Othello
It's from 1971, before you were born.
- Maker
- Tsukuda / Mattel
- Type
- Board game (abstract)
- Debuted
- 1971
- Note
- 'A minute to learn, a lifetime to master'
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About
As of 2026, it's 55 years old.
Othello's modern version was popularized in Japan in 1971, a refinement of the Victorian game Reversi, played with discs that are black on one side and white on the other. The rules are famously simple — trap a line of your opponent's discs and they all flip to your color — but the strategy runs astonishingly deep.
Its slogan, 'a minute to learn, a lifetime to master,' is no exaggeration; a single move can flip the whole board, and the lead swings wildly until the final disc. It remains a serious competitive game with world championships to this day.
Simple, swingy, and endlessly deep, Othello is the disc-flipping classic that proves the easiest rules can hide the hardest game.
