Trax was invented in 1980 by David Smith, a chartered accountant in Christchurch, New Zealand. Smith published five games between 1970 and 1980, including Chess Cards, a variant of chess in which players could choose to either draw a card (with a chess piece printed on the obverse) or move a card already in play according to the revealed piece's rules. Chess Cards featured "boardless" play; once drawn, the card could be played onto any flat surface, subject to additional rules that would prevent playing the cards into isolation from the cards already in play. In November 1980, Smith began to develop the boardless aspect of Chess Cards with a more original, abstract game, which led to Trax. He quickly developed the idea of two coloured paths, but discovered that play could stop if three edges had the same colours, leading to his breakthrough invention of the forced-play rule, approximately one week later on November 26.
