War

War comes in a long, flat box. Inside are a folding board printed with a map of the world in six coloured regions, six sets of small plastic counters in red, blue, yellow, green, black and white, each in its own lidded case, a deck of territory cards, a deck of secret missions, and six dice: three red for the attacker, three yellow for the defender. Each player draws a mission in secret, and the first to complete it wins.

The game was the founding product of Grow. In 1972 four young engineers from São Paulo's Escola Politécnica, Gerald Reiss, Roberto Schussel, Oded Grajew and Valdir Rovai, were looking for a business of their own. Reiss had come back from Europe enthusiastic about Risk, the American version of Albert Lamorisse's French game of 1957. The friends drew up a Brazilian version with small changes, named it War, and named their company from their initials, with the V of Valdir turned into a W so that it spelled Grow.

They worked from a garage in the Mooca district, assembling the boards by hand and offering the game to toy shops one by one. The first five thousand copies sold out, and War carried the company into the decades that followed. Grow added Diplomacia in 1973, and later Super Trunfo and Imagem e Ação, but War remained the game the company was known for; Grow still calls it the most played strategy game in Brazil.

It has since gathered relatives: War II of 1981, with air attacks and an extra territory in Cuba; a junior version; a special edition with miniature tanks; a Roman empire; a digital version from 2015. The original stayed in the range beside them, and when Hasbro brought Risk itself to Brazil, an agreement let Grow go on making War. The box on sale now holds the same map, missions and dice, with brighter printing, made in São Bernardo do Campo.