Games, their immaterial dimension in particular, reflect cultural patterns. Thus, they can be used by the historian to get a better picture of these patterns and the cultural system they represent. But how could we use games to identify underlying cultural values?
The Mansion of Happiness is a board game originally published in 1800. It is a racing game, in which the players compete with each other, to reach the final space at the centre of the spiral board, which represents happiness. What makes it a cultural historical source is its very content. The board, that is the track of life, includes spaces representing rewarding virtues and punishing vices. Which virtues and which vices are included there, and which are not, says a lot about the cultural features that were central in the western world in the nineteenth century. Equally revealing is the very pursuit of happiness as the final aim in a game of life.