate=26 September 2019 |agency=The Independent |publisher=Independent Print Limited |date=13 September 2014 |location=Indy/Life}}</ref>
==Life== He is the designer of the 1759 game ''A Journey Through Europe'', which was based upon ''Game of the Goose''.<ref name="Drabble2010">{{cite book|author=Margaret Drabble|title=The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BL-sRzyVoNUC&pg=PA107|accessdate=26 September 2019|date=September 2010|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=978-0-547-38609-6|page=107}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dove |first=Jane |date=2016-01-02 |title=Geographical board game: promoting tourism and travel in Georgian England and Wales |journal=Journal of Tourism History |language=en |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=1–18 |doi=10.1080/1755182X.2016.1140825 |issn=1755-182X|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Seville |first=Adrian |date=2008-12-31 |title=The geographical Jeux de l'Oie of Europe |url=https://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/11907 |journal=Belgeo. Revue belge de géographie |language=en |issue=3–4 |pages=427–444 |doi=10.4000/belgeo.11907 |issn=1377-2368|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=":0" /> The game is inscribed "Invented and sold by the Proprietor, John Jefferys, at his house in Chapel Street, near the Broad Way, Westmr. Writing Master, Accompt. Geographer, etc. Printed for Carrington Bowles, Map & Printseller, No 69 in St. Paul's Church Yard, London. Price 8s. Published as the Act directs, September 14th, 1759."<ref>FRB Whitehouse: Table Games of Georgian and Victorian Days, London, 1951, revised 2nd edition Priory House (Herfortshire) 1971, p. 6f.</ref> The game was among the oldest English cartographic board games.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Edney |first1=Matthew H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m9fkDwAAQBAJ |title=The History of Cartography, Volume 4: Cartography in the European Enlightenment |last2=Pedley |first2=Mary Sponberg |date=2020-05-15 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-33922-1 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Seville |first=Adrian |date=April 2008 |title=The Sociable Game of the Goose |url=https://www.academia.edu/download/54412839/BGS_2008_Lisbon_Sociable_Goose_published.pdf. |journal=Proceedings of Board Game Studies Colloquium |volume=XI |pages=1005–1006 |via=Academia.edu}}</ref>
As with most 18th century British original board games, it is a track game, with the kind of game mechanics familiar in track games today (e.g., landing on certain spaces advances you or sends you back to other spaces). Rather than using dice, players used a teetotum, a multi-sided top, with a number on each side, players moving the number of spaces indicated by the uppermost side when the top falls. (Dice were considered gambling instruments, and not appropriate in Christian households.) The game was designed to help players learn about geographical features of the European Continent.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kelly|first=John F.|title=The Dice of Life|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/01/20/the-dice-of-life/72483617-6edb-4ab3-8ab9-b68c96621b92/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-01-03|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * [http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/styles.html DiGRA Conference Publication Format:]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferys, John}} Category:Board game designers Category:History of board games Category:Year of birth unknown Category:Year of death unknown
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