Francis Tresham (1936 – 23 October 2019) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

designer who produced board games since the early 1970s. Tresham founded and ran games company Hartland Trefoil (founded 1971), a company well-known for its ''

Civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...

'' board game, until its sale to

MicroProse MicroProse is an American video game publisher and video game developer, developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization (series), Civilizatio ...

in 1997. His ''1829'' game was the first of the ''

18xx 18XX is the generic term for a series of board games that, with a few exceptions, recreate the building of railroad corporations during the 19th century; individual games within the series use particular years in the 19th century as their title (u ...

'' board game series and some of his board games inspired

Sid Meier Sidney K. Meier ( ; born February 24, 1954) is a Canadian-American programmer, designer, and producer of several strategy video games and simulation video games, including the ''Civilization'' series. Meier co-founded MicroProse in 1982 with B ...

computer games such as ''

Railroad Tycoon ''Railroad Tycoon'' is a business simulation game series. There are five games in the series; the original ''Railroad Tycoon'' (1990), ''Railroad Tycoon Deluxe'' (1993), ''Railroad Tycoon II'' (1998), ''Railroad Tycoon 3'' (2003), and ''Sid Mei ...

''. Francis Tresham was the first to introduce a

technology tree In strategy games, a technology, tech, or research tree is a hierarchical visual representation of the possible sequences of upgrades a player can take (most often through the act of research). Because these trees are technically directed and acy ...

into his boardgames. This idea had a large influence on later board and computer games. He was managing director of Tresham Games, which produced ''

''-style board games. In 2013, he was one of the first inductees in the

UK Games Expo UK Games Expo (UKGE) is tabletop-game convention and trade fair held annually at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) and the Hilton Birmingham Metropole. UK Games Expo is the largest Hobby Games Convention in the UK - where all aspects of t ...

Hall of Fame. He died on 23 October 2019.

Published board games

*''

1825 Events January–March * January 4 – King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies dies in Naples and is succeeded by his son, Francis. * February 3 – Vendsyssel-Thy, once part of the Jutland peninsula forming westernmost Denmark, becomes a ...

'' *'' 1829'' *''

1829 Mainline 18XX is the generic term for a series of board games that, with a few exceptions, recreate the building of railroad corporations during the 19th century; individual games within the series use particular years in the 19th century as their title (u ...

'' *''

1830 It is known in European history as a rather tumultuous year with the Revolutions of 1830 in France, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland and Italy. Events January–March * January 11 – LaGrange College (later the University of North Alabama) b ...

'' *'' 1853'' *''

'' *'' Revolution: The Dutch Revolt 1568–1648'' *'' Shocks & Scares'' *''

Spanish Main During the Spanish colonization of America, the Spanish Main was the collective term for the parts of the Spanish Empire that were on the mainland of the Americas and had coastlines on the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico. The term was used to di ...

'' *'' The Game of Ancient Kingdoms''

References

External links

Current list of available games from Tresham Games
* Board game designers 1936 births 2019 deaths British game designers {{board-game-stub