The board game Risk was invented in the early 1950's by Albert Lamorisse, a famous director of movies. His movie "The Red Balloon" won awards at a the Cannes Movie Festival. The first name of the game was "La Conqueste du Monde" which means Conquest of the World.

Lamorisse offered the game to Miro, a game manufacturer in France, and the rules were slightly modified by Jean-Rene Vernes to make it simple enough for starting players.

Parker Brothers had a good relationship with Miro and brought the game to the United States. They modified the look and changed again a few rules (they add cards to speed up the game) and last but not least, they changed the name into Risk: the Continental Game.

The layout of the first version was very much the same, but the playing pieces had a very different look. They were rectangular wooden cubes.

There is a legend that says that R.I.S.K. are the initials of a Parker Brothers sales exec's grandchildren.

Later the game was re-titled as Risk: the Game of Global Domination.

Risk Brief Timeline

• 1957 - Miro approaches Parker Brothers with La Conquete du Monde.

• 1959 - Parker Brothers launched the game in the USA as: Risk The Continental Game.

• 1986 - Castle Risk (with a map of Europe) was published. This game included new features like hidden armies, special cards including spies, diplomats, marshals, generals and admirals.

  The castles were strongholds and even a naval component was added. But Castle Risk was not a big success as it was a too chaotic board game.

• 1993 - Secret Mission Risk got introduced. A variant that came out first in Europe with secret missions to win the game.

• 1999 - Risk Edition Napoleon got published in France (a limited edition with only 10,000 copies), a mutation of Castle Risk for 2-4 players based on Napoleon's campaigns.

• 2000 - Risk 2210 A.D. was released. An expanded version of the original map had returned and included sea areas and additional route connections. You could now also conquer the moon and underwater territories.

• 2002 - The release of Lord of the Rings Risk with the map of Middle-earth with 42 territories. In Europe, this version was already released one year earlier but with minor rule changes. The game included one leader unit, events, missions and power cards. And the game last little more than 3 rounds.

• 2003 - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition came out.

• 2004 - Risk: Godstorm was published with a mythology theme.

• 2005 - Risk: Star Wars - The Clone Wars Edition

• 2006 - Risk: Star Wars - Original Trilogy Edition is published. This version had 3 factions and each has their own victory conditions.

• 2008 - A new basic edition of Risk was published by Hasbro.

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