Talk:Surakarta (game)

No evidence played in Indonesia?!

Deleted this assertion because it is unsourced and appears to be very wrong: "However, no signs were found that the game was ever played in Indonesia." (If the source of this was the book ref next to the assertion, well, that book says quite the opposite: "A classic game originally from Java", and, "When it's played in Java, where it may well have originated, Roundabouts is called 'Surakarta' and is played on "boards" drawn on the ground with shells.") Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

There's a source here criticising those claims: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/389921/fun-but-not-just-for-topologists. sounds to me like it's probably not an indonesian game, but I'm no expert. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.102.90.213 (talk) 14:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Thus far, the only evidence against Indonesian origin is original/anecdotal. But the situation is still pretty damning, given that all the evidence for an Indonesian origin seems to come from one person, game inventor Erwin Glonnegger, who attributes hearing about it to an unnamed colleague. Meanwhile, there are several anecdotes (from the same Board Game Geek thread linked to earlier) of non-Indonesians asking Indonesians if they've heard of this game and getting a negative response. There are no anecdotal positives. And this may be an inadequate method, but I've searched Google Images for photographs of traditional boards, both carved and sand-drawn, and come up empty. By comparison, here's an old Malagasy fanorona board.

Lenoxus, what year is associated with origin info from Glonnegger? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, the earliest year for a book from Glonnegger appears to be 1988, but the game had apparently been published, by a company with which Glonnegger worked, in 1970. (My main source on the "not really Indonesian" camp is indeed that BoardGameGeek forum, so take it all with a grain of salt.) In any case, I'd be very pleasantly surprised to see any mentions from earlier than, say, 1960, and this would provide a much more substancial basis for the Indonesian argument.

It seems like we're in a weird position. Outright saying that this game is probably not authentically Javanese would constitute original research because no official sources say so, yet any dilligent examination of the sources themselves suggests a high probability that they are not independent, while the lack of additional independent resources suggests a strong argument from silence. ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 18:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• I've found no evidence for the game being played in Indonesia, but if its common name really is permainan (doubtful), that would be next to impossible to track down. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

In fact, no evidence

I was the author of the simple Surakarta puzzle in the Canadian Abstract Games magazine. The problem was composed by me. The only sources that I had were R. C. Bell's book "Discovering Old Board Games" (published in 1973) and Glonnegger's first edition of "Das Spiele-Buch" (published in 1988). Citing my article as a prove that the game was first published by that name in France in the early 1970s is utter nonsense (and rather annoying!). It is known that the game's name ("Surakarta") was created by Glonegger himself in 1970 (btw, not a game inventor, but a former leading manager of Ravensburger). BTW, the first edition of "Das Spiele-Buch" (published in 1988) was full of mistakes. I sent several dozens corrections to Glonnegger, most of them were incorporated in later editions. Neither Glonnegger nor Bell were really game historians. Their works are full of mistakes (many of them very stupid ones), which shows that they are not reliable sources. It is a fact that there were "no signs were found that the game was ever played in Indonesia." You won't find a single Indonesian who knows this game today and there is no ethenographic account on that game that shows that it was ever played in the past in Java. It seems that the game's name is just an "exotism" to make it sound more interesting. 84.175.131.41 (talk) 09:35, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Confusing! Could you explain why this is published in AG14 then, or what I'm misunderstanding?:

Note According to a German game book (E. Glonnegger, Das Spielebuch, Ravensburg, 1988) the real name of this game in Java is "Permainan," which means "the game" in Bahasa Indonesia. It was first published in France as recently as 1970 as "Surakarta." [...] – Ralf Gering

Ok, IHTS (talk) 13:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Re R. C. Bell not being a reliable source, from the lead to Robert Charles Bell:

He [...] is acknowledged as one of 11 "principal sources" in David Parlett's The Oxford History of Board Games.

Ok, IHTS (talk) 01:05, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Re Bell not being a game historian: "Bell R(obert) C. Bell, [...] Games collector, antiquarian, historian, researcher, and inspired restorer of lost rules of play." Parlett, David (1999). The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford University Press Inc. p. xii. ISBN 0-19-212998-8. IHTS (talk) 10:02, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

History

The article is badly missing a section on the history of the game. The talk section above makes it quite clear why: We don't know! I think this silence should be made clearer in the article - I see the point of the comment above that we cannot saying we cannot sa "dubiuos" if we don't have a valid source saying "dubious" - but I think it is better to state that evidence is limited and confusing, than saying it is an Indonesian game when we really don't know that either.--Nø (talk) 09:02, 15 February 2019 (UTC)