Wired profiles the history of the board game Settlers of Catan. I played it soon after its release as some early awards lent immediate cachet with friends who were board game fanatics. And then for a few years as I moved around, it lay in the back of my closets, untouched.

But recently it has seemed to surge in popularity in the U.S. People I would have never expected to play the game are suddenly proposing it during dinner parties. It may be time to pull my copy of the game out of the back of the closet and dust it off. I'm still curious how it suddenly broke through to the mainstream after feeling like a board game aficionado product for so many years. Or had it crossed the tipping point long before and I just hadn't noticed it?