The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur is one of the oldest known board games. It was played in ancient Mesopotamia since the early third millennium BC. The game rules have some similarities to Backgammon or even Ludo. It is easy to learn and needs both strategic decisions and luck of the dice.

Features of this game for the Playdate:

• Play against the computer or a friend 
• Choose the number of tokens for longer or shorter games
• Choose between the classic board layout and a simplified version
• The game rules are explained in the game options

Game rules:

This is a classic design of the game board:

It looks complicated but the only fields with special rules are the rosettes:

This is how both players move over the board:

Token enters the field from the Start and need to reach the Finish. The player, who reaches the finish with all tokens first (seven tokens is the standard), wins the game. 

Dice: In this game, unusual dice are used: There are four tetrahedrons with two of the four corners painted in white. A players turn begins with rolling these four dice and sum the number of white corners pointing upwards. Thus, each dice has a chance of 50% to add one to the move. The minimum is 0 and the maximum is 4. E.g. since each dice has a chance of 50%, there is a chance of 50% to roll a total of 2. 

Movement: After rolling, the player must move one of the available tokens, following the path shown in the picture above. On the first four and the last two fields on this path, the tokens are safe from being captured. However, the central eight fields can be accessed from both players and when a turn ends on the opponent’s token, this token is captured and returned to the respective players’ stock. Whenever a token movement ends on one of the rosettes, this player gains another turn. A token on the central rosette is safe from being captured by the opponent. To move a Token into the finish, an exact dice roll is needed.